How the ABC Charter was changed "quietly"

The commercial media hates the ABC.

They don't hate it when the ABC trains staff for the commercials to post.

But they really hate it anytime the institution does anything that might impinge about the commercial media's ability to make money. And right now that means digital content.

And so the commercial media has been outraged that when faced with budget cuts the ABC hasn't cut its investment in digital - in fact it has said it will be expanded. The ABC Board found justification for this in the ABC's Charter - which is enshrined in section 6 of its Act.

In The Australian today they howled:

The ABC’s foray into digital media services has been going on for a decade. But it was only last year that the Gillard government quietly changed the ABC charter to formalise the digital surge by Scott. Digital is now “a core function” of the ABC according to its board. Clearly, the charter needs a rewrite, to rein in the excesses of such digital mission creep and to refocus the board on the role of a modern public broadcaster.

In the AFR yesterday they howled:

Last year, the ABC’s Charter was quietly changed in Parliament to formally allow it to provide digital media services, which in fact it has been doing since the 1990s.

For reference, the legislation that amended the Charter was the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Convergence Review and Other Measures) Act 2013. This was far from legislation that was dealt with quietly.

It was part of the six bills in the media reform package introduced by Senator Conroy that caused howls of outrage, that Bob Carr claimed was the basis of his changing his leadership support and led to the aborted leadership challenge of March 2013. Seldom has a package of amendments achieved so much attention.

That News, Fairfax and the rest of the commercial media failed to note the change to the Charter reflects their continued limited understanding of the process of Government and of governance in the public sector.

The inclusion of the amendment to the Charter (together with the amendment that said the only broadcaster that could be funded for an overseas service was the ABC) shows just how much smarter Senator Conroy was than his opponents give him credit for.

*********************************
Please like my campaign Facebook Page