ABC Friends (Victoria)
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UpdateJune 2020 Vol 28, No. 2 Thrice Yearly Newsletter ABC Friends Margaret Reynolds A Call to Action!ABC Friends National President dollar budget but that is the budget of a BC Friends urge all our members single commercial television station!! How and supporters to get active in much more value does the ABC provide in electorate of the Communications Minister A defending the ABC as the Federal servicing all Australians through its various are constantly lobbying Paul Fletcher to Government gears up to further impose platforms and offices around Australia? let him know they expect him to act in the “economic sanctions” on Australian Public And where is the Chair of the ABC Board best interests of the ABC. Broadcasting. Ita Buttrose? Is she using her influence We can all message our local Members or There have been punitive cuts to the ABC as a friend of the Prime Minister to get a Senators by letter, email, text, or phone. over several years now but enough is much better deal for the ABC? Write to your local paper or phone your enough! In coming weeks you will hear of a Five local radio station. The ABC is an essential service as it has Year Plan for the ABC. It could so easily Remember the ABC does not belong demonstrated so effectively during the provide restoration of funding for public to any government. It belongs to and is devastating bush fires and pandemic broadcasting as part of Australia’s Social funded by Australian taxpayers so you crises. It is providing so much more with and Economic Recovery. Instead it is have good reason to expect your opinion so much less funding. rumoured to cut 200 jobs, close regional to be heard. offices and restrict Australian content. Government members and senators The ABC is an essential service and repeatedly pretend there is no funding You can stop this. Voter power can make urgently needs the restoration of its crisis and boast that the ABC has a billion a difference. The people of Bradfield in the funding. IPA is Wrecking our democracy 9 Letter from the Leader of Inside Update Quentin Dempster AO 10 Opposition, Anthony Albanese, MP 17 ABC wage freeze threatens Fact Check - Holding Public Figures Accountable 17 From the Editor 2 broadcaster’s independence 11 The Palace Letters 18 Impending Cuts at the ABC 3 Submission to the Royal Commission into National Natural The Friends’ Shop 18 A warning to the Government 4 Disaster Arrangements 12 Somerville cartoon 18 Vale Mark Ruse, Distinguished ABC Alumni Newsletter 13 Producer 5 The ABC’s Foreign Correspondents 19 Close to the Bone 14 Hundreds facing the sack with what the people think about the ABC 20 ABC cuts 6 Well Done ABC! 15 State News 22 For our ABC ‘tragics’ a pdf book 8 Cutting the ABC cuts public trust, NSW Branch News 28 a cost no democracy can afford 16 Political Q & A 8 ABC Friends National Update, July 2020, Vol 28, No 2 1 Update Publication Information From the Editor Update is published three times a year by ABC Friends National Inc. PO Box 3620 Manuka ACT 2603 Print Post approved: PP245059/00002. ABC – An Essential Service Branches Extracts from newspapers and other The special Bushfire Edition of Update Restrictions on gatherings throughout the publications appearing in Update do not necessarily reflect the views of the in February focussed on the vital role pandemic have prevented many of the members of ABC Friends. played by the ABC in keeping endangered normal branch activities from taking place, Update is distributed to all members of communities informed and safe. In including the launch of new branches ABC Friends as part of the membership a submission to the Bushfires Royal in the Western Suburbs of Sydney and fee. Update is also supplied to Commission (prepared by SA President Shoalhaven (NSW), but branches have journalists, politicians and libraries across Australia. Sue Pinnock), recognition of the ABC by been making creative use of technology, all Australians as an essential service is including Zoom gatherings, covered in Update is edited and produced in Sydney and contributions are welcome highlighted. Sue has written a summary of branch and state reports in Update. ACT from state and regional branches. Email that submission for this edition of Update. Region is preparing for the by-election your contribution (in Microsoft Word) to in Eden-Monaro on 4 July, and will be [email protected] or Close on the heels of the national post to address below bushfire emergency came the COVID19 very active in ensuring that the ABC is a major factor in people’s choice when they Material may be quoted or reproduced pandemic and, once again, the ABC has from Update provided the source is performed an essential public service as cast their votes. The electorate covers acknowledged and reproduction is sent the dependable source of information the South Coast of NSW and up into the to the Editor at the above email or postal Snowy Mountains, an area devastated by address. on a daily basis, including advice and instructions from state and federal the recent bushfires. Please contact ACT Would you like to receive government and public health officials, with Region Convenor Peter Lindenmayer at Update newsletter nightly segments on 7.30, often featuring [email protected] if you are able to electronically? Dr Norman Swan, and special editions of help in any way on or before election day. Save the planet’s trees and ABC Friends’ the Q&A program. printing and postage costs and read Recognition of an ABC Veteran Update on your tablet or computer. When It must be recognised that, over the past Update is published, you will receive an eight months, ABC staff have performed ABC Friends offers warm congratulations email with a link to the latest issue (each magnificently on order to ensure that the to veteran ABC reporter and Foreign newsletter is a 2-3MB PDF). Australian community is both informed Correspondent Sean Dorney, who has You can try this now by going to and safe, despite the savage funding cuts been awarded an AO in the Queen’s www.abcfriends.org.au, click on Birthday Honours just announced. In a long ‘News’, then ‘National Newsletter’. from an unsympathetic and unappreciative Federal Government. This despite many and distinguished career with the ABC, Who to write… calls from the community to increase Sean became a familiar voice reporting with Anyone seeking basic information funding to cover the ABC’s role as national great authority from The Pacific Region about writing to persons of influence emergency broadcaster. I must record my and Papua - New Guinea. Sean was one might find it helpful to go to personal appreciation of the 15 presenters of the 1,000 casualties in the staff cuts www.abcfriends.org.au, click on since 2014, depriving the ABC audience of ‘Get Involved’, then ‘Take Action’ where on ABC Classic for their extraordinarily you will find helpful addresses and ideas. creative use of music to sooth, comfort, his vast knowledge and experience of the challenge, sustain and entertain a radio region. Update Editor - Mal Hewitt audience from the very young to the very In closing, I quote Mark Scott, Managing PO Box 1391 North Sydney 2059 old, and the many ways in which they have Director, ABC, 2006-2016: “The world’s [email protected] connected with that audience. content is going to flood in. You can listen Production Manager - to great radio from all around the world. Angela Williamson Morgan Poll But who will tell Australian stories? Who will [email protected] ABC Friends Victoria is to be congratulated have local voices on the ground all around Assistant Editor - for commissioning a Roy Morgan poll of Australia? Who will celebrate Australian Dr Diana Wyndham community attitudes to the ABC, which culture? I think that is the space the public Cartoonist - Phil Somerville provides hard evidence of the extraordinary broadcaster will increasingly need to play.” Phil currently runs an online topical level of trust and confidence in which the My sincere thanks to all who have cartoon by paid subscription called Line ABC is held by all Australians. My thanks contributed to this edition of Update, but of Thought. Enquire at phil.somerville@ to Marcus May for providing the summary especially my incredible production team: somervillecartoons.com of survey results for this Update. Thanks Diana Wyndham, Angela Williamson and Layout Artist - Paul Martens also to Victorian Friends for producing the Paul Martens. [email protected] striking “Stop the Cuts” advertisement, Mal Hewitt OAM which appeared prominently in The ABC Friends Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald on 3 June. 2 ABC Friends National Update, July 2020, Vol 28, No 2 1995 there have been three efficiency Impending Cuts at the ABC reports – all have proved that it’s a myth that the ABC is inefficient is more and more difficult to run the ABC • One thing has improved, according Monica Attard as it should be run. to Paul Barry. There are not the same chats to Paul Barry ‘Culture Wars’ attacks as there were under • The ABC gets good ratings and the on 2SER 107.3 Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott when public loves the ABC and it agrees Fourth Estate Mitch Fifield was the Minister. Abbott that the ABC is doing a good job but Zoom Session boycotted Q & A. Under Morrison and the government says ‘no’ to additional 14 May 2020 Fletcher there is ‘no way’ Morrison would funding. Notes taken by contemplate this. [I think this is wishful Diana Wyndham • No one in Government is listening to thinking – Morrison’s fulsome praise for the argument: there have been massive Alan Jones is probably an indication of his COVID-19 payments and massive job dislike for the ABC].