Genghiz John's Empty Empire
Harold Hark
1 August 2003

The best way of avoiding accusations of bias against the ABC is to privatise it. This self-congratulatory but essentially trivial relic of a more high-minded era's attempt to copy the BBC is a drain on the public purse. It produces nothing of excellence, and nothing else that could not be equally well produced by a commercial entity.
Letter to the Age 31 July 2003

In 1993, just before the election, Bob Ellis wrote a plaintive epitaph for Australia, predicting that the Huns were about to storm the gates of Canberra and lay carnage to the clever country. Like all of us, he was sure that Hewson and the Illiberals would win. They didn't, but John Howard did in 1996 and the razing began.

In seven and a half years, the Howard Government has obliterated the Australia that perhaps represented the beacon of democratic societies. We were indeed the "light on the hill" of nations struggling to achieve a high living standard for everyone. We were far more egalitarian than America and equal to the more enlightened European countries. Australia was a kind of Utopia. At least that's how it feels now, from the monochromatic half-light shrouding us today.

One by one the various lights have been snuffed out. Like an acolyte from Hell, John Howard has concluded the sacred rites of an exemplary people by extinguishing health, education, welfare, multiculturalism, and above all, the fair go.

His present aim is to snuff the ABC. We must not underestimate either his desire for this outcome or his ability to pull it off.

ABC current affairs is unparalleled in the world. You would think it would be a source of immense pride to the government. Instead, it is a source of free thought that must be silenced.

Radio National is equally unparalleled. It's daily programs constitute a wireless university. Every conceivable subject is covered, with abundant references to further learning. RN is simply astounding in its dedication to the increase of intelligence.

But letters like the above are appearing more often. Right wing commentators like Gregory Hywood, Frank Devine, the Propaganda Gallery from the tabloids, and the unfortunate Gerard Henderson who, thanks to John Howard's transformation from suburban solicitor to megalomaniac, has allowed him to shed the somnolent diffidence that have previously stifled his hatreds, are all howling for the ABC's neutering in the name of removing left-wing bias. (Which, in my opinion, is their unconscious code for fair and fearless reporting.)

Like his furtive dog whistling to racists during the Hanson era, John Howard is now inviting Philistines, for whom the glorious brain means nothing, to come out from under their rocks like horror film extras to spew forth their inch-deep fear of intellect. The glorification of dumbing-down is perhaps his most insidious achievement.

Howard has silenced the Opposition and nearly an entire people with his dehumanising pragmatism. The broadsheet press should be calling for his resignation or for his government to be thrown out of office, but they remain silent too.

Margo Kingston is right when she says that the passage of Howard's Cross Media Legislation will give him total control of the dissemination of information. If we lose the ABC in the process, we lose the last lifeline to in-depth analyses of domestic and world events.

There is always the internet, of course, but so few of us use it. The monster demographic that still believes John Howard will protect them from The Other are light years away. Besides, the government has been working assiduously over the years to drastically limit its use. They won't be able to, but they could always issue an edict to make the cost of connection comprehensively prohibitive.

(That's right, edict. They are flexing their totalitarian muscles in bypassing Parliament by setting up yet another "independent" ABC panel to assess bias, whose members will be appointed by themselves, and overnight they have bypassed Parliament to set up a regulation to "improve" superannuation portability while--get this--a Senate committee is in the process of inquiring into the very issue.)

Would the government care about bankrupt ISP's and lost jobs if its power could become absolute? A double dissolution victory would solve the problem tidily: they could then pass the law and claim due democratic process. Thus, in its goal to make the rich richer and Potter Stewart the poor, the government would pave the way for a handful of the privileged to pay exorbitant but hardly noticed fees to one or two government-approved ISPs for unfettered access to internet porn to relieve their poolside bordeom.

I had literally just finished writing the above, when a subscriber emailed the following link: Net terrorists targeted. At the pleasure of the Attorney General, Daryl Williams, any site deemed to be a threat to national security can have its phone or internet access cut off. Silly me, I hadn't thought of that.

Let's not kid ourselves, terrorism is just a ruse. The real agenda of conservative/reactionary/totalitarian governments is to quell access to information such as provided by the ABC and, above all, to quell dissent. And that's you and me.

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