Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and the amendment. This is about money. The ABC receives $1.4 billion from the taxpayers of Australia, so at the outset I wish to say that this speech is not about the ABC bias or malfeasance in news and current affairs recording. It is about issues that are relevant to the governance of the ABC and SBS and the efficiency review. This study is being conducted by the Department of Communications, assisted by Mr Peter Lewis, former Chief Financial Officer of Seven West Media Ltd. The terms of reference of the study state:

There is limited transparency to the Australian public, the Government and the Parliament of the breakdown of costs of delivering the ABC and SBS Charter responsibilities and whether these could be more efficiently delivered by the national broadcasters.

They go on to say:

This study will seek to clarify these costs, provide options for more efficient delivery of services … identify risks and any impediments to change and assist the national broadcasters to continue to deliver their Charter responsibilities in ways that minimise costs and maximise benefits for the Australian community.

The study will focus on the costs of inputs—that is the ‘back of house’ day-to-day operational and financial operations, structures and processes applied to delivering ABC and SBS programs, products and services.

Today, I will address some of the points mentioned above.

Information has been provided to me by a respected industry expert—Mr Chris Hetherington of Circling Shark Productions. Circling Shark is a Western Australian based production company that has produced programs including Postcards WA on the Nine Network and Can We Help?which in fact appeared on ABC TV. If you go to the website you will see many other productions. This company itself is highly regarded, and has won a Western Australian tourism award and a national tourism award. Chris has almost 30 years experience in television broadcast and video production. This is some of the expert opinion that he has conveyed to me. Firstly, he is generally concerned that our public broadcasters may be under threat, not just from efficiency reviews or any type of budget cuts but from a basic lack of eyeballs—that is, audiences are in decline. Are public broadcast institutions past their use-by date? That is a question we can ask. Are taxpayers really getting bang for their buck?

Mr Hetherington does think the efficiency review will reveal some cost-saving measures, but believes a bigger problem at play is within the heart of the management culture and relates to a lack of will inside these institutions, firstly to admit that the current situation is untenable and then to make the hard calls to ensure that our public broadcasters survive into the future. These concerns directly address the terms of reference for the efficiency review. We should question the decision-making processes of the people entrusted with the job of making both editorial and programming decisions. Are these decision makers left unaccountable and free to change their opinions subjectively in relation to awarding contracts or making programming decisions without any real concern about value for money?

Case in point: Chris Hetherington approached the ABC to pitch an idea for a six-part series that targeted a large section of the traditional ABC audience. The cost to the ABC would have been about $30,000 per episode, without the need for further federal government subsidy or a production rebate. It was presented as a cost-effective model for producing quality Australian programming, as an alternative to purchasing programs from overseas. The cost to taxpayers would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars lower than the current commissioned programs. Producers and others in the film and television industry work in a competitive environment, and of course they are used to knockbacks when they offer these sorts of initiatives. But it was in the decision-making process that any objectivity or checks and balances seemed to be missing. When Mr Hetherington's proposal was knocked back, it apparently came down to one person's opinion: 'No'. He did not think it what was the ABC's audience wanted to see. Was there any process for external review? No. Was there any avenue for appeal? No. So you would have to ask: is this decision-making process transparent and fair? And is it working properly?'

At one time, the ABC were looking to do a program on the NBN for Four Corners. An idea for a one-hour documentary and panel-interview-style program was pitched and it was knocked back. In the end, the ABC did produce a program but it failed to address any of the issues that we know plagued the former government's NBN rollout. What it ended up with was an NBN promotional video that starred, and looked like it was produced and directed by, then minister Stephen Conroy. Another program pitched to the ABC and subsequently knocked back was one on the future of public broadcasting. They said it was not topical enough.

So, let us have another look at the decision-making processes at the ABC. Say a producer submits a proposal to the ABC which makes its way to the desk of ex-pat Brit, Anita Brown, commissioning editor of factual entertainment, for the initial appraisal. I am told Anita has many years of experience producing programs for broadcasters in the UK. If Anita likes the proposal, it is then passed along the chain and lands on the desk of Phil Craig, head of factual entertainment. He is also British and he has experience in making programs for UK audiences as well as international and Australian audiences. If Phil likes the proposal it then goes straight to the top, to ex-BBC sales executive Brendan Dahill. I pause for a moment to wonder if this cabal of British expats are on 457 visas because the ABC could not find any Australians to fill the jobs. That could be an interesting further investigation for another time.

No-one is saying it is an easy job to provide a balance between the audience's needs and wants. No-one is saying it is easy to be spot on the mark each and every time, knowing just which programs will and will not be successful. Commissioning programs is not scientific, but with the use of audience assessment tools and audience data some of the subjectivity can be removed from the equation, rather guesses being made based on personal opinion.

I will make it clear. Chris Hetherington is not knocking the ABC technical staff he has worked alongside. He said they are professionals and great at what they do. He is, however, questioning if the decision-making processes are incorrect and if the way contracts are awarded is flawed and expensive. Are the ABC decision makers considering value for money at all?

Another case in point is the way the production-funding process works. The public broadcasters pay a minimum Screen Australia agreed licence fee to the producer. Screen Australia matches this amount on a dollar-for-dollar basis. State funding agencies then add in around 15 per cent of the overall budget. Following that the producer is eligible for a federal government rebate of around 10 per cent to 30 per cent of the overall budget.

Let us take the Paul Keating series of four interviews as an example. The minimum ABC licence fee for the hour is $120,000. If we times that by four, it is $480,000. Screen Australia's dollar-for-dollar contribution is $480,000, so we are now up to $960,000 for this program. If we add the 15 per cent state based contribution of $144,000, we are now up to $1.1 million. If we add the 20 per cent producer offset rebate, we end up with revenue well over $1 million. These are not exact figures, but this is an example of an independent production deal put through Screen Australia's commissioning guidelines and it shows that some production companies could make pretty large profits. There is nothing wrong with making large profits, but we are talking about value for money.

In comparison, I am told that a quality pilot episode utilising current technologies and emerging talent can be shot on a $3,000 camera and edited on a laptop computer with a $50 program. Why four separate one-hour episodes of Paul Keating's memoirs were required is anybody's guess, especially, as Chris Hetherington pointed out, David Attenborough can cover millions of years of evolution in just one hour. Either way, it is not a bad day's work for ABC stalwart Kerry O'Brien.

The closing credits for the Paul Keating series, Keating: The Interviews, declared it as being a joint production between the ABC and Binna Burra Media, which is owned by O'Brien. Mr O'Brien was paid an undisclosed sum through his production company for the shows. Additionally, the documentary series was proposed by O'Brien himself and then commissioned by the ABC. The ABC won't say how much Binna Burra Media was paid or the resources the company contributed to the production, citing commercial arrangements as being confidential. I respect commercial confidence, but this hardly allows for broad creative ideas and expression or transparency in taxpayer funding.

We know Kerry is much loved by the ABC. He was promoted from Lateline to hosting the 7.30Report and he is now the host of Four Corners. We know his pedigree. He was press secretary for Gough Whitlam and brought his great entrenched political passion to his position at the ABC, as well as his strong love for Labor. Whilst I am reluctant to quote Mark Latham, he is spot on when describing how effective Kerry O'Brien was. As a Labor insider, he exposed O'Brien's time at the ABC and criticised his on-air performance. Latham said that, even at O'Brien's peak, he was never an effective figure and, in his many hundreds of interviews with the nation's politicians, he never recorded a memorable insight, phrase or scalp. Well, do not tell that to the ABC, because he is their golden child. Interestingly, in 2010 Mark Latham said the ABC's charter should be altered to require it to broadcast programs with a wider audience interest, rather than just to the high-earners that make up the bulk of the ABC's audience. He also said that it was time to give suburban consumers the things they want to watch on TV.

Since the mid-1990s it has been reported that the ABC has shown a growing trend of commissioning its content from outside production houses using journalists or presenters that have some link to the ABC. These production houses get this work because they are part of the network of ABC luvvies. Russell Skelton is doing the fact check at the moment. He is well entrenched in the nepotistic ABC family. When you consider these cronyistic processes of the ABC, reputable production agencies such as Circling Shark barely stand a chance of getting a foot in the door, let alone some of the up-and-coming, talented, fresh and creative film and video writers, producers and directors we have in this country.

This is especially so in my state of Western Australia. If you went to see the production going on at the ABC studio in Perth, you would have to push past the cobwebs. Even though it is well set up to do this, there is no local production going on except for 7.30. Production in ABC studios is also lacking in Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart. Not only are these states passing up a great opportunity to produce local stories but they have also lost the opportunity to be valuable training grounds for the film and television industry, particularly for those up-and-coming, young, budding producers and directors.

The ABC and SBS receive about $1.4 billion in funding from the government. Two-thirds of this is centralised in Sydney, with half of that going to pay wages for those bunkered down in the concrete building in Ultimo. Director Mark Scott's base salary is $678,940, which is far more than the Australian Prime Minister. Good old Quentin Dempster, another of the ABC's elites, is on $291,505 and does a couple of programs here and there. It would be nice if that money were put into the state based production facilities in Perth, Brisbane or Adelaide. This flies in the face of the ability to undertake productions in the outlying states, where value for money could be achieved.

Chris Hetherington has a bunch of great ideas that those doing the efficiency study should genuinely pay attention to. In fact, they might even want to interview him. He cited as an example the case of a broadcaster in Vancouver, Canada that was formed out of the lack of local programming opportunities there. They were concerned about centralised control of their national broadcaster in Toronto and thought it was not reflective of the west coast. Mr Hetherington said that the Knowledge Network was created from this concern for the dual purpose of providing children's and adult television and is funded from provincial government and donations it raises annually. This station then went on to provide opportunities for local producers to make programs about their own city and state. So, if Canada can show this type of initiative, why can't Australia and why can't the ABC in Australia?

My underlying concern in all this is for Australia's film and television industry, and seeing that the industry and our public broadcasters are viable in the future. Even though a high-quality program can be produced for $30,000 an episode, the ABC continues to pay to broadcast British re-runs. This week will see the repeats of Doc Martin, Agatha Christie's Poirot, Inside Incredible Athletes, which looks at six British athletes, Grand Designs, Dalziel and Pascoe and New Tricks. Maybe it has something to do with patriotic connections of the ex-pats running the ABC?

While some think the ABC efficiency review does not go far enough, it a good and big step in the right direction. The fact is the face of public broadcasting, and visual broadcast media generally, has changed. Other mediums—Facebook, YouTube, Foxtel et cetera—are all challengers to a traditional broadcaster like the ABC, and their audiences have changed over time as well. Should the taxpayer funded broadcaster try and compete in this commercial space or should they continue to cater to a forgotten demographic: a loyal but not so commercially viable audience? Yes, the ABC targets a certain type of audience demographic, but how much work and research goes into this back-of-house strategy by the bureaucrats tasked with deciding programming for a WA audience, for example, some 3,000 kilometres away in their concrete bunker in Ultimo, Sydney? And, ultimately, to whom is the ABC accountable? I am told it is to the board, and I am told the board is accountable to the minister.

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