http://sgp1.paddington.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/transcript_712.asp
|   Hijack at the ABC PRESENTER - JIM WALEY: The winds of change are blowing through the ABC. To some they are a much needed breath of fresh air, to others a hurricane that's toppling the pillars of the ABC, its integrity and independence. The sackings, purges and budget cuts that have marked the eight month tenure of new managing director Jonathan Shier are seen by many staff as a deliberate dumbing down of the ABC, a conservative plot to change the culture of the ABC, teach the staff some respect for the views of the political right and discourage criticism of the government. This could just be conspiracy theory run wild, but Sunday's investigative reporter John Lyons has unearthed evidence of what looks very like political interference coming from the top of the ABC. His report is our cover story. [Excerpt from The Games] GINA RILEY - The Games: Look at this. JOHN CLARKE - The Games: Well, what is it? RILEY: We send this overseas. CLARKE: Yeah, what is it? RILEY: The rest of the world wants John Howard to apologise. CLARKE: Yeah, correct. RILEY: Sit down. JOHN HOWARD - ACTOR: Good evening. My name is John Howard, and I'm speaking to you from Sydney, Australia, host city of the Year 2000 Olympic Games. [end excerpt] REPORTER - JOHN LYONS: Under Australian law, what happened after this broadcast should never happen. Pressure to try to censor political satire on the ABC. [Excerpt from The Games] HOWARD: I speak for all Australians in expressing a profound sorrow to the Aboriginal people. I am sorry. [end excerpt] REPORTER: This skit got to air, but the repercussions were extraordinary and have been kept secret inside the ABC until now. Today Sunday reveals the winds of political interference at the national broadcaster, how a drama producer was rebuked for the satire based on the other John Howard's refusal to make an apology to Aboriginal stolen children, a rebuke that is a clear, flagrant breach of the ABC's Charter of Independence required by the ABC Act. HOWARD: The ABC must, as a national broadcaster, have independence from the government of the day - must -otherwise we don't have an organisation that can represent the views of all the people. JONATHAN SHIER - MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ABC: But I have to tell you, all's up for grabs. All's up for grabs. REPORTER: In Jonathan Shier's ABC, this is year zero. SHIER: Dangerous territory this, sorry guys, dangerous territory but, you know, I have to say when I see the same thing three times I want to switch off. And I'm thinking, and I work there. I mean, I care. What about those other people? REPORTER: When this man returned to run the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after twenty-four years overseas, the organisation braced itself for what many, both inside and outside, agreed was a much needed shake-up. SHIER: A bit of respect goes a long way. REPORTER: But few could have anticipated the brutality of the sackings and purges in the largest changes in the corporation's history - the Shier revolution. DAVID ELSTEIN - CHANNEL 5 UK: He takes aim and shoots. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if there's blood on the floor at the ABC. CHRISTOPHER PEARSON - FORMER HOWARD SPEECH WRITER: Turmoil is a healthy outcome in a situation like the ABC's. The ABC's basic problem is that it's been captured by its staff. HUGH MCGOWAN - FORMER ABC CHIEF PROGRAMMER: It's frightening because I don't know if he understands quality at all. It's frightening because he has thrown out people who haven't been given a go. REPORTER: The upheaval wrought by Jonathan Shier has distracted attention from an even more important story, how the Liberal Party has achieved something it has long coveted: a majority of its board appointments with current or past allegiances to coalition parties. REPORTER: Let me put to you a very blunt question: Has the board of the ABC been hijacked by the Liberal Party? DONALD MCDONALD - ABC CHAIRMAN: Oh, come off it. That's an absurd question. REPORTER: So sensitive is the ABC chairman Donald McDonald about issues relating to Jonathan Shier's management style and the Liberal Party's agenda, that he tried to walk out of an interview with Sunday, saying the ABC's 7.30 Report was able to do its interviews in five minutes. MCDONALD: I'm leaving now. I'll give you five minutes. REPORTER: Okay. MCDONALD: The 7.30 Report can do wonderful things in ... REPORTER: Well, they're obviously ... MCDONALD: ... worthwhile in five minutes. REPORTER: They do it their way, we do it... MCDONALD: More or less as though I'm sitting in the same place. REPORTER: Today Sunday will reveal what is really happening on the ground as the Shier cyclone circles overhead. How the close friendship between Donald McDonald and the Prime Minister John Howard has had some ABC managers pre-emptively reacting to perceived political pressure. PHILLIP ADAMS - FORMER ABC REPORTER: You were clearly one of John Howard's most vocal and visible opponents. What would we do if we were asked to remove you from the program? We were merely reading the wind and anticipating our possible responses. REPORTER: And the man who was chief programmer of the ABC for four years reveals his view that the most senior head of news and current affairs, Paul Williams, was sacked because of the desire of the Howard government to remove him, which would be a clear breach of the central tenet of the ABC's charter, independence from the government. MCGOWAN: Politically motivated, obviously. SHIER: A lot of people have reminded me of the charter. I'm a lawyer, so I read the charter before I went to the interview. I have to tell you, inform, educate and entertain is not very restraining if you are malintentioned. REPORTER: Sunday also details a political bombshell - a secret proposal to break up and sell off parts of the ABC. Even after seven months, ABC insiders know little of their new boss. This address to staff in June was never broadcast, though a copy was leaked to Sunday by a former employee. It shows Jonathan Shier's skill with delivering a sales pitch. ABC SPOKESMAN: This is a private meeting with ABC staff. We would ask that all our journalists respect that. REPORTER: Most ABC staff and managers were approached were too nervous to be interviewed. ABC Corporate banned us from filming inside ABC production units. SHIER: You don't know where you sit at the moment. But I know where you sit. But I suspect a lot of you can make that happen very well. REPORTER: Jonathan Shier was very much a surprise candidate for the ABC job. One of Shier's former London colleagues, David Elstein, said after Thames TV lost its licence Shier was a bit unemployed because of the enemies he'd made. ELSTEIN: But I think he was disappointed and I think he felt quite keenly the loss of status. REPORTER: Eventually Shier found a position at Baltic TV, which, to put into context, is smaller than Australia's fourth network, Channel Ten. ELSTEIN: To have fallen on his feet at the ABC must be like a dream come true. I mean it's ... I'm sure he'd rather be working at a commercial broadcaster. REPORTER: Donald McDonald came to the rescue. Not only did the ABC have a job for Shier, it had the top job for him. His full-time job prior to the ABC was in Baltic Television. Had he done anything there that suggested that he'd be good for running the ABC? MCDONALD: The board has been extremely happy with that appointment. I don't really need to canvass with you or anybody else what his prior experience was. REPORTER: Jonathan Shier had trailed his coat. He approached magazine publisher Australian Consolidated Press for a job but was knocked back. He approached Cable and Wireless Optus for a job and was again knocked back. MCDONALD: What was the relevance of that? REPORTER: Well, if two other major Australian companies felt he wasn't good enough for them to give a job to, how does he end up as the managing director of an organisation that gets five hundred million dollars a year of public money? MCDONALD: Well, I suggest to you they probably made mistakes, both of them. ELSTEIN: When he was appointed some people were astonished. Others were impressed that an organisation like ABC would take as high a risk as that because he's quite an emotional person. He's prone to outbursts of aggression and occasionally of petulance and it's not always easy for him to control that. REPORTER: As chairman you argued the case before the board for Jonathan Shier's appointment. What did you find compelling about him? MCDONALD: I don't know what you mean that I argued the case. REPORTER: You took his name to the board. What did you as chairman find compelling about him? MCDONALD: Well, I don't want to be tiresome about the selection process, but I didn't take his name to the board. The board, the whole of the board, was the less ... selection process. REPORTER: After the other four candidates on the shortlist fell through, Donald McDonald became desperate. Jonathan Shier was now the last man standing. But even one of Shier's own referees shocked head-hunters when he told them not to hire him because of his extremely short fuse. Donald McDonald then telephoned Sam Chisholm in London, the former Australian TV executive, for his opinion. Chisholm also urged against Shier being hired. In his characteristically blunt way he said, don't touch him. [Excerpt from first TV broadcast, 1956] BROADCASTER: This is television. BRUCE GYNGELL - FIRST TV BROADCASTER: Good evening and welcome to television. [end excerpt] REPORTER: In the end, it was a reference from the late Bruce Gyngell, the first man on Australian television, that got Jonathan Shier the ABC job. Gyngell and Shier had been part of a supper club in London but had never worked together. Early this year, Bruce Gyngell told me there were three reasons he recommended Shier for the job. Quote: he had not lived in Australia for a long time, he had never worked at the ABC, and he had never been part of broadcasting in Australia. All of this meant Shier would be able to bring a new light to the ABC. Bruce Gyngell admitted that his recommendation of Jonathan Shier had been based on a gut feeling. MCGOWAN: I'm just terrified that the public, and especially ABC viewers, do not realise just how serious the situation is at the moment. REPORTER: The French Riviera, Jonathan Shier enjoying himself here last month at the ritzy Carlton Hotel in Cannes, attending a television conference. Shier showed he's not one to cut costs. In Cannes he entertained lavishly, taking eight ABC managers with him. In contrast, the Nine Network sent three. Shier likes the good life, insisting on being chauffeur-driven. One of the extraordinary aspects of the seven months since Jonathan Shier took over is the huge cost blow out. Seachange, the ABC's most successful drama ever, was developed by former drama chief Sue Masters. SHIER: I would like to think that Sue Masters will be head of drama. REPORTER: But Shier lost to Channel Ten his drama guru, whose ABC projects were nominated for fifteen AFI Awards this month. Sue Masters was paid less than one hundred thousand dollars a year, but has been replaced by two people with a net salary of more than five hundred thousand dollars a year. Friends say Sue Masters' major concern was the dwindling budget for ABC produced drama. MCGOWAN: Oh, it's a huge loss. I mean, just the contribution of Seachange lifted our ratings ginormously and helped that Sunday seven-thirty timeslot. Sue did a wonderful job for the ABC and to see her depart was an absolute tragedy. I would not have let her go. REPORTER: The pattern of more managers for more pay has been repeated throughout the new, bloated structure. In Shier's new regime, layers of positions still have to be filled. On top of this, he has paid far more than legally required to many of the forty or so executives sacked, in the hope they will not speak to the media. Many remain on full pay with their cars and mobile phones still being paid for months after they have been sacked. MCGOWAN: Oh, it's amateursville. But highly dangerous. I shouldn't be flip about it, it's highly dangerous. REPORTER: Why is it highly dangerous? MCGOWAN: Well, I mean, you can't just start throwing people out of an organisation without knowing them. Without knowing the standard of their work. Come on. REPORTER: For his part, the Minister responsible for the ABC, Richard Alston, seems unperturbed. RICHARD ALSTON - FEDERAL MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS: I can well understand that a lot of people will feel threatened by that, just as happens with any other major organisation. I mean, BHP and others have had almost near death experiences and they come through much the stronger, and there's no reason why it shouldn't happen here just as it happened with the BBC some years ago. REPORTER: Shier's restructuring suffered a setback when the Industrial Commission ruled that many of the changes were in breach of agreements signed by the ABC only weeks before. ALSTON: Well, I don't think we'd be comfortable about someone breaching the law - quite the opposite. But we certainly would be supportive of someone who was determined to get the best people in place, who had a performance pay approach and who was concerned with real value for money. And if that means less people being paid more, as long as the end result is a quality outcome, then it's a matter for him. REPORTER: In fact, Shier has employed more people being paid much more. Even on the ABC's own official figures, twelve senior directors have replaced seven, at an extra cost of a million dollars a year. Yet chairman McDonald insists the overall salaries fund won't be increased. Something doesn't add up. How are you going to pay for all those extra positions? Will something give? MCDONALD: No, nothing will give. It's my understanding that the budget for salaries will not increase. REPORTER: Shier returned from his European trip in time for this week's board meeting, which dealt with major budget tightening. [Excerpt from ABC News] NEWSREADER: There's a flash - the missile fighter is coming straight over again. [End excerpt] REPORTER: To pay for its cost blowouts, the ABC is going to have to make massive cuts to its news and current affairs budget, once considered its central pillar. [Excerpt from ABC TV] NEWSREADER: Real journalism. ABC TV, radio and online. [End excerpt] MCGOWAN: If change is for the good, I'll be in there. But one is ... I've seen television stations collapse because people rush in and say, oh, the predecessor was, you know, a twit and we've got to do this and we've got to do that and the whole thing falls over. REPORTER: ABC insiders say there's a nervousness here in the boardroom, a reluctance to discuss Shier's spending on his own travel costs. Those insiders say that if the board concludes Donald McDonald has made a mistake with Shier, they will have a trigger to sack Shier by his cost blow out, especially if the spending is on himself. Could you give us an estimate of how much Jonathan Shier has spent on overseas travel in his first six months? MCDONALD: He has not spent anything on his international travel that isn't entirely appropriate. REPORTER: Why won't you tell the public? I thought the ABC was answerable to the public. MCDONALD: Because it's spectacularly trivial, inappropriate sort of question. REPORTER: Ian Henschke is a long time ABC reporter on Landline. Now the staff-elected member of the ABC board, even he is nervous of crossing Shier and McDonald. In the growing culture of fear and lack of accountability, Donald McDonald urged him not to appear on Sunday. IAN HENSCHKE - ABC: Donald McDonald didn't stop ... try to stop me talking to you. Donald McDonald ... I wouldn't ... I don't ... REPORTER: It was his express wish, though? HENSCHKE: No, no, no, no. I do not wish to discuss this particular issue. REPORTER: Jonathan Shier, amid massive cutbacks, is spending a huge amount of money on redundancies, on extra management and on his own travel and overseas expenses and entertainment. HENSCHKE: I do not ... I am not my brother's keeper. I do not follow Jonathan Shier's moves. I do not know what his moves are. I mean, these are questions that you should ask Jonathan Shier. REPORTER: Staff resentment of Jonathan Shier's overseas travel has been fuelled by Shier himself, with his repeated implication that he doesn't need the ABC as much as the ABC needs him. MCGOWAN: Oh, he said he was independently wealthy and really didn't need the job at the ABC, which I found to be quite interesting. REPORTER: Why do you think he was telling people that? MCGOWAN: I think he might have been slightly embarrassed about the small figure. SHIER: You are here to make quality output. If you're not here for that reason, please, please let somebody else who's walking the streets of Australia take your place. Because one of the great things you learn when you use these head-hunters and all these other people you use, is the number of people who are not here, who would like to be here. MCGOWAN: To have a managing director not give the staff a chance to prove themselves, but to start looking - head-hunting - two months before he actually takes up his position is terrifying. INQUIRY SPOKESMAN: Now, what you've admitted is the chief spoke to the chairman, does the chairman have the authority ... REPORTER: One enduring mystery is how Jonathan Shier knew who to sack within days of taking over the job. During a Senates Estimates Committee hearing in May, Shier was called to account about some of his early moves. SHIER: ... to decide whether he's ... to ask him whether he's prepared to answer questions ... REPORTER: Senators grilled him on how he was able to employ headhunting firms to look for talent with no ABC history months before he took up his own job. INQUIRY SPOKESMAN: So, this was done on the chairman's authority, was it, Mr Shear [sic]? SHIER: Well, I'm not precious, but it's Mr Shier. I certainly asked the chairman and it was done on the chairman's approval ... with the chairman's authority. CARO LLEWELLYN - FORMER ABC EMPLOYEE: Dear Jonathan and Sue, today I'm leaving the position as Radio National's marketing manager with a great deal of sadness. REPORTER: Other ABC staff have gone of their own accord when Shier's reshuffles have made their position untenable. Caro Llewellyn wrote a passionate email to Jonathan Shier the day she left. LLEWELLYN: I realised I had to go. This is a demotion for me and for many of my colleagues and I feel you will lose a lot of very good people with this move. REPORTER: Without any consultation, the name of her department was changed and her position was downgraded. So are you concerned about the future of the ABC and some of your former colleagues? LLEWELLYN: Yes. That's why I'm here (laughs). The ABC is a very, very special place and it's not something that you just go in and muck around with for the sake of mucking around. It actually works very, very well. The quality that it produces with the number of people that it has on its staff is amazing. REPORTER: Jonathan Shier inherited a house divided. After years of restructuring and the Howard government's ten per cent Budget cut in 1996, ABC staff were already split. One of the few employees who will speak in support of the Shier agenda is staff-elected board member, Ian Henschke. HENSCHKE: I think Jonathan Shier is trying to bring the ABC into the twenty-first century. His vision includes three areas: radio, TV and online. And if you think about radio, in the beginning was the word, that was radio, the word was made flesh through television and then you've got the spirit that moves all things, which is online media. REPORTER: Sunday could find no other staff prepared to endorse Jonathan Shier, let alone this wholeheartedly. Do you think most staff are supporting his changes at the moment. HENSCHKE: I haven't done a survey of the staff, so I wouldn't know what the overall feeling is. REPORTER: In the four weeks since Ian Henschke did this interview, he changed his mind about Shier, saying the managing director was pursuing a risky strategy which would cost many jobs. MERRICK amp; ROSSO - JJJ BROADCASTERS: On Triple J, that's Rage Against the Machine, voice of the voiceless ... REPORTER: The ABC, with its irreverent outlets such as the youth network Triple J, has long had a proud sense of independence and forthright comment. But today staff are looking over their shoulders. ROSSO: Gosh, it's seventeen minutes away from four with Merrick and Rosso, and the crew's still here filming the red light going on and off. MERRICK: Yes (laughs). Oh, this is Triple J. Shier's going to have a look at our pay and he's just going to go, what do I pay those monkeys for. JEN OLDERSHAW - JJJ PRODUCER: And that's on the busy days. MERRICK: Yeah. Yeah. HOWARD: I'm hearing screaming about what's happening in the ABC. REPORTER: In part two, we reveal clear political interference in the national broadcaster, which means the ABC independence from government has been breached. [commercial break] PRESENTER: Since the Howard government came to office on 1996 there have been seven appointments to the board of the ABC. All but one are associated with the conservative side of politics. At the same time, ABC staff have complained of unprecedented political interference in what they put to air, from political satire to acerbic comment. John Lyons continues our cover story. [excerpt from The Games] JOHN HOWARD - THE GAMES: I am sorry, we are sorry. Let the world know and understand that it is with this sorrow that we as a nation will grow and seek a better, a fairer and a wiser future. Thank you. GINA RILEY - THE GAMES: What do you think? [end excerpt] REPORTER: The ABC's cult satire The Games, borrowing John Howard the actor, star of the ABC's most successful drama Seachange, to deliver the apology John Howard the Prime Minister would not. [Excerpt from The Games] RILEY: Prime Minister, this is going overseas. No one overseas knows what the Australian Prime Minister looks like. JOHN CLARKE - THE GAMES: Do you think? RILEY: Hey, look the building next door has closed circuit television. I pump the tape through there to ... CLARKE: Oh yes. [End excerpt] REPORTER: Today Sunday reveals the political pressures now compromising this kind of artistic freedom. HOWARD: I'm hearing screaming about what's happening in the ABC. REPORTER: Seachange is said to be the Prime Minister's favourite TV show. Here is its much loved character mayor, Bob Jelly, sending him up, satirising the PM's stand on Aboriginal reconciliation and what he calls the black arm band view of history. HOWARD: I was proud to do it, I was glad that for once, you know, I could be proud to have the name that I have and that it was useful. REPORTER: But this proud independence in ABC programming has been breached, and artists, journalists and producers at one of the country's major cultural institutions are now feeling a distinct culture of political pressure. HOWARD: Whenever an executive or anyone in any form of control in the ABC gets touchy about a certain political subject because they're afraid of losing funding or because they're afraid of what the government of the day might think, then it's a worry because it goes against the independence of the ABC to either satirise or make political comment. [Excerpt from The Games] HOWARD: We are one of the few countries on earth with our own sky. [End excerpt] REPORTER: Actor John Howard cleared his appearance on The Games withSeachange producer Sally Ayre-Smith. She was rebuked by a senior ABC executive whom she declined to name. The rebuke of creative people once would have been considered unacceptable as blatant political interference and a clear breach of the ABC's charter of independence. Such a provable breach of the ABC charter could now require the ABC to initiate an independent inquiry. HOWARD: Well, traditionally that's what fools are for - to mock the king and the court. And that's how I see at least half of my role. One is to satirise and make stories of Australian people no matter who they are, and the other one is to mock authority (laughs). And so by doing that, to open our minds to whether things are going well or not, or whether they could be improved or not. REPORTER: The Seachange rebuke was not an isolated case. After ABC producers aired Malcolm Fraser's reconciliation speech in August, which dominated the news agenda for days, another rebuke came from above. MALCOLM FRASER - FORMER PRIME MINISTER: Surely it is reason enough to shut the doors of the courts and solve the issues politically which is what ought to happen, which is what reconciliation demands. REPORTER: This time the complaint came from new head of television, Gail Jarvis. Jarvis told producers the speech in which Malcolm Fraser criticised the Prime Minister should not be broadcast except in the news. Jarvis confirmed she rebuked commissioning editor June Pritchard. Jarvis claims her complaint was due to cost and producers going behind her back. Producers insist the rebuke was political. (Excerpt from Mr Magoo) MR MAGOO: Oh Mr Magoo, you've done it again. (End excerpt) PHILLIP ADAMS - FORMER ABC BROADCASTER: And I know, for example, that on one occasion on radio I referred to the Prime Minister as Mr Magoo. It was suggested to me by management that I should apologise. REPORTER: ABC broadcaster Phillip Adams believes he too has been the victim of the new mood of political self-censorship at the ABC. Notoriously disliked in conservative circles, Adams regularly criticises the Howard government on hisLate Night Live program on Radio National. ADAMS: I have always regarded Mr Howard as not being very good at perceiving big pictures. REPORTER: Now, can you tell us who it was who instructed you or told you that you should apologise? ADAMS: I was neither instructed nor told, I was asked, and I declined to do so. REPORTER: Who asked you? ADAMS: It was the manager of Radio National. REPORTER: Soon after the Mr Magoo incident in July, Phillip Adams was visited by that manager, Steven Alward, here at home. ADAMS: I was told then that the issue of me had gone to the board, that Donald McDonald had taken it to the board, and that the board had decided that I was surplus to requirements. When I put this to ... REPORTER: To pre-empt what he claimed was an attempt to remove him, Adams released his version of the conversation. If we don't sack you we'll get the sack ourselves, Adams says Alward told him. Alward denies this version, but would not give his own. ADAMS: There's no question that that meeting was as a consequence of political pressure, either real or perceived, and in fact I have that in writing from the manager of Radio National. REPORTER: In an extraordinary admission which has not been published until now, Alward wrote to Adams saying his concern was due to perceived political pressure. ADAMS: (reading from letter from Steven Alward) We made it clear that we were talking hypothetically. There was a new regime at the ABC. They were clearly one of John Howard's most vocal and visible opponents. There were regular complaints about you, which we defended you against. And what would we do if we were asked to remove you from the program? We made it clear that this had not been proposed by anyone. We were merely reading the wind and anticipating our possible responses. REPORTER: Donald McDonald also denied the pressure had come from him or the board. Adams believes the trend to managers reading the wind of political pressure is just as dangerous. ADAMS: Now, if McDonald is telling the truth - and he is a man of honour - it means that what I was told by Radio National management was a classic case of the pre-emptive buckle. REPORTER: Out of the controversy, Adams managed to salvage another twelve month contract and remains on air. But this incident and the rebukes over theSeachange and Malcolm Fraser cases raises a serious question over politicisation of the ABC, a politicisation which is all too clear when you take a close look at the membership of the ABC board. The majority of the Howard government-appointed members have current or past associations with the conservative party. Managing director Jonathan Shier was a member of the Liberal Party's Federal Executive - a fact he did not declare on the CV he submitted for the ABC job. Michael Kroger is the former high profile Victorian Liberal Party President. Ross McLean was the Liberal Party's Member for Perth for eight years. The newest member of the board, Leith Boulley, was a member of the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party. REPORTER: In terms of intellectual rigour, who on the board would challenge the prevailing view and philosophies of the Coalition government? RICHARD ALSTON - FEDERAL MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS: Well, I'm not sure that you want people there, with their designated task being to challenge the political orthodoxies, or views, of one political side rather than another. I mean, that is having a political debate. REPORTER: The Liberal Party's presence seems to be everywhere, even the body set up by the ABC to seek community input has a Liberal Party identity. The convenor of the National Advisory Council Deborah Klika was personally selected by Donald McDonald. She has run for Liberal Party pre-selection in Sydney. Even the chair of that is a member - declared member - of the Liberal Party. DONALD MCDONALD - ABC CHAIRMAN: I ... REPORTER: Do you think they're getting ... MCDONALD: ... wasn't aware that it was an illegal organisation, or an illegal association. Why should it be so astonishing that anybody connected with the ABC should be even interested in politics, let alone connected to the Liberal Party? REPORTER: Donald McDonald's newly appointed corporate and media adviser, Irene O'Brien, is a former staffer to two senior New South Wales Liberals. She offended the ABC's award winning training staff when, after two weeks in the organisation, she said ABC training needed to be more professional. REPORTER: How would she know? She's been here two weeks. Jonathan Shier's been here six months. How would either of them know to say that? MCDONALD: Jonathan Shier has taken an extraordinary range of advice from a very large number of people within the organisation. And if he has formed the view that changes need to be made to our training methods, I'm happy to trust that. REPORTER: To check whether senior Liberals had any foreknowledge of Jonathan Shier's appointment, Sunday consulted Christopher Pearson, a former Howard speechwriter with strong contacts in the government. Behind the scenes, what do you think was the reality of Jonathan Shier's appointment? Do you think it was cleared with the Minister and the Prime Minister? CHRISTOPHER PEARSON - FORMER HOWARD SPEECHWRITER: I think that boards, when they're making those sorts of decisions, have informal conversations with the political class. REPORTER: But do you think that happened, or do you know that those informal conversations happened? PEARSON: I ... this is not a question I feel disposed to answer. (Laughs) REPORTER: Another Adelaide conservative, the new ABC deputy chair, Professor Judith Sloan, is likewise extremely sensitive about the possible politicisation of the board. One board source told Sunday that in one meeting Professor Sloan actually said, the government won't be happy with that. Sunday's source inside the board meeting says Sloan made the comments during a debate on digital television. In two conversations over the last month, Professor Sloan said she may have made those comments but has been misinterpreted. She said she was merely trying to ensure that the ABC was seen as worthy of government funding. To show the reality of the ABC board, she said ABC boards in the past have not acted naively or purely. Professor Sloan, I want to talk to you about the digital television debate and when you used the phrase in one board meeting, the government won't be happy with that, what exactly did you mean? PROFESSOR JUDITH SLOAN - ABC DEPUTY CHAIR: Well, I'm not sure I'm ... I don't think I want to answer any of this. I'm not at all happy, John, about the fact that there seem to have been confidences divulged and I've made my point very clear, believe me. REPORTER: Professor Sloan revealed she had complained angrily to this week's board meeting that her comment that the government won't be happy with that was leaked to our program. SLOAN: Well, I think I've explained this to you and, I mean, in a sense, this probably is kind of deal-breaking arrangement. I mean, I don't ... I really don't want to have this go on, actually. I mean, I'll have a conversation with you, but I don't want to be taped on this. REPORTER: With that, the deputy chair of the ABC walked off. And therefore the ABC board should keep in mind that if it upsets the government, it won't get its full funding, that it has to be a worthy organisation. SLOAN: Blah, blah, blah. I'm not going ... I mean, the kind of conversation which says someone said, I said at the board, I'm not going to partake of that conversation. It's absolutely confidential what's said in the board and so if someone's divulged that I'm not going to ... oh, can you stop. REPORTER: Does that irk you a bit as a chairman, that the deputy chair is couching things in terms of the government won't be happy with that? MCDONALD: You must have already assumed that I wouldn't discuss with you any details of what is discussed at board meetings, and I'm not going to. REPORTER: Now a claim that the hard edge of political influence was at work in the long-time bastion of ABC independence, news and current affairs. Former ABC programmer Hugh McGowan claims the ousting of news and current affairs chief Paul Williams was on the agenda well before Jonathan Shier even arrived. HUGH MCGOWAN - FORMER ABC PROGRAMMER: I mean, how before ... two months before you take over a position can you say, we will replace the head of news and current affairs? How can you do it? You've got a brilliant chap there and you throw him out. It just doesn't add up, unless he's done something to upset somebody. MCDONALD: That had nothing to do with the federal government. REPORTER: Hugh McGowan says the decision to sack him was taken two months before Jonathan Shier even arrived, though. MCDONALD: Well, Hugh has many skills but that sort of prescient seems to me quite astonishing. REPORTER: Jonathan Shier told staff in June the ABC's news and current affairs programs were not sacred. (Excerpt from ABC meeting) UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, what fate do you have in mind for programs likeAM, The World Today, and PM, Lateline and 7.30 Report? JONATHAN SHIER - ABC MANAGING DIRECTOR: Well, look, let's deal with the thorny subject of The 7.30 Report. I mean, you know, everyone talks to me about The 7.30 Report, and they always link it to state-based broadcasting, do I want it? And, you know, first of all, I don't know whether 7.30 is the right place to be doing this anyway. I'll be told. I'll listen. Secondly, I don't know whether the format's right. Thirdly, I haven't addressed the state issue yet. But I have to tell you all's up for grabs. All's up for grabs. But the idea that incarnate in this program is the entire raison d'tre of the ABC and that what everybody else does is sort of peripheral is not something I'm prepared to accept. You know what the problem is, it shouldn't even be an issue. The programs should be so good no-one should be asking the question. (Excerpt from PM) MARK COLVIN - PM PRESENTER: Coming up tonight on PM, when hundreds of thousands ... (End excerpt) REPORTER: Last week came the leaking of a proposal from one of Shier's new managers, the head of local radio. It calls for the cutting back of PM and other current affairs programs, even giving managers of local stations the ability to drop them. News staff say they fear the major 7.45 morning bulletin is next. COLVIN: I think it's a very dangerous period if you've got threats to editorial independence, integrity, if you've got threats to what the journalism of the ABC does, which is very central not only to the ABC, but to the national life, I think. JOHN MILLARD - ABC PRODUCER: The top of the list is the word independence, the genuine independence. I'm not sure, I haven't got a transcript of your talk. But whilst I liked a lot of the things you said, I didn't hear you use that word, let alone emphasise it and put it at the top of the list. SHIER: My problem is the people who value independence are apparently not enough because they watch programs that are not independent. REPORTER: Whatever the truth about political targeting of ABC journalism, it's clear that in the Shier game plan the news and current affairs empire is on the retreat. SHIER: Somebody said we had nine hundred people in news and current affairs in the corporation and ten in education. I don't know whether those figures are right or wrong. All I know is it sends a huge message in terms of priorities. Not that news and current affairs isn't a priority but certainly education apparently isn't. REPORTER: Ironically, salvation for the journalism of the ABC may lie in the rural and regional heartland of the National Party side of government. Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals Leader, John Anderson, has spoken up against the Liberal tide in support of programs like The 7.30 Report. Is there a danger that sometimes the baby can be thrown out with the bathwater? Is that a danger that's existent? JOHN ANDERSON - DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: I think we're signalling that we do think it's a danger and we want to ensure that the ABC knows that we believe very strongly that shouldn't happen. (Excerpt from ABC advertisement) MALE VOICE-OVER: A portrait of Yvonne Kenny. Out now on CD at ABC shops, ABC centres, music ... (End excerpt) REPORTER: Sunday can also detail today a secret proposal to break up and sell off parts of the ABC. Despite repeated denials from members of the government, merchant bank Credit Suisse First Boston has done a detailed report on separating different business units within the ABC and selling those off, leaving only primary objective areas. So politically sensitive is the issue of the privatisation of parts of the ABC that nobody wanted to talk about this report. But Credit Suisse First Boston did confirm to us that it initiated the report last year, which looked at the separating, breaking up and selling off of parts of the ABC. It then sent this secret report to the Department of Finance's office of asset sales, but was told some time later that the issue was too politically sensitive. But something very odd happened. Early this year the ABC itself approached Credit Suisse First Boston, which has close links to the Liberal Party, to ask them to do a report into possible corporate deals. If Jonathan Shier or the board came to you as minister and said we've looked at the numbers, we believe it's in the ABC's best interest that some of these things can be sold off, what would your reaction to that be? ALSTON: We wouldn't have any difficulty with the ABC board reaching its own judgements about how they should operate, as long as it's consistent with their charter obligations. REPORTER: As the marketing line goes, it's your ABC. But increasingly, under Jonathan Shier and Donald McDonald, it's harder to see just which ABC we're paying for. DAVID ELSTEIN - CHANNEL 5 UK: It may turn out to be a scorched earth policy. Good luck to the ABC and all who sail in her, and I hope the captain of the ship doesn't drive you off the rocks. PRESENTER: John Lyons reporting there, the producer Mick O'Donnell. ENDS. Transcript provided by Rehame Australia Click here for a printer-friendly version. |
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