There is a lot of talk about Team Australia during these difficult times. Much of it makes sense, pulling together and so on. But, to borrow a phrase from a bloke who will get a mention in a moment, some groups “missed the Team Australia email”.
First up, let’s talk chutzpah. Last week AustralianSuper chief executive Ian Silk suggested that David Murray, who led the financial system inquiry, must have “missed the Team Australia email”. Silk is apparently miffed that Murray pointed out that industry super funds have been relying on legislated rivers of gold flowing from compulsory super into default funds, and this has seen some funds taking more risks with illiquid assets. “And this is what has shown up recently to the point where the funds want liquidity support,” Murray said.
Explaining industry super’s dirty little secrets is very much in keeping with the spirit of Team Australia. In fact, ask yourself who is not being Team Australia here.
In the good times, many aggressive industry super funds produced apparently great results by taking outlandish risks, which their members had no idea about. Remember all those soppy industry super adverts with smiley people holding an imaginary little nest egg telling us “we’re all in this together”? When the giant bet on illiquid assets by industry super funds came unstuck, the same funds indulged in the most spectacularly hypocritical appeal to Team Australia. They want us to bail them out from the consequences of their own negligence, hubris and downright greed.
Our taxpayer-funded public broadcaster is behaving even more irresponsibly during the pandemic. The ABC is censoring discussion about the pandemic and misleading Australians about the crisis and what should be our response to it.
Daily, sometimes, hourly, we are witnessing decisions by state and federal governments that are bringing the economy to its knees, causing significant damage to people’s health and wellbeing in the belief they are heading off even worse damage.
For two reasons, no media organisation is better placed than the ABC to do careful analysis of these challenging issues: they receive more than $1bn from taxpayers, and the public broadcaster has a legislative mandate to be part of Team Australia. Sections 6 and 8 of the ABC Act require the ABC to reflect the full diversity of this great country, to present news and information that is accurate and impartial, and to ensure that the ABC operates for the maximum benefit of the people of Australia.
Right now, the best way to provide the maximum benefit to Australians is with robust debates about the pandemic and the health and economic responses to it. It means dissecting claims and arguments, challenging quickly forming orthodoxies, allowing people to understand different perspectives and be better informed.
Alas, this has not happened at the ABC. Test it this way: in the midst of the most monumentally important debate of our generation about how to respond to COVID-19, the ABC is yet to seriously probe whether the cure is worse than the disease.
Last week, the BBC interviewed former UK Supreme Court judge Lord Jonathan Sumption, who presented serious arguments against the Johnson government’s lockdown of the British economy. It was a thoughtful, intelligent discussion between Sumption and the host of BBC Radio Four’s World at One program about increased police powers, the loss of freedoms, businesses decimated, debt pushed on to the next generation, depressions, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable distress inflicted on millions of people, the role of the media and a historical perspective of fear, panic and exaggerated threats.
If the BBC can do it, why not our ABC? Telephones still work. Sumption might even speak to Fran Kelly if she asked him. But that’s the problem with so many at the ABC; they simply don’t ask people with views that challenge theirs to offer comment about these fundamental issues.
Worse, the ABC misleads the public who pays its wages. On Tuesday, during ABC Radio National’s Drive program in Victoria, host Nicole Chvastek sought comment from Mark Pellegrini, an infectious diseases expert from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute about a video released by the Institute of Public Affairs last week. In the video, the IPA’s director of policy, Gideon Rozner, points out that COVID-19 is a serious health issue. Rozner addresses other serious issues too, many mentioned by Sumption last week.
“It’s time these restrictions were eased,” Rozner says. “It’s time to allow for the sensible reopening of churches, reopen the restaurants, cafes, bars and community sport. Do it safely, with appropriate social distancing measures in place, but do it; not in six months, not in one month, (but) now.”
Playing this back to Pellegrini, the ABC misrepresented the IPA’s position by removing the critical words “with appropriate social distancing measures in place”. It was a disgraceful misrepresentation of what the IPA said. It is a blatant breach of the ABC Act that obligates the ABC to be accurate and impartial in the way it presents news and information. It is a breach of the act that requires the ABC to operate for the maximum benefit of the people of Australia. What else does the ABC doctor in this way? From the chairman of the IPA to the chairman of the ABC, Ita Buttrose, what are you doing about this?
These taxpayer-funded ideological gatekeepers are indulged by a rare trifecta: they will not lose their jobs during this crisis, their salaries won’t be trimmed and they can easily work from home. Insulated from the worst of this crisis, they refuse to challenge the impact and long-term consequences of the current restrictions.
When it comes to Team Australia, some public servants have also let the side down, pushing for pay rises despite six million Australians being at risk of losing their jobs without government help. Public sector employees already earn, on average, around 20 per cent more than private sector employees. Instead of hikes, their pay should be marked down, adjusted for the lack of risk.
Last week, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk put on hold a 2.5 per cent pay hike for the state’s 224,000 public servants. Not because she considered it wrong but because there was public uproar. That is not Team Australia leadership. Nor is it leadership for Victorian politicians to offer to donate their new pay rises to charity for a while. It is shallow virtue signalling, given that the debt this country now faces will likely be with us for our children’s generation.
You learn a lot about people during a crisis. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews appears to enjoy using extraordinary powers to restrict the lives of Victorians. His language when banning couples who live in different houses from seeing one away was breathtaking: “That’s not work, that’s not care-giving, that’s not medical care, that’s not shopping for the things you need when you need them, and it does not comply with the rules. People should not do that.”
If Andrews, who backed down only after a public furore, thinks that partners seeing each other during his state lockdown doesn’t count as “care”, he needs a better understanding of love.
From industry fund CEOs to the ABC, public servants, premiers and other ministers, many need to lift their game if Team Australia means what it should mean.
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