Announcing that Kim Williams would be the new chairman of the ABC, the Prime Minister said that “Kim is such a perfect fit for the role, it’s almost as if it were made for him”.
Oh dear. Labor’s “perfect fit” for the big corner office at the national broadcaster is unlikely to be what the rest of us have in mind when we think of what is required to turn this mediocre media goliath into a professional, impartial media organisation that genuinely reflects the diversity of this country. Not just the gender, sexual, racial and religious diversity. But more importantly, the diversity of opinions among ordinary Australians. That remains the deepest flaw of the ABC. It is still not our ABC, and yet we are forced to pay for it.
As a former ABC board member, I have seen up close, sometimes too close, how the more canny members of the ABC staff try to seduce new additions to the board. Worse, I have seen how the love-bombing and duchessing has worked, particularly on the most senior member of the board.
Current chair Ita Buttrose certainly seems to have fallen victim to this. Under her watch, the ABC has gone from bad to worse, with more activism emanating from the inner-city studios.
Regional ABC output is streaks ahead, but that doesn’t undo the damage done by the high-profile ABC journalists who think their job is to tell us what to think about climate change, about immigration, about tax policy, about the voice, about the #MeToo movement, and on and on it goes.
Forget the early words from incoming chairmen and women. We’ve heard them laud impartiality, professionalism, intellectual curiosity, balance before. Words mean nothing until we see what they do in the job.
Williams’ first decision will be who to back in this ridiculous staff revolt. Does the former News and Foxtel executive support the staff demand for a more pro-Hamas stance? Or does he back his hapless chief executive David Anderson?
It’s a no-brainer. In what other serious organisation do staff get to pass a no-confidence motion in the chief executive? This Mickey Mouse sort of nonsense exists only at the ABC.
If, as ABC chairman, Williams has higher ambitions than becoming another patsy of activist ABC journalists, he will need to take a stance early. And here it is, landing in his lap as he unpacks his briefcase. He must side with Anderson in this stoush.
Williams needs to understand that the Israel-Hamas war is simply the latest and most colourful flashpoint of the enduring sense of entitlement among many ABC journalists who think that they should be running the taxpayer-funded organisation to suit their personal political, social and cultural mores.
This latest revolt by staff is simply another, albeit more overt, demand that they should get to reinterpret the ABC Charter in a way that allows them to call the shots on our dime.
We’ve seen it so often. The ABC’s second-rate and mostly non-existent coverage of serious issues raised by the voice proposal is the second most recent example. In that case, the staff won. And the result was that Australians did not learn the truth about the risks raised by a constitutionally entrenched voice from the national broadcaster.
Once he has seen off the staff’s pro-Gaza revolt, the larger issue for Williams, as new chairman, should be to tackle the mediocre management under Anderson.
Under Anderson, the ABC has suffered serious management bungles, corporate governance disasters, editorial bungles, and flailing engagement. Yet Williams has had his hands deliberately tied. As new chairman, he should have had a say in appointing a new chief executive.
There was a real opportunity for the ABC to reflect all Australians. That appears to be the last thing management or the board wanted.
Retiring chairwoman Buttrose and the ABC board decided to reappoint Anderson to a new five-year term – secretly – earlier this year.
Australians who pay the wages of ABC staff only learned about this secret reappointment – made more than a year before his contract was due to expire – when other media outlets exposed it.
On behalf of millions of Australians hoping for a genuinely more professional, impartial, informative ABC, let’s hope that Williams can work some magic when dealing with more than 100 staff members in open revolt and a managing director who has already signalled his surrender to them.
Oh dear.
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