LETTERS AND DEBATE.

`There is no knowledge that doesn't have a politics' -- I was reminded of historian Greg Dening's observation while reading Tony Moore's article, `Unchaining Aunty', on the perils for the ABC in what he calls the `post-broadcast age' (Arena Magazine No. 50).

To this reader, `Unchaining Aunty' is a rather cranky and dispiriting mixture: lukewarm appreciation of the national public broadcaster -- Moore had `the privilege of working in the ABC', condemnation of its `bureaucratic constipation', and allegations rather than evidence that the ABC's `narrowness stultifies our public culture' and it `remains enslaved to old ideas of "quality" ' This last assertion is linked to an eagerness for the ABC to embrace the tastes and interests of `our fellow citizens left cold by this model of broadcasting': Jonathan Shier has made some right moves ... bringing an expanded audience to the ABC as `light' consumers, rather than playing to a dedicated upper-middle-class club.

(It's odd that Moore is scathing of the `formulaic "mass taste"' of influential `personalities' in management while castigating the ABC for its supposedly snobby notion of quality.)

The ABC should not be protected from rigorous criticism, and there's certainly no shortage of matters to criticise. But Moore's mostly unsubstantiated assault, touching on the ABC's history, organisational structure, philosophy, programs and audience, is neither rigorous nor particularly accurate. It's an angry spraygun approach, and many of the shots fall wide of the mark.

To take just one example, his attack on the ABC's `class bias towards the private-school educated' and what he calls its `assumed middle-class audience' demonstrates an unfortunate ignorance of the breadth and depth of the broadcaster's audience. The 1996-97 Mansfield review of the ABC, with its 10,615 submissions (far more than any government inquiry before or since), merely verified what poll after poll has shown: about 80 per cent of Australians watch or listen to the ABC every week (its website attracts 7m hits a week), and an even greater number -- including those who rarely or never partake -- believe that the ABC is an essential and valuable public institution which should be adequately funded and remain independent. As Bob Mansfield remarked to the delegation of Victorian members of Friends of the ABC which met with him during the inquiry: `Any business would give its right arm to have such brand-name loyalty!'

The very popularity of the ABC is the reason the federal government is likely to try to redeem its damaged reputation in this election year by restoring a fraction of the $66m it cut from the ABC's budget in 1996-97. It is also why the ALP is slowly recognising that it must go beyond sweet nothings and make detailed policy commitments to the ABC's funding and independence if it wishes to benefit electorally from the outrage of tens of thousands of people -- including the majority of those living in rural and regional Australia -- who, unlike Tony Moore, aren't prepared to `[put] aside the ravages of the Coalition government'.

Among this concerned and increasingly vocal community of ABC supporters are people of every political allegiance, and none. There are certainly those who would, like Moore, call themselves part of the social democratic Left, but those I know don't share his view that preventing `vital public institutions from being sold to shareholders' is in some way an abdication of their reforming principles. Conserving what is valuable -- whether old-growth forests, decent wages and working conditions, public schools and universities, or independent public broadcasting -- is a tradition of the Left in every country.

It is a tradition directly opposed to the contemporary Right which has instituted the most radical changes to employment, education and social security, dismembering notions of communal responsibility and exploiting the doctrine of `user pays' to limit access to water, power, education and other services -- now based on capacity to pay, not need or justice. The radical Right prettifies privatisation by facile reference to choice and individual preference. It introduces a GST as a means to dismantle the old, left heritage of progressive taxation.

This is the political context in which the ABC is used as a punching-bag by vengeful MPs, far-Right conspiracy theorists, disappointed script-writers, and those who have succumbed to the siren song of contemporary capitalism: technological change and choice. Not all who punch are ill-intentioned, but they make it easier for a vindictive government, pusillanimous board and rampaging managing director to dismiss or terrorise internal opposition, silence critical commentary of `official' viewpoints, and introduce `user pays' for audiences (customers!) and `targeted' funding for programs. The ABC's current television production for the RAAF -- which has made that arm of the military very happy, we are told -- is just a taste of what may come.

June Factor is vice-president of Friends of the ABC (Vic.).