Crikey readers remain torn on the significance of and solutions for the “firestorm” engulfing management at the ABC. Elsewhere, readers appreciated a nuanced view of Kerryn Phelps as both hero and a poor political alternative.
On the government’s involvement in ABC staffing matters
Joe Boswell writes: Our ex-PM never demanded the sacking of anyone at the ABC. He’s just like Henry II, who never ordered anyone to murder Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry, very innocently no doubt, only asked his knights, “who will rid me of this troublesome priest?”. The rest, as they say, is history.
Robert Smith writes: I wonder if all this would have been kept quiet if they hadn’t sacked Guthrie and this behaviour would never have surfaced.
The chairman is being portrayed as a Liberal stooge, but it may just have been he was desperate for the government to provide funding for his big digital project and felt he had to go along to obtain it.
BeenAround writes: There really is no depth of ethical iniquity the Liberal Party will not plumb. I am only just starting to join the dots on the “culture war” thing. And at its core is a hatred of authentic democracy. An intolerance of pluralism, or at least the part pf the spectrum immediately to the left of the right wing nutters in the coalition. That Turnbull entered the fray the way that has been reported is staggering. I really thought Turnbull was better than that.
On Kerryn Phelps, candidate for Wentworth, as a ‘third way’
Dog’s Breakfast writes: Phelps tends strongly towards the neoliberal economically, and in standard neoliberal ways barely understands it (the economy) at all. That she is socially progressive is as likely a matter of personal circumstance as any deep philosophical commitment.
Sean Arthur writes: I think that Razer’s assessment is nuanced and in the internet years this distinction can be confusing. We tend to either blindly support or hate with a passion. This piece does neither and in the process explains quite a bit.
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