Former Foxtel boss Peter Tonagh
The Turnbull government has now surpassed the Howard government in its relentless prosecution of a war against the ABC, with former Murdoch executive Peter Tonagh revealed as likely to lead yet another “efficiency review” into the national broadcasters.
It’s only four years since Malcolm Turnbull’s previous efficiency review of the ABC, by Turnbull’s handpicked reviewer Peter Lewis, the former chief financial officer of Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media. Lewis was then appointed by Turnbull to the ABC board in late 2014 to make sure his review cuts and other changes were carried out and to keep an eye on the broadcaster. By then, Turnbull and Tony Abbott had cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the ABC budget.
As a board member, Lewis isn’t available to carry out the latest review, but there’s a better replacement: former Foxtel boss Peter Tonagh, who’ll apparently be appointed with former Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) member and acting chairman Richard Bean. Like the last review, the government has already made up its mind and slashed more funding from the ABC — more than $83 million was cut in the May budget. Tonagh was forced out of Foxtel in January and replaced by Lachlan Murdoch favourite Patrick Delaney when Foxtel and Fox Sports were merged. It means that the former Murdoch exec will be in the box seat to follow Lewis onto the board after the review is done.
One of the failures of the Howard government was that it attempted to stack the ABC board with right-wing ideologues like Michael Kroger and Janet Albrechtsen, but because they knew nothing about broadcasting, their presence on the board merely freed up management to pursue their own agenda, unrestrained by a board capable of asking informed questions. Turnbull is taking a different approach, of putting reliable media figures like Lewis and someone from the Murdoch stable in positions of authority over the hated broadcaster.
It’s only the latest in a long line of pro-Murdoch, anti-ABC actions by the government, which include:
- demonisation of the ABC for covering revelations from Edward Snowden about the behaviour of Australian spies;
- cutting the ABC budget (twice) by hundreds of millions, while handing News Corp $30 million with no conditions for “women’s sport” on Foxtel;
- firing a constant barrage of vexatious complaints about journalists such as Emma Alberici at the ABC;
- giving an Australia Day award to the head of Sky News;
- killing off the ABC-run international broadcasting service a year into its 10-year contract;
- omitting News Corp from its prosecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery over the Timor-Leste bugging crime, despite News Corp breaking the story in May 2013, while targeting Alberici and other ABC journalists; and
- refusing to order its corrupt client state, Nauru, to drop its ban on the ABC (leading to News Corp journalists scabbing on the Press Gallery’s resulting refusal to cover the Pacific Island Forum).
The sooner we remove this bunch of fascist Murdoch stooges, the better this nation will be going forward. They don’t want an independent & unbiased broadcaster, they want a pro-government (or, more specifically, pro-Coalition) broadcaster in the mould of Sky-News.
Which reminds me, I still want to know what happened to *our* $30m that was given to Foxtel.
What’s left for Turnbull to shed of his former self : that had people fooled for so long in thinking he was a “different kind of politician” with the nation’s interests at heart?
Turnbull is a flake on a good day and a fraud the rest of the time.
He has never created anything original and has simply been in the right place at the right time to clip someone else’s ticket.
Agree, +.
Dear Klewso,
He fooled me. I have to admit it. I think that we all have this fantasy in moments of weakness that one day a person in power will be decent and honourable, and will eschew the Machiavellian instinct that plagues all who have gone before them.
But it is just that: A fantasy.
As Chris Hedges has articulated:
There is no time to play the game of politics. In the words of Karl Popper, the question is not how to get good people to rule, because most people attracted to power are mediocre at best. (Or in Juniors’s case venal) Instead, the question is, “How do you make the power elite frightened of you?”
I am sorry I strayed from this self-evident truth. It will not happen again.
Malcom is a Prick of colossal proportions. It was obvious right from the start.
Regards
RJG
I know that feeling …… the number of times I’ve been woken up by women trying to gnaw their arm off ……
The ALP will need to form a special Dept. solely focused on to clearing out the IPA/Murdoch detritus from the APS…..There are still Howard era appointees that Rudd and Gillard were too magnanimous to dump. Get rid of the lot of them Shorten.
I hope that the right wing of the Liberal have got it wrong and that the overwhelming majority of Australians want the ABC to be restored to its vital role as an effective national broadcaster. If I am right then the government that replaces them will need to address the issue. Just in case, we need a strong expression of dissatisfaction in each of the coming by-elections.
Based on the prosecution of Witness K etc and their complicity in spying on our near neighbour the coalition has reached new lows in double standards. Their attack on free speech and freedom of the press and attacks on the only broadcaster we trust along with their actions to delay the Royal commission will surely see them voted out of power at the next election. My concern is that Bill Shorten appears to support these same standards re the prosecution of Witness K so how do we bring honesty and open government back to the people who pay for these pretenders. Instead of door stops come and speak to real people and they will tell you what is needed to restore trust and justify keeping your job running the country.