Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I am not arguing anything in particular; I am just making points of fact about what this government is doing in legislation, in black and white right here in front of us. This government should now explain to Mr Dempster why it thinks that he is not a suitable person. I think most people would think he is a very suitable person.

So what changes for the ABC is this government trying to pursue? What things does it fear from the staff elected director? What things does this government fear the staff elected director would oppose or otherwise support or actually do that another director may or may not do in carrying out their responsibilities under the law? Directors actually have some very special responsibilities under the law. The minister is on record as saying that the board could consider whether it wanted to, for example, allow advertising. There is nothing in the ABC Act that would stop the ABC placing ads on its website. Perhaps this is what the minister had in mind when he was putting together this legislation. The ABC’s digital content creators must be free to produce material without worrying about offending the sponsors of the ABC website. The parliament should not lightly silence the voice of a strong defender of ABC independence or anybody who defends the ABC. In a recent Bulletin article the minister stated:

... it won’t be the same ABC it is today in a year’s time; we are in for some very exciting changes ...

You do not have to be Einstein to work out the code. In fact, you do not have to work for the ADF to work out the code in ‘some very exciting changes’. It will be very exciting when there is a board party and everyone of the same ilk can turn up. Given this government’s track record on the ABC, Australians who value it will be concerned to hear about these changes. This bill is all about control. It is about more control by this government over independent organisations, more control over what people read, over what people see, over what people hear and over what content is delivered to people—that is the intent of this bill. Five years ago, the Senate communications committee examined the methods of appointment to the board. Back then government senators stated:

There has been no suggestion that the position of staff elected director will be abolished.

But now the government’s Senate majority has gone to its head, as with a whole range of other areas, and that position is in doubt. The staff elected position is just one position of a possible nine on the ABC board, so personally I cannot see how just getting rid of that one position should have some huge impact on any possible decision of the board itself. But I think that the real waste, the real tragedy, is that by getting rid of this position the government actually removes a voice of experience, a voice from the ABC itself. If you take a business approach to this and look at boards around the country, it is often the case that the best boards are those with directors with 20 or 30 years of industry experience, those that have actually worked through the business or understand the business closely and actually do the best jobs. I think it is no different to the ABC’s having a staff elected director position on the board.

What irritates the Prime Minister about the staff elected director is that it is a position that is beyond the capacity of the Prime Minister to influence or control as he does in so many other areas. Since 1996, the government has regularly filled board vacancies with its own conservative mates; people like Janet Albrechtsen, Ron Brunton and Michael Kroger have been dispatched to the ABC with instructions to attack what the senior Liberals see as a left-wing bias. They are really worried about this left-wing bias. God forbid that the ABC might go out there and do some reports or programming or say something that just does not sit comfortably with this government. If it does not sit comfortably with this government then what does the government do? It changes the board. It gets the board active and makes sure that the government has a huge hand and a role in what happens. The role that certain people obviously play is to guide and steer the ABC, not down the impartial middle of the road and certainly not to the left but to guide and steer it slightly to the right, ever inching further and further to the right.

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