Imagine what KPIs must be for ABC staff’s inflated bonuses

Imagine the ABC KPIs for their bonuses. Sourcing stories by environmental lobbyists? Meeting anti-Trump guidelines?

The ABC headquarters in Ultimo.

She is immensely aggrieved at the election of Donald Trump, intent on whingeing about mistreatment and buck-passing blame while she is bloated with cash and constantly seeks more. Almost comically addicted to unintended self-harm, she is painfully progressive, driven by political fashion and wont to belittle and underestimate the intelligence of mainstream voters. I write not of Hillary Clinton but of Aunty, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

It would be nice to ignore the national broadcaster but Aunty has a strong propensity to draw attention to herself for all the wrong reasons. Since last week’s budget the ABC has taken a bit of a break from demonising Australians as deplorable xenophobes, Islamophobes, homophobes, misogynists and racists to focus on its own funding problems.

Declaring a pause in its funding growth as a cut, the ABC has complained that it has no more fat to cut and will now have to cut into muscle. Publicly-funded journalists whose job it is, in part, to ensure the government adopts appropriate levels of fiscal discipline are whining about what could at worst be described as a budget trim. They are using taxpayer-funded time and resources to demand an increased share of taxpayers’ funds at a time of budget stringency.

A more blatant abuse of taxpayers’ money it would be difficult to conjure. This is the ultimate example of the public sector’s inevitable tendency to justify its existence and expand its reach — a virtuous circle of perpetual indulgence. Worse still, the journalists’ union has joined the ABC’s campaign; a body representing the journalists who are supposed to represent the interest of taxpayers and hold governments to account is critical of a minor and admirable attempt at budget constraint because it might impact on journalists. So much for the higher ideals of the craft.

Not that journalists or journalism should suffer in any financial adjustments at Aunty. We read today, for instance, how the bloated middle management at the national broadcaster will share more than $2 million in bonuses. Some highly paid managers will pocket more than $50,000 in bonuses.

This insults taxpayers. It is an affront to the interests of all those who fund the ABC. There is no profit to deliver, negligible revenue to raise and no share price to protect; but bonuses all the same. ABC staff who already often receive higher wages than private sector counterparts, have had higher wages growth in recent years, receive more than 50 per cent extra in superannuation payments and typically have something approaching lifetime tenure in their employment, or at least are sheltered from the waves of cost-cutting and efficiencies that have swept through commercial media over the past decade, are showered with bonuses.

Imagine what their KPIs must be for these bonuses. Recruiting the target quota of Leftist comedians? Sourcing the desired number of stories researched and filmed by animal activist groups or environmental lobbyists? Meeting the global anti-Trump hysteria guidelines and surpassing the prescribed amount of obsequiousness towards Hillary Clinton? Perhaps Q&A producers received a bonus for meeting their 20 per cent conservative target, and the news and current affairs managers might have been rewarded for fulfilling their 100 per cent green left recruitment drive. Was there a bonus paid for the vegan counter in the staff canteen or the Earth Hour candlelight vigil?

This bonus nonsense highlights how utterly disingenuous and cynical it was last week for ABC director of news, Gaven Morris, to suggest in response to the budget announcement that the first services in the line of fire would be regional news operations at Ipswich, Geelong, Parramatta and Gosford. It has been obvious to informed observers for years that the places to make savings at the ABC are at Ultimo and Southbank, in middle management.

The national broadcaster is indulging itself politically, journalistically and financially. It is having a lend of taxpayers. The minister, Senator Mitch Fifield, has shown no inclination to take charge. The monkeys are running the zoo. Like Hillary Clinton’s world tour of grievance and whingeing, the ABC’s self-indulgence is horrible to watch yet unconstrained.