The Guardian 8 November, 2006
ABC: Throwing stones
in their own glass house
When the ABC cancelled the comedy program The Glass House last week internet sites, radio stations and the national broadcaster itself were inundated with messages from angry fans of the show who clearly saw the move as an exercise in Howard Government censorship.
The furore was such that John Howard was moved to publicly deny any involvement in the axing. "I have not axed the program", Howard told an Adelaide radio program.
The development follows a concerted attack on the ABC by members of the Liberal Party in Parliament and comes after the planned introduction of a new self-censorship mechanism announced by recently appointed ABC managing director Mark Scott. Scott faced interrogation in the Senate by Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson.
Ronaldson arrogantly demanded Scott explain why other ABC executives were not with him in the Senate to face questioning and attacked the ABC’s coverage of the recent conflict in Lebanon.
A statement by support group Friends of the ABC noted that with the cutting of The Glass House — the last episode will air on November 29 — there will be almost no social and political satire on the ABC.
"It is difficult not to be suspicious when this move comes on top of an ABC board-generated decision to employ a chief censor to monitor bias at the ABC", said the statement.
The changes to the ABC’s Editorial Policies requiring the ABC to "demonstrate impartiality" will be implemented next March in the lead up to the next federal election (the earliest possible date for a combined House of Representatives and half Senate election is August 4, 2007, the latest date being January 2008).
Friends of the ABC say that the changes imply that there is a problem with bias at the ABC, but that no reputable study has found this to be the case. "The changes are being made for a government that is hostile to independent broadcasting and driven by a board stacked with its supporters."
SBS was also targeted in the Senate, by Liberal Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, for alleged "pro-Arab" sentiments; for siding with David Hicks, the Australian being held without trial and without charge by the US in Guantánamo Bay; and for an "equivocal view of terrorism".
The attacks on the ABC and the SBS are more a reflection of the government’s backward policies coming home to roost with the election looming: it is now desperately throwing stones in its own glass house.
Its agenda on the environment is a prime example: the government acting as though it had just discovered the country is suffering the worst drought in history; its failure to sign the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gases; its plans to privatise water; its promotion of nuclear power.
The vicious offensive on the trade unions and against workers’ rights is also highly unpopular and there is growing unease and opposition to the war in Iraq and the Howard Government’s subservience to the Bush administration in the US.