A new battle for your ABC

Peter Mac

The struggle for the political future of the Australian 
Broadcasting Corporation has moved into a new stage, with the 
surprise resignation of Maurice Newman from the ABC Board. Newman 
is the Chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange and was 
appointed to the Board by the Howard Government.

His resignation has triggered a number of attacks on the 
organisation, in particular new allegations of political (i.e. 
left-wing) "bias" in its broadcasts. It has also prompted Daryl 
Williams, the current Minister for Communications, to openly 
question whether a staff representative should continue to sit on 
the Board.

Newman's departure followed revelations on the Media Watch 
program that he had persuaded the Board to commission a firm to 
monitor ABC broadcasts for evidence of the alleged left-wing 
bias.

The monitoring idea was originally the brainchild of former 
Minister for Communications, Richard Alston. He consistently 
pushed the line that the ABC was operating with a left-wing bias 
that, by implication, caused the organisation to deal dishonestly 
and unfairly with the Howard Government, the Bush administration 
and other conservative regimes.

By the time Alston left the ministry, two successive enquiries 
had failed to find any evidence of serious misdemeanors by ABC 
staff in their coverage of the Iraq war. Newman took up Alston's 
idea of bias monitoring with relish, and persuaded the ABC Board 
to allocate the sum of some $200,000 for such an exercise from 
the corporation's ever-shrinking budget.

And now Newman himself has departed, but not without first trying 
to pin the blame on the ABC Board's staff representative, Ramona 
Koval, for leaking the monitoring commission story to the Media 
Watch program.

Attempt to gag staff representative

Newman and other Board members also failed to persuade Ms Koval 
to sign a "board conduct" agreement. Signing this document would 
have prevented her from reporting on her work on the Board to the 
ABC staff elected her as their representative.

Despite having implicitly blamed her for what he described as "a 
recent gross breach of boardroom confidentiality", and despite 
having supported moves to muzzle the Board members, Newman 
declared with no apparent sense of irony that "I don't wish to 
remain on a Board where you cannot remain frank and open"!

Newman's fury at having his covert political role on the Board 
revealed is understandable — after all, the Howard Government 
had gone to a great deal of trouble to install him. His outburst 
was also, by implication, directed at Media Watch.

Media Watch is widely regarded as performing a vital and 
virtually unique role as a fearless critic of the mass media, 
including the ABC. Such programs as Media Watch and 
Four Corners which it follows on a Monday night, are the 
target of Alston, Howard and Newman. They provide penetrating and 
independent analysis — not the food of commercial television.

The ABC board should not expect to be exempt from the critical 
scrutiny of Media Watch, and must not under any circumstances be 
allowed to interfere in its production. Any attack on Media Watch 
will inevitably be recognised for what it is — a blatant attempt 
by the conservatives to force the ABC to reflect their very 
right-wing views.

This, of course, is also true of the bias monitoring project 
itself, which Ms Koval described as a "serious, improper and 
continuing political interference in the processes of the ABC 
Board and the editorial policies of the corporation."

Not that this will deter the Howard Government or the current 
Minister. Williams may use the Newman incident as an excuse to 
abolish staff representation on the ABC Board.

His views have been echoed by, among others, the extreme right-
wing "think tank", the Institute of Public Affairs. They recently 
attacked the ABC for its (relatively) low-key coverage of what 
they obviously considered to be one of the most significant 
events of the year — the death of Ronald Reagan!

The organisation that deserves the last word is, however, the 
community group Friends of the ABC. They commented: "it is 
alarming that (Mr Newman) is unwilling to stay on the board 
because the staff-elected director refuses to sign away her 
rights, indeed her responsibility, to act according to her 
conscience.

"All board members have responsibilities above their allegiance 
to the board on which they sit. Too often there have been serious 
consequences when individual members of corporate boards have 
placed confidentiality above the long-term good of the body they 
oversee.

"It is not in the public's interest to have the ABC board operate 
in total secrecy. The community is entitled to be informed about 
important matters affecting the operations of the country's most 
significant information and cultural institution.

"In making possible the position of staff-elected director, the 
ABC Act has ensured that at least one member of the Board has 
broadcasting experience. It has also provided one small counter 
to governments that stack the board.

"Efforts to gag the staff-elected director should be condemned. 
Political abuse and interference in the ABC must cease."