So far left it’s coming back the other way…
Tony Abbott finally makes noises against the ABC’s incessant bias. From global warming to asylum seekers, from Julian Assange to Edward Snowden, from Obama-worship to apologists for Islamist atrocities, from smearing our Navy to damaging the relations with our international neighbours, the ABC is always of the hard left. It even criticises Labor and the Greens from the left! I repeat my post from September 2013:
Reform of the ABC long overdue
This blog has frequently exposed the barely-concealed left-wing bias of our publicly funded broadcaster, the ABC. As Gerard Henderson points out regularly on his must-read Media Watch Dog, there isn’t a single conservative presenter or editor on any mainstream current affairs programme, earning the corporation’s acronym the alternative interpretation of “Anything but Conservatives”.
In their stead we have had to suffer “Red” Kerry O’Brien (whose “old leather bag” visage will be gracing the ABC’s election coverage tomorrow, naturally), Tony Jones (adding another lefty voice to the already skewed Q&A panel every week), Fran Kelly (activist presenter of Radio National’s Breakfast show), News Radio’s political editor and resident Lefty, Marius Benson, Jonathan Green (editor of the Drum, which is banged repeatedly for Labor/Green causes) and Mark Scott himself – wilfully blind to the “groupthink” that is endemic in his organisation – to name but a few.
Then we have all the climate change alarmists, like Dr Karl, Robyn Williams, Adam Spencer, Bernie Hobbs, Tony Jones again, all the Catalyst team etc., 95% of the contributors on the online site, extremists like Clive Hamilton, Stephan Lewandowsky etc, and the list goes on.
It is galling that taxes paid by all Australians go towards funding that Lefty/Green echo-chamber, which caters for a small urban elite, staffed with inner-city Ultimo types who couldn’t run a chook raffle. Privately owned media organisations stand or fall on their output, witness the enduring success of News Corp, and the rapid decline of Fairfax, as it too panders to the latte-sipping, sandal-wearing intelligentsia, and in the process ignores the vast majority of Australians. The Age astonishingly endorses Labor for the election tomorrow – as one commentator pointed out, after asylum disasters, NBN, massive debt, waste, dysfunctional leadership, knifings, in-fighting, Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper, what would it take for them not to endorse Labor?
But the ABC is paid for by all of us, and it should be representative of the views of all Australians, not just a mouthpiece for the Left. It is probable that a Coalition government will be elected tomorrow, sweeping away six years of Labor incompetence. Yet you wouldn’t believe it listening to the ABC this morning, with the majority of stories either puff pieces for Rudd and Labor, or criticism of the Coalition and Abbott. Maybe they realise that the clock is ticking, time is running out, so they have to make the most of it, like the last gasp of the Roman Empire.
It’s time for the ABC to be subjected to significant reform. Balance must be restored in current affairs broadcasting, and the ABC must fully reflect the diversity of Australian opinion. Whether this is by some form of privatisation or otherwise, the population have switched off in droves, with Sky taking over as the de facto national broadcaster.
When the ABC isn’t trusted to run the election debates, something is seriously wrong. Let’s hope Tony Abbott and the Coalition will start to fix it.
It looks like they might. The ABC itself reports (ouch, that must hurt…):
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has stepped up his criticism of the ABC, accusing the national broadcaster of being unpatriotic in its coverage of the Edward Snowden leaks and asylum seeker abuse claims.
Mr Abbott also questioned the ABC’s newly established Fact Check unit, saying he wanted the corporation to focus on straight news gathering and reporting.
“A lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone’s side but Australia’s,” he said in an interview with Ray Hadley on Sydney radio station 2GB.
“I think it dismays Australians when the national broadcaster appears to take everyone’s side but its own and I think it is a problem.”
Asked if he shared those sentiments, Mr Abbott said he was “worried and concerned” by the ABC taking a lead in reporting leaks from Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor.
The NSA leaks revealed Australia’s spy agencies tapped the phones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudohoyono and his wife in 2009.
The revelations caused a rift in the Australia-Indonesia relationship early in Mr Abbott’s prime ministership.
“The ABC seemed to delight in broadcasting allegations by a traitor,” Mr Abbott said.
“The ABC didn’t just report what he said, they took the lead in advertising what he said, and that was a deep concern.”
Mr Abbott’s attention was also drawn to a Facebook post published by an ABC researcher seeking off-the-record discussions with Navy personnel.
In the post, the researcher said her “boss” doubted asylum seekers’ claims they were mistreated during a boat turn-back operation.
The asylum seekers say they suffered burns when Navy personnel forced them to hold onto hot pipes coming out of the boat’s engine.
The Navy has denied the allegations and the Government has strongly defended the military, without confirming or denying the operation took place.
“You can’t leap to be critical of your own country and you certainly ought to be prepared to give the Australian Navy and its hard-working personnel the benefit of the doubt,” Mr Abbott said.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the ABC should apologise for casting doubt on the reputation of Royal Australian Navy sailors if the organisation felt it was wrong.
“If the ABC now finds that these allegations were utterly unsubstantiated then it should come out and say so,” Ms Bishop told reporters in Brisbane.
The first step on a long road, Tony. Don’t waver. You can listen to the interview here.
Australian Climate Madness 
Tony its time to sack Mark Scott for cause as he runs the ABC totally outside its charter, it is a cancer on all of our lives and it’s time for surgery, The tumor is Mark Scott. N
If the tumour is Mark Scott, I’m afraid it has metastasized throughout the Whole organization, so excising just the original tumour will unfortunately not save the patient!
I think the most effective argument to make against the ABC (and the CBC here) is on national unity grounds. Why do people support them? I think, for many, they feel like it provides a sort of uniquely national touchstone, media that’s part of the country’s fabric and important as an institution. When people realize that a billion tax dollars are spent each year to pay for something that is political and very divisive they’ll realize it’s not serving its purpose. At all. It is actually tearing at the country because citizens who completely disagree with the political slant taken are having their money taken to pay for it. The number of people who actually want to take tax money to fund their political slant is sadly numerous I’m sure but they will not be enough to support it.
Could we borrow Tony Abbott for a while in the UK? Blimey, someone who speaks like he means it as opposed to the mealy-mouthed, jumped-up, lying yoghurt knitters we have in all the parties here.
We could swap you for the BBC if you like? 😉 Actually you could have Lewandowsky back as well, cant be fairer than that!
Privatise it.
The enemy from within, Malcolm Turnbull has done what he was expected to do. He has leapt to the ABC’s defense and smack bang into Abbott’s face. I said it before MT was replaced as leader of the Coalition, he has to go. I am saying it again. He is a bigger corrosive force to the Abbott government than Bill Shorten could ever hope to be. This treacherous individual is in the wrong party and his fellow MPs need to make that very clear to him, preferably on a daily basis.
Malcolm’s problem is he would never be accepted within the Union controlled Labor party. The best thing he could do is leave politics and go back to what he was best at – Merchant Banking.
There is little doubt that Turnbull conceitedly misreads his ‘popularity’ with the Left. It’s only there while he is the Coalition’s enemy within. They don’t need him for anything else.
Malcolm is ex-Goldman Sachs and a rhoades scholar.
Hes a globalist through and through.
He will do as hes told, when hes told.
He just follows orders.
Like Tony.
People need to wake up- we dont have democracty – we have the main parties stacked with obedient globalist robots. They takle their orders from people int he shadows.
Ask yourself – who puts up the candidates when people “vote”?
If you can frame the argument ( or election ) you can control the end game.
Food for thought.
Before he takes on the BBC, he should toss out his unpatriotic Foreign Minister. She backs Israel against Australia. Mind you, Tony is inclined to suck up to Israel himself.
Being sick to death of the unrelenting bias at the ABC, I have started a petition for Tony Abbott to privatise the tax sucking behemoth. Just imagine what an extra $1.18 billion in the budget could do. Please click here: http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-privatise-the-abc-2?utm_source=guides&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=petition_created and sign my petition and share with all your family and friends.
Not that I see much patriotism anywhere in Australian politicians. They are all happy for the US to use us and spy on us as they see fit. Labor traitors went to the US Embassy to blab about what was going on in Cabinet.
And they are all happy to sell the country to China and Singapore.
To realise how left is the ABC is, one only needs to observe how dutifully the left defend it.
It’s very standard debating (or political) technique; “If you don’t like the message, then shoot the messenger”.
Much screaming from certain right wing elements recently when the ABC exposed the public to the truth.
Many pollies (and certain media) would prefer the public only heard the pollie’s version of the truth.
Our government was elected to run Australia, not control the information the public receive. So, hands off the ABC, this is not 1984.
Freedom loving Australians must shout louder than this gathering of extreme right wing folk who are wanting to destroy and silence our ABC.
A relevant cartoon here . . . . .
http://cartoonmick.wordpress.com/editorial-political/#jp-carousel-801
Cheers
Mick
cartoonmick said: “Much screaming from certain right wing elements recently when the ABC exposed the public to the truth.”
Like about the navy torturing asylum seekers? The ABC simply loathes to see the boats being stopped and has been doing everything it can the sabotage the Government’s efforts. Also, as far as telling the truth goes, it’s not only what they like to reveal with glee, it’s what they studiously omit. They will labor hearsay about Abbott punching a wall in his youth but fall silent when Julia Gillard and other prominent Left folk are being investigated by the police over the AWU matter. They say there is insufficient evidence when all they need to do is make a phone call to the police station. With the ABC the leftist bias forms a reliable pattern. You know beforehand (yes, you!!) what they will run with and what they will bury. So cut the crap.
If there was a like button then I’d press it, actually I just did, N
Good ‘ol cartoonmick … perhaps you should have alerted readers to the fact that:
“Since 1996, my work has appeared in the Community Newspaper Group (17 newspapers weekly), the Mandurah Mail, The Bay Weekly, the Murray Districts Advertiser, the Whinging Pom, The Week, the ABC website, the WAtoday website and various manuals.”
The Mandurah Mail and WAtoday are Fairfax owned publications and of course there’s the ubiquitous ‘the ABC website’.
So your not actually speaking as somebody impartial to reform of the ABC, are you?
It’s not a very funny cartoon is it? I would have thought even rubbish publications like those could get something a bit better than that.
Mick I am not going to say that much about what you said, it is easy to make a point and attack the other side by suggesting that he is a Dakek because you don’t agree with him, all I will say is that the way that the ABC attacked our Navy over these burns, and that they suggested that our boys had done it, that the ABC doing that is a total breach of their duty to tell the truth, and it is proof in itself of ABC biases, just in the last few days it seems that there were senior members of the ABC that doubted that this was true and they doubted the truth of the story but they still put it to air, you say that we have a closed mind so how the you regard that happening as it has happened far too many times, that a story comes up that can be used to damage the Government and the ABC go at it full speed and without any proper research, I tell you this, they did not do that with their CFMEU story, they did a lot of research and what a good story that was, but with this burns story then they went straight to air and hammered it as much as they could so explain that. N
I will tell you something else Mick that I should have also said, I once got kicked out of Scientology, not that I was ever it but I did do their questionnaire one day In Canberra when I was bored out of my mind and after just about 8 minutes then they stood me up and it was out the door and all they said was ‘this is not for you’ the reason that I bring it up is this one. Isn’t a church supposed to save my soul? What about the parable of the ‘lost sheep’ where all was risked to save the lost one! So why would they have not wanted to saved me? Could it have been my smart mouth? But with them it was ‘this way to the door mate’ and if I had of known that before I went in then I could have gone for the record, about being in their cult the shortest time ever, the thing it that they were not interested in putting any argument to me that may have changed my mind and convinced me of their ‘we are right’ concept , all they were looking for is the new true believer and as I was not one then it was ‘get out and go to hell’ and you are the same. You use the Dalek cartoon as a badge of pride and you have not made any argument that supports that you are the one who is correct about the ABC, just like the CAGW true believers, they cannot come up with any real argument so they attack the man with that denier tag, you use the Dalek tag and both are cowardly and lack any valid scientific argument, so if you want to win me over then you need to do more than be sarcastic and use weak humour, try to be funny, that may at least make me smile. And Tony, sack Mark Scott for cause as he runs the ABC totally outside its charter, the ABC is a cancer in all of our lives and it is time for surgery, N
Congratulations on the new broom. What a relief.
Come over the ditch Tony and lay it on the sycophantic NZ MSM.
Addicted to their Green catastrophist nihilism they’re miming The Oozlum Bird.
http://vovatia.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/the-secret-of-the-oozlum/
The Oozlum bird, an excellent metaphor for the climate warmists – they fly backwards and are prone to disappearing up their own bums.
What’s the uproar? The majority of programming on the Gaybc is from the poms, or kids cartoons, check out the running sheet for the any day you like.
It would be totally out of order though, to suggest that the kiddies cartoons is what the poms use to haul in the kids for their nefarious purposes.
Funny though, how the transgressions of the Murdoch staffers in the UK get raised all the time as a reason the Murdoch influence must be opposed, but no-one seems to draw the parallel with the ABC and its kindly UK parent, the BBC, which seems to have been overrun by paederasts.
As Michael Jackson might have sung,” ABC, as sleazy as the BBC”. You guys deserve better (as do we in the UK) – both “BCs” are corrupted beyond hope by Common Purpose lefties. The BBC is the last place I look for genuine news, it’s so bent leftwards.
I never rely on the ABC or BBC becasue it always has left wing, highly censored, govt controlled journalism.
Its a complete joke. It used to be half decent, but no more. In fact, like a poorly behaved child who has had all its boundaries relaxed, its become a delinquent. The CAGW thing has only exposed this, and in fact is the very thing that finally let it off the leash.
Start at the top, start sacking anyone with a labor membership for starters.
Then read out the ABCs charter to everyone as a group ( akin to reading the riot act ) and ask employees to sign an agreement to adhere to the charter. – this includes top brass all the way down.
Then put everyone on probation for 5 years with no exceptions.
Last thing we need is the “C” in the ABC standing for Communism.
If the govt doesnt pull them up and kick them into line, australia is completely a lost cause.