The Future Of The ABC: It's Up To Labor
Harold Hark
29 May 2003

The future of this nation as a democracy is in the hands of the still-foundering Labor Party. With the present assault on the ABC by the Coalition, including threats to install an "independent" censor to insure propaganda favourable to the Government, there can no longer be any doubt that this country is headed towards totalitarian rule. If Labor doesn't pull themselves together to offer an even remotely credible alternative, we are gone.

Clearly believing himself to be invincible, John Howard has instructed his Propaganda Minister Richard Alston-Goebbels to mount a Stalinist purge on the wounded voice of the people. In particular, Alston-Goebbels has singled out Linda Mottram of AM for daring to reflect the anger and disbelief of a majority of Australians at the foolhardy, downright stupid war just waged, and News Director Max Uechtritz, accusing him of being anti-American because of a tongue-in cheek description of the military as "lying bastards". Now, everyone knows this is true, with the exception of the shallow men who strut across our land like mutant used car salesmen. Here's what Uechtritz said, "We now know for certain that only three things in life are certain - death, taxes and the fact that the military are lying bastards."

Errol Simper believes Alston is gunning for Uechtritz for other reasons:

Shier antagonist draws fire
Errol Simper
The Australian, 29 May 2003

RICHARD Alston's semi-obsessive portrayal of the ABC's director of news and current affairs, Max Uechtritz, as an anti-US ideologue suggests the minister knows very little about the ABC.

Uechtritz, an old-fashioned foot-in-the-door news reporter, is about as ideological as the average wardrobe.

In fact, when former managing director Jonathan Shier appointed Uechtritz there were mild reservations from some current affairs staff.

Uechtritz was seen as such a straight-shooter it was thought he might lack the sophistication some believed was necessary and which his predecessor, Paul Williams, was perceived as possessing.

By any standards, Uechtritz does not fit the image of an agenda-driven political obsessive. Suggest such an image to long-time colleagues and others who know him, and they'll fall about laughing. The minister's apparent dislike of Uechtritz is almost certainly due to something else.

Alston was a public supporter of Shier, who was forced out of the ABC in late 2001 after less than two years in control. It was Uechtritz who first stood up to the bombastic Shier, and it was Uechtritz's board-level representation that began the chain of events that led to Shier's demise.

What a pathetic government. Petty, mean, revengeful, self-serving and puffed up to the point of bursting at their purulent seams, they appear both frightened and frightening all at once. John Howard and his henchmen are precisely the sort of people nations across the globe worry about with regards to nuclear triggers. Fortunately, they are small time players, interested only in their own fortunes and in taking orders from their masters in Washington.

Alston-Goebbels has spat the dummy and given away once and for all the Coalition's agenda to quash dissent or any differing opinion by claiming:

"They (the ABC) are accountable to government in the same way any other organisation is, but if they choose to ignore it then it is a matter for parliament. If the parliament thinks they have lost the plot they could be defunded."

The ABC is NOT accountable to government, it is an independent organisation whose funds are allocated by government through Australian tax payers. (I believe the current figure is 11 cents a day per person.) That Alston would choose to so blatantly threaten the withdrawal of funds by obliquely suggesting that those funds could be allocated elsewhere (exactly where does not bear thinking about) or to a completely revamped broadcaster staffed by the likes of Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose is a reflection on his blatant contempt for the oath of office he took upon election and the ability to fulfil the duties of his portfolio.

Then again, he has yet to fulfil those duties, having bungled every undertaking bar none. One of his latest bungles is the expenditure of $4 million to the con artists who developed his department's website. Yours truly is an entry-level web site designer and I could have done better than that after suffering a stroke!

Rather than being accountable to the government of the day, the ABC has a duty to hold the government accountable. That's how it works in a democracy, Richard. But he wouldn't know about that. Lest we forget, here is what Alston-Goebbels said on PM, 21 August 1996, shortly after the Coalition's first election"

"This is not the end of democracy as we know it, but an adjustment..."

Since then the "adjustments" have been disastrous.

There have been several "defining moments" in Australian history since the Howard Government's election in 1996, and all of them have been shameful. This latest, the outright assault on the national broadcaster's funding because of perceived bias against the authoritarian agenda of the current government and its subservience to an illegitimate government in America is another nail in the coffin marked "Australian Democracy". If there is any bias at the ABC it is a bias towards freedom of speech in a free and open democracy, towards clear and penetrative analysis free of the ideological baggage that has forever prevented all human beings from enjoying peace and prosperity.

To Max Uechtritz, Linda Mottram, Eleanor Hall, John Highfield, Mark Colvin, Hamish Robertson, Chris Masters, Kerry O'Brien, Tony Jones, and all the reporters and staff at the ABC News and Current Affairs, bravo!

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