The Abbott Government’s political interference into public broadcasting has just got serious.
Very serious.
NOT CONTENT with going beyond his ministerial brief and ringing Mark Scott in the middle of the night to demand answers, the Duke of Double Bay has now decided to politicise his department by demanding senior officers conduct an inquiry into the ABC’s editorial decision-making.
The ego of this merchant wanker seemingly knows no bounds.
Everybody who ever watched Play School or an ABC news bulletin should be outraged and demanding Malcolm Turnbully resign his commission.
Turnbull has breached his ministerial guidelines with this move, but he’s gloating about it.
The jumped-up, smug little Napoleon has gone well beyond what is acceptable in a system that relies on the separation of powers.
Turnbull’s inquiry is blatant political interference. How else can you explain his “instruction” to his department — which we can presume knows little to nothing of news judgment and editorial decision-making.
And the reason he thinks he can get away with it is that he did the last time.
ABC Funding Slashed To Pay For 400th Government Inquiry Into The ABC: http://t.co/HlFQ4QVKaE pic.twitter.com/vJiX46otM3
— SBS Comedy (@SBSComedy) June 25, 2015
Do you remember how proud Turnbull was that his midnight call to the chair of the SBS, Michael Ebeid, got football reporter Scott McIntyre sacked without due process and for a ridiculously political charge of being unAustralian and not kowtowing before the official sickening waffle that is Anzackery?
Well, now the incredible shrinking communications miniature is again jumping to the dog whistle prompting of the Murdoch press.
A witch hunt is underway and several of my former ABC colleagues will now be worried about their jobs.
And let’s be absolutely clear where responsibility lies for this mob-handed fire-brand wielding rabble:
~ Daniel Hurst, The Guardian 25 June 2015
It is not ordinary Australians demanding an inquiry from the comfort of their couches, most of us just let such stuff wash over us.
This is a campaign orchestrated by the very group that has the most to gain from further knobbling the ABC and gutting public broadcasting.
This is a war being funded by Rupert Murdoch and he is also supplying the foot soldiers — his army of trained typo-monkeys-flunkies who slurp down the Kool-Aid and bay for the blood of leftists and Muslims.
They are rabid, fed on a diet of tabloid headlines, hysteria and Rupert’s ill-gotten gold sovereigns and they will stop at nothing.
It will be a bloodbath at the ABC because management is already shit-scared and will do nothing to protect hard-working and well-meaning front line staff who are doing a difficult job to the best of their ability.
And Abbott’s rhetoric is completely disgraceful.
From The Guardian:
In a dramatic escalation of his rhetoric against the public broadcaster, the prime minister said the ABC had “compounded that terrible mistake, that betrayal, if you like, of our country … by rebroadcasting the program”.
Tony Abbott is effectively accusing the ABC of treason for rebroadcasting the program.
The response is hysteria designed to whip up public anger based on lies and half-truths.
Free speech forgotten in the Q&A furore http://t.co/eeUr8ydlaF Very good Age editorial on Q&A, ABC, free speech etc #auspol
— Julian Burnside (@JulianBurnside) June 25, 2015
If you bother to actually listen to, or read, what Zaky Mallah actually said, you would know that it was mild, nothing to get upset about and that the tub-thumping from all the Colonel Blimp types is just their own blood lust boiling over.
Will the ABC staff who now almost certainly lose their jobs also be deported by this mad, out-of-control government?
I’m not ruling out – I never rule out – the possibility of peak stupid with this mob of semi-literate private school failures.
This new attack on the independence and integrity of the ABC is a disturbing development, and a sign that Abbott, Turnbull and his frontbench of souless ghouls will do anything to stay in power and distract attention from their attacks on our freedoms and our wallets.
This mad man has to be stopped – and soon – before the damage to the national psyche is permanent.
Thank goodness that the journalists’ union, the MEAA, has condemned the Turnbull inquiry and Abbott’s pre-empting of any outcome by demanding sackings.
The thing is though, will the MEAA actually do anything?
Who is going to react to this and start demanding the government back off.
We all know that Abbott and his backers in the IPA want the ABC shut down and sold-off, this is a tactical move in that war of attrition.
It’s time for serious people to organise and fightback.
The John Graham artwork reproduced in this piece may be purchased from the IA store. Read more by Martin Hirst on his blog Ethical Martini and follow him on Twitter @ethicalmartini.
You should read the Zaky Mallah trial transcript and then put the #newscorpse #jihad against the ABC in perspective pic.twitter.com/Zfky9I3LxH
— Ethical Martini (@ethicalmartini) June 25, 2015
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Monthly Donation
Single Donation
Welcome to Tony Abbott's Australia. Fear/hatred/racism http://t.co/UXbLUdmYtT Its not what I grew up with @LiberalAus pic.twitter.com/dSfCuYhSUu
— Kerry Seebohm (@KezzerOz) June 21, 2015
For for more updates on how the Abbott government is destroying the planet, subscribe to IA for just $5.
@davrosz Because Fascism pic.twitter.com/k1B0vFmLVo
— Where Is My Ostrich? (@WhereMyOstrich) June 25, 2015
