Even for its critics, the ABC is vital

Managing Director of the ABC David Anderson on a TV screen at the Ultimo headquarters. Picture: John Feder

Health Warning. This column is written in support of the ABC so it may well cause apoplexy in some readers. Anyone thus afflicted should turn urgently to columns by colleagues – perhaps by Gerard Henderson or Chris Kenny.

At night, using my pass to manoeuvre through many layers of security, I make my lonely way to Studio 243 on the fourth floor of the ABC’s Sydney HQ where I present, as I have done for 30-odd years, a program called Late Night Live. Eclectic topics, worldwide guests, good ratings, vast numbers of downloads.

There’s not yet a Vacant Possession sign outside but soon empty spaces will be available for rental. After Covid the building will be even emptier because of the current round of retrenchments. Thanks to endless budget cuts I’ve seen thousands depart. And it’s not simply because the Libs don’t like us. Nor did Keating, or Hawke. When I arrived at the ABC just before the first Iraq invasion, Bob was waging war on his version of bias, i.e. any hint of criticism.

Paradoxically, many – perhaps most – Liberal voters admire the ABC, as do a lot of Nat supporters. (People depend on the ABC in the bush – increasingly so.) I remember making this point to Andrew Robb when he was a Liberal Party apparatchik. He wholeheartedly agreed, albeit describing it as “our enemies talking to our friends”. Robb found attacks on Aunty counterproductive, particularly during elections.

As the current cuts – death by a thousand cuts – cut even deeper, I remembered compering a Save the ABC rally years before I took the king’s shilling. The Melbourne Town Hall was packed to the rafters, the audience overflowing to the Athenaeum. And I had the odd experience of introducing two odd-bedfellow protesters to the cheering crowd. Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, together for the first time since the Dismissal. Holding hands! Arms aloft!

On tweeting the suggestion it was time for similar heavy-hitting bipartisan support from the likes of Rudd, Gillard and Turnbull, I got an immediate “I’m up for that” from Kevin, tweeting that he was ready to march with Julia. I await confirmation from Malcolm. And I’m sure John Hewson would swell the numbers, even if Tony Abbott, let alone Scott Morrison, won’t volunteer. My old friend and regular listener Bob Katter might throw his big hat in the ring, too. I’ll give him a call.

It’s not only here in Australia that ideological bullying threatens public broadcasting. It has never been influential in the US, barely surviving on corporate and private donations. In the UK, Johnson was planning to bury the Beeb. But Boris has had to slam the brakes on bulldozing the BBC – and his other target, the NHS – because of the COVID-19 crisis.

The ABC has tried desperately to appease it critics. It opens its key programs to guests who want it closed down and sold for scrap. Appeasement hasn’t helped. Nor has the self-censorship of anxious employees.

At a recent Friends of the ABC rally I called for a minute’s silence. I asked the crowd to imagine that silence lasting an hour, a day, a week. An endless silence. That may well be the future. If you remain silent. And I’m talking to you Lib voters, to you Nat voters. Not just to that scruffy Labor mob.

You’ll miss us when we’re gone. Even you, Gerard and Chris. Aunty’s critics will have to find a new enemy to attack, someone else to blame for the collapse of civilisation.