Senate enquiry into ABC cuts

Federal Senator, Nick Xenephon, wants the Environment and Communications References Committee to investigate the recent cuts to production announced by the ABC.

According to the Australian, the Committee is to report back by 12 October 2012.

Meanwhile, the ABC itself reports on the situation with the following par:

Earlier this month Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said he wanted answers from the national broadcaster’s managing director, Mark Scott, over the decision to axe the The New Inventors [sic]and Art Nation.

(Source: ABC News)

There is an issue here about how much influence any government can have over the ABC and where the line of that influence is drawn. Are specific matters of programming and the axing of shows smaller issues than a government should concern itself with? What about when it comes to regional jobs?

One Comment

  1. A senate enquiry into whether The New Inventors should have been axed? How could anyone propose that with a straight face? Did Nick Xenephon see this: http://www.theage.com.au/national/asylum-misery-exposed-by-stats-20110816-1iwk3.html in today’s newspaper and think to himself “But what what we should really be worried about is The New Inventors”?

    As for the broader issues, if the government felt strongly that it should be part of the ABC’s mission to make in-house productions in all regions then it should write that into the ABC Charter and provide adequate funding, not bleat about this or that specific programming decision.

    I have no confidence that an enquiry prompted by the axing of Senator Conroy’s favourite show would be anything other than (at best) a complete waste of time or (at worst) some kind of exercise in ABC-bashing which ends up leaving the ABC weaker.

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