Peter Tonagh

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).