Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make a few comments in response to Senator Ludwig’s unwarranted attack on the motives behind the government bringing forward this bill. Senator Ludwig—and I will be very brief about this—has made a number of fairly wild and unsubstantiated assertions about the government stacking the ABC board, without, of course, naming names or being prepared to have the courage to indicate who he is talking about.

The interesting thing about this is that if the government had any interest in stacking the ABC board—which of course we do not and which we emphatically reject as an allegation—the director’s position simply could have been left there and the characteristic or the component of it being an ABC nominee could have simply been removed, which would have allowed yet another position to be so-called stacked. It gives the lie, of course, to Senator Ludwig’s assertion that the government is trying to keep directors there for some unidentified purpose. I do not intend to go into a more substantial refutation of those allegations because they are simply not made out. They are very wild and there is no evidence to support what Senator Ludwig has said.

However, I do want to spend a moment on Senator Murray’s amendment because—whilst the government will not be supporting it—as with all amendments that Senator Murray moves, I think carefully about the purpose behind him bringing forward those amendments and I have, in fact, thought about what other approach might be taken in relation to appointments. The first thing is that there is some suggestion that appointments are not made on merit. The mere fact that appointments might be expressed to be on merit in a piece of legislation does nothing if you do not also have some guidelines as to how you approach it. I will remind the Senate of the very specific requirements of the act:

A person shall not be appointed as a Director ... unless he or she appears to the Governor-General to be suitable for appointment because of having had experience in connection with the provision of broadcasting services or in communications or management, because of having expertise in financial or technical matters, or because of having cultural or other interests relevant to the oversight of a public organization engaged in the provision of broadcasting services.

If an appointment there does not sit on merit you really wonder how else you would, in all honesty, fulfil the requirements of the criteria set out in the act. I certainly approach it on the basis that it is implied, if not explicit, that appointments are made unequivocally on merit.

The other point that I want to make really underscores why the government does not support this process, and there are a number of reasons that I will not go into. Cutting to the nub of it, I think the existing appointments process for the ABC is very similar to that for most other Commonwealth agencies. From the debate that has taken place in relation to this bill I cannot see that any case has been made out by any speaker—and certainly no case has been made independently of any speaker outside the parliament—to indicate that the process is failing or that the ABC should be singled out from other Commonwealth agencies in this regard.

The method of appointment reflects, I think it is fair to say, standard practice for Commonwealth statutory authorities, and I simply cannot see any rationale for taking out the ABC from a process that works well. The government considers that the current appointments process works well, and it will continue to recommend to the Governor-General the appointment of people to the ABC board who it believes will carry out their responsibilities in line with the very clear requirements of the act.