GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG

ISSUE – NO. 696

30 August 2024

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  • HOW TO GET INTERVIEWED ON RN BREAKFAST – BE A LIBERAL WHO CRITICISES LIBERALS

It’s not difficult to discover who the ABC’s fave politicians are.  All that needs to be done is to tune into ABC Radio National Breakfast – presenter Patricia (“Please call me PK”) Karvelas. By the way, executive producers – not presenters – are primarily responsible for program decisions.

The faves, who invariably get long interviews (for a breakfast program) along with soft questions, belong to the following groups.

First up they are current or past Liberals who publicly criticise the party that made them.  Think Malcolm Turnbull, Bridget Archer – both of whom have appeared on RN Breakfast recently. Then there are the Teal Independents – such as Zoe Daniel, Kate Chaney, Zali Steggall.  And then there are some Greens such as Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

The Liberal Party MP for Bass, Bridget Archer, made the cut again on 30 August.  During a 12-minute interview she had little of interest to say – as befits an Opposition backbencher in a parliament in which the Albanese government has an absolute majority and in which Archer does not hold any important positions.

On 30 August Bridget Archer spoke at length about the questions on the 2026 Census and seemed to go out of her way to bag her leader Peter Dutton but not Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.  She also spoke vaguely about the cost of living, economic problems and political polarisation. It was an unremarkable performance.  So much so that MWD cannot recall much of the PK/Archer discussion. Except for the final question/answer.

Patricia Karvelas: I’ll have to ask, are you staying in the Liberal Party and re-contesting your seat?

Bridget Archer: Yes and yes.

There was one issue, however, which was not raised.  Bridget Archer is much loved by many members of the Canberra Press Gallery – mainly because she is a Liberal who criticises the Liberal Party. But how effective is she?

Take the Voice Referendum of recent memory, for example.  In a rare event, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese campaigned with Ms Archer in support of the Yes case in Bass (based in Launceston).  As far as MWD can recall, this is the only occasion on which the PM campaigned with a Coalition MP on the issue.

In spite of this, the Yes case scored 38 per cent in Bass with 62 per cent for No.

There was time on 30 August for Patricia Karvelas to ask Bridget Archer why she could not get the Yes case over the line in her electorate in spite of the high-profile support of the Prime Minister.  But there was nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  But then, being a Liberal Party critic means never having to face a tough question on ABC Radio National Breakfast. Here’s a reminder of the Archer/Albanese Unity Ticket in action last August.

  • PAUL BARRY’S SERMON ON THE MEDIA WATCH MOUNT IGNORES THE ABC’S LACK OF VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY 

Last Monday on the ABC TV Media Watch program, Paul Barry joined the chorus of commentators covering David Anderson’s decision to resign as ABC managing director.

Barry – one of seven Media Watch presenters since 1989, all of whom have been left-of-centre types – implied that change is underway at the ABC consequent upon the appointment of Kim Williams as its chair. Barry seemed to line up with those ABC types who believe that ABC news and current affairs is too soft and focuses excessively on bland issues.

This is correct. However, once again, the Media Watch presenter overlooked another problem. Namely, that the ABC is a conservative free zone without a conservative editor, producer or presenter for any of its news and current affairs programs. A consequence of this is that the taxpayer funded public broadcaster lacks viewpoint diversity – which makes it boring much of the time.

On 29 July, in one of his Sermons on the Media Watch Mount, Paul Barry criticised one Sky News program for failing to cover “critical voices” in a program it presented on mining. Yet, Barry seems unaware that so many ABC programs entail virtually everyone agreeing with virtually everyone else on virtually everything. It’s the lack of viewpoint diversity that has led to the exodus of so many ABC viewers and listeners in recent times – many of whom are political conservatives. But, after over a decade in the job, Paul Barry has yet to realise this.

  • NINE’S PETER FITZSIMONS AND THE MUCH-HERALDED PROMISED INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT MACRON

There was enormous interest in the previous issue of Media Watch Dog. In particular, the item titled “Jamais! Nine’s Peter FitzSimons and his non-interview interview with President Macron”.

As avid readers will recall, your man Fitz (who wore a look-at-me red rag on his head for a decade until, due to the weight of public opinion, he sent it to the laundry where it got lost) wrote about the French president in his Sydney Morning Herald column on 27 July. There Comrade FitzSimons revealed that an interview had been tentatively arranged with Emmanuel Macron “towards the end of the Games”.

The reference was to the Paris Olympics which ended on 11 August – that is, around three weeks ago.  As avid readers will recall, Fitz has boasted about how he set an Olympic Games record for hoovering hors d’oeuvres and pushing himself at the front of the media pack at an Élysée Palace reception.  Then, the Red Bandannaed One asked President Macron – in French – whether it would be possible to have an interview with him before the end of the Games.  When the French president arranged for his attaché de presse to give him her card, Fitz assumed he was in-like-Flynn (to borrow a cliché) for an interview and advised The Fitz Files readers (if readers there were) to this effect.

However, so far, it has been a matter of Pas de Réponse – or something like that. Media Watch Dog cannot believe that President Macron would run the politician trick of getting rid of a journalistic bore by asking a staffer to provide a card with an implied promise that a request for an interview would be handled later. Surely not. Not with respect to such an important person as Hoover-Hands FitzSimons.

So, Ellie’s (male) co-owner really believes that the Macron-Fitz interview will find its way into “The Fitz Files” in the Saturday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald anytime soon. Here’s the scoreboard.

Number of Weeks since Fitz promised to report on his interview with President Macron – 5

Number of Weeks since the Paris Olympics ended – 3

In the meantime – Nous Attendons?  Which, to Ellie’s (male) co-owner, translates as Can You Bear It?

  • NINE’S CALUM JASPAN DOES LUNCH WITH KIM WILLIAMS

While on the topic of Nine’s Saturday newspapers, did anyone read Calum Jaspan’s interview with ABC chair Kim Williams in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on 24 August?  It was one of those occasions where a journalist – in this case, Nine’s media  writer – takes someone or other out to lunch along with a photographer.  This leads to a photo not only of the interviewee but also of the food. In this case one chicken sandwich and one roast chicken salad with soft drinks and coffee. The total was $66.50. This included a $1.30 surcharge. But apparently, no tip.  [Surely, there must have been a time when the youthful Kim cried out: “What about the workers?”  Has all this been forgotten? – MWD Editor.]

Wolter Peeters’ pic of your man Williams is best described as depicting him enjoying a casual lunch.  Except that the photo involved the ABC chair’s right hand illustrating a point with his left hand on the table – and there’s no food to be seen.  Which suggests that the ABC chair was enjoying his own conversation.  By the way, the location was the Concrete Jungle Café in Sydney’s inner-west suburb of Chippendale – close to the taxpayer-funded broadcaster.

And what did your man Williams have to say?  Well, the ABC chair advised that he had read virtually every book ever written about the ABC and added: “I think I’m pretty conversant with the institution and that I’m well-positioned to make a contribution.”   A strong endorsement, don’t you think?

Comrade Jaspan then opined that Williams “may have to confront the harsh financial realities his predecessors faced at the ABC”.  You bet. It surely must be hard to preside over a taxpayer-funded public broadcaster which gets a yearly hand-out of $1.1 billion per courtesy of the taxpayer.  In any event, this is MWD’s fave moment from the Chippendale lunch:

He [Williams] doesn’t shy away from conflict when required, however. After a public Q&A with former ABC host Kerrie [sic] O’Brien at the Byron Bay Writers Festival this month, Williams was confronted by an audience member. “He says, ‘You know your problem at the ABC, you’ve got no balls. You have no balls for comedy, you have no balls for the news ….’” “I said, if you’re referring to me personally, sir, I can assure you, I’m absent many things in life, but I’m not absent balls. I think he was shocked that I spoke to him in that way. I was shocked that he spoke to me in that way!”

For his part, Hendo is shocked that Calum Jaspan, Nine’s media writer, should refer to Red Kerry as “Kerrie”.  Can You Bear It?

  • LAURA (“I’M SORRY”) TINGLE MOCKS THE COALITION’S NDIS RESPONSE

For what it is worth [Probably not much at all – MWD Editor], Ellie’s (male) co-owner is of the view that Kim Williams has done well in his early months as ABC chair.  For example, he told ABC journalists to be impartial or get another job. And your man Williams has criticised some of the non-news that passes for news on the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster.

However, Kim Williams has not addressed the ABC’s lack of viewpoint diversity – among its journalists and on the various panels that pass for debate.

Take Radio National, for example.  Late Night Live – executive producer Anna Whitfeld – runs from Monday to Thursday.  It has two guests who appear regularly.  On Mondays, the ABC’s Laura Tingle discusses Australian politics.  Then on Tuesdays (or sometimes Wednesdays), Bruce Shapiro of The New Republic discusses United States politics.

Both are left-of-centre types – or progressives as contemporary leftists like to be called. Late Night Live (aka Late Night Left) has a left-wing view of Australian politics one night, balanced soon after by a left-wing view of American politics a day or so later.

LNL’s presenter is the left-of-centre progressive David Marr who recently replaced the left-of-centre progressive Phillip Adams AO, AM, Hon DUniv (Griffith), Hon DLitt (ECU), Hon DUniv (SA), DLitt [sic] (Syd), Hon. DUniv (Macquarie), FRSA, Hon FAHA. [To flash all those post-nominals is surely a sign of progress. – MWD Editor.]

On 26 August, LNL producer Anna Whitfeld – once again – arranged for La Tingle to talk to Comrade Marr. Let’s go to the transcript of that part of the discussion which focused on the Albanese government’s proposals to reform cost blowouts in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS):

David Marr:  Look at the NDIS. Is it perhaps in the thinking of the Opposition here? – they agree the thing has to be reined in and [it is] better that Labor take the blame for the cuts and new restrictions on NDIS?

Laura Tingle: Oh, I think that, I think that’s true. And Peter Dutton did say in his first budget speech-in-reply, that he would be supportive of efforts by Labor to fix problems in both the NDIS and aged care systems. And, you know, clearly both of them needed, needed addressing. One could say: “Well, why didn’t the Coalition do something about the NDIS in the 10 years it was running?”

David Marr: They didn’t have time, Laura. They had a tremendously busy legislative program. Didn’t have time.

Laura Tingle: It was just, it was just a thought bubble, I’m sorry. So, so they’ve now made these changes. Most of them are in line with the findings of the NDIS review…

Turn it up – and forget Comrade Marr’s mocking tone.  The fact is that, when in government and particularly when Scott Morrison was prime minister, the Coalition tried to reform the NDIS.  However, the Coalition’s proposals were vehemently opposed by the Labor Party in opposition along with the Greens.  Since the Coalition did not have a majority in the Senate, it did not make much sense to pursue NDIS reform.  Currently, the Coalition is broadly in support of Labor’s proposed NDIS reforms. So Labor can get its proposals through the Senate.  The Greens remain opposed to Labor’s plans but the Albanese government does not need Greens support in the Senate if the Coalition votes with the Albanese government.

So, the mocking claim by La Tingle that the Coalition “didn’t have time” to reform the NDIS is just tosh. But no other view will be heard in what Comrade Adams used to call LNL’s  “Mingle with Tingle”.  Can You Bear It?

[No. Not really – now that you ask.  Note that La Tingle is in the habit of saying “I’m sorry”- when she is not sorry at all.  It’s so irritating. I’m sorry to say. Sorry. – MWD Editor.]

  • QUELLE SURPRISE! FRAN KELLY’S GUEST E.J. DIONNE RECKONS THAT DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE KAMALA HARRIS IS TOPS 

While on the topic of a lack of viewpoint diversity on a Radio National program, consider the case of Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. On 25 August, your man E.J. appeared on RN Saturday Extra. He was interviewed by presenter Fran (I’m an activist”) Kelly about United States politics leading up to the 2024 US presidential election.

Now Dionne is a fine writer and a good broadcaster.  But he is clearly a Democrat voter and has been for aeons.  Nothing wrong with that – as the saying goes.  But it does illustrate, once again, the ABC’s lack of viewpoint diversity.

During the 12-minute interview, E.J. had this to say about the US vice-president Kamala Harris:

E.J. Dionne: Well, you know, a lot of people are saying that they never expected Harris to be good, and someone told me something at the [Democratic] convention, which really stuck with me. It’s that you can’t rise to the occasion until there’s an occasion. And when you are a vice-president, you don’t really get occasions that allow you to show yourself and what you can do. You’re there to support the president. And I think people are quite astonished at just how she has run, and effectively (and Republicans are saying this too) an almost flawless campaign for the last month. The themes she touched on were, of course, a very focused critique of Trump, that is appropriate to her role as a prosecutor. A general appeal to populism that comes from the words she would always recite when she was a prosecutor, that she was there for the people, and that’s a phrase that is used a lot. The sense that she is the candidate of real change in the election, because she wasn’t president before. And that’s unusual because she was, after all, Biden’s vice-president. The theme of don’t go back, is central to her campaign. She’s running on carefully, careful populist economics, but not scary populist economics. And, right now, she has pulled ahead in the polls after Biden was falling rather rapidly.

When Dionne spoke to Comrade Kelly, Harris had been the endorsed Democrat presidential candidate for close to eight weeks.  Yet, she had not held one media conference or given a single one-to-one interview.

Yet, Fran Kelly did not challenge E.J. Dionne when he described the Vice-President as running on “careful populist economics”.  How would he know? – because, at the time of the interview, Harris had not spoken about her policies to the media.

Moreover, Kelly did not challenge her guest when he said that Harris was a “candidate of real change”.  Yet, Dionne’s statement that Kamala Harris as president would want to change the policies of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration – without advising what those changes would be – doesn’t make much sense.

At the end of the interview, the activist Kelly described the columnist Dionne as “a bit of a regular here with us on Saturday Extra”.  Yes, we know.  But why not have a Republican-supporting columnist as a regular on the program as well?  Until this occurs, the situation is – Can You Bear It?

Nine’s Shane Wright has risen without trace (as the late Kitty Muggeridge once said about the late David Frost) to become the senior economics correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald – not having published anything of note apart from newspaper articles and columns plus the occasional essay. Even so, you would expect a person in such an elevated position would know about the international energy market.

It’s only a few years since your man Wright ridiculed anyone who said that coal had any future as a part of energy supply – even in such markets as India, China and Indonesia. He declared on ABC TV Insiders (11 June, 2017) that “coal is like candlesticks” and compared those who said that there is still a demand for Australian coal exports with members of the Candle Makers Union circa 1870 who (allegedly) argued the case for candles over electricity. Now read on.

  • AEMO’S LATEST REPORT DEMONSTRATES THE CONTINUED IMPORTANCE OF COAL POWER

On Thursday 29 August, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released its annual Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO). This report attempts to forecast conditions within Australia’s energy market over the next 10 years.

The good news is that the 2024 ESOO projects improved reliability compared to the 2023 report. AEMO credits this improved outlook to the rollout of renewable, gas and battery projects, the continued expansion of household solar, as well as the extension of the Eraring coal-fired plant to 2027 after it was scheduled to retire in 2025. It also notes a lower than previously projected shift to electric vehicles, which add demand to the grid.

On the other side of the ledger, AEMO still forecasts several summers in the next five years when states could be at risk of unreliable power delivery, these are:

  • South Australia, this coming summer and then again in 2026-27 after 2 coal-fired stations in the state are expected to retire.
  • Victoria in 2027-28 and 2028-29, after the Yallourn coal-fired power station retires.
  • New South Wales in 2027-28, after the Eraring coal-fired power station retires.

[In other words, the continuation of Eraring beyond its intended life is one reason why in 2024 AEMO anticipates that Australia will experience improved reliability, as compared to their 2023 forecast.

However, AEMO maintains that there could be unreliable power delivery in South Australia (2026-27), Victoria (2027-29) and NSW (2027-28) due primarily to the closing of coal-fired power stations. – MWD Editor]

It would seem AEMO did not get Shane Wright’s memo about the obsolescence of coal power.

HISTORY CORNER

  • ROBERT MENZIES – A CLUBBABLE MAN BUT NOT OF THE MELBOURNE CLUB

Media Watch Dog is a fan of the various business gossip columns that appear in Australia’s newspapers. Ellie’s (male) co-owner does not agree with everything which appears in The Australian’s Margin Call, The Australian Financial Review’s Rear Window and Nine Newspapers’ CBD in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.  But he sure likes gossip.  This trio seems to focus on The Melbourne Club, The Australian Club (Melbourne) and The Australian Club (Sydney) – all gentlemen’s club.

Hendo visits these establishments on occasions.  As to membership – well, he abides by Groucho Marx’s position that he doesn’t want to belong to any club that would accept him as a member. By the way, Groucho is MWD’s fave Marxist.

But MWD digresses, again.  Thanks to the avid reader who drew attention to a piece in Margin Call on 29 July about – shock-horror – declining standards at The Australian Club on Melbourne’s William Street.

Margin Call referred to “the hallowed grounds of The Australian Club in Melbourne’s CBD” which “were once prized for their exclusivity and the unusually high bar for membership”.

It would appear that some once-were-prominent types have attained membership despite the fact that they have fallen and become what is perhaps best termed “business riff-raff”.  There was reference to someone who had assaulted his fiancée and a recently departed gentleman who was declared bankrupt and died with $6951 in his bank account. [What? – just dollars and no cents? MWD Editor.]

As Margin Call commented:  “This, after all is the club of Robert Menzies.” And so it was.  But there is more to the story.  Menzies was no fan of big business – sometimes termed the Big End of Town.  So he was not a member of The Melbourne Club – at the  top end of Collins Street. Your man Menzies was of the view that many business types did not read books and were boring.

Rather Sir Robert (as he became) chose The Australian Club on William Street – which happens to be close to the Supreme Court of Victoria where the leading Melbourne barristers tend to have their chambers.  Menzies was also a member of the nearby Savage Club at 12 Bank Place, Melbourne. Even today, The Melbourne Savage Club still boasts that it has been “the home of bohemian Melbourne for well over a century” providing “a place for artists, intellectuals and business leaders”.  But, it would appear, business leaders of a bookish disposition.  For a time when he was Prime Minister, Menzies was The Savage Club’s president.

Also, Robert Menzies was a member of the West Brighton Club (on Park Street in suburban Brighton) where members were required, on occasions, to carve the beef while being subjected to barracking by others present. At times, the likes of Robert Menzies were required to sing in public – the opening lines were:

Sing of joy/sing of bliss

Home was never like this…

And then the singer went into extemporaneous mode.

Media Watch Dog thought that avid readers might like to know this.

[Er, no. Not really.  However, it does reinforce the Marx’s (of Groucho fame) wisdom.  By the way, there are more details on Robert Menzies as a clubbable man in John Bunting’s R.G. Menzies: A Portrait (Allen & Unwin, 1988). – MWD  Editor.]

DOCUMENTATION

  • AFR COLUMNIST IN DENIAL ABOUT  ONE-TIME ABC CHAIR’S CALL FOR PEDERASTS TO BE UNDERSTOOD

For those who cannot get enough of Laura Tingle on ABC TV’s 7.30 from Mondays to Thursdays, there is always her Saturday column in The Australian Financial Review.

On 24 August, La Tingle’s piece was titled “It’s time to civilise the inquisition of Senate Estimates”.  Comrade Tingle made some important points about the unprofessional treatment some public servants receive during the Senate Estimates committees. But she only named the Liberal Party’s Bronwyn Bishop. The AFR columnist did not name any Labor or Greens or Independent senators in this regard.  Moreover, she failed to mention that Bishop left the Senate in 1994 – around the time when Moses was a boy.

The Tingle column concluded with a reference to the ABC managing director David Anderson (Tingle is the staff-elected director of the ABC):

Perhaps no public servant has faced more drawn-out scrutiny than ABC managing director David Anderson….  Anderson has had six years of what can only be described as gruelling examination from estimates committees. In addition to complaints about political bias by ABC journalists to questions about political interference, he has faced questions about everything from whether the ABC “in 1975 allow[ed] three self-confessed pederasts to be interviewed in the ABC Sydney studios”, to questions about its coverage of Gaza.

It regularly goes for hours. “We are used a bit as a political football from time to time”, Anderson said this week about estimates, while acknowledging they were ”an important part of our democracy”. “I don’t think the ABC should ever shy away from being held to account,” he told ABC’s Radio National. Legislation can’t regulate how public servants doing their job are treated by the parliament, it seems. But politicians railing about people being vilified should perhaps look twice at the way they treat people in wildly unequal positions of power.

Turn it up.  What’s missing from this account is any self-reflection.  There is no mention of the fact that two ABC journalists caused your man Anderson the most grief at Senate Estimates when responding to questions/comments at Senate Estimates. Namely, Louise Milligan and, wait for it, Laura Tingle.

After all, it was Comrade Tingle who was counselled by the ABC managing director after she put out a late-night tweet accusing Prime Minister Morrison’s Coalition government of “ideological bastardry”.  If  7.30’s  political correspondent had not issued this tweet, there would not have been “grilling” of Anderson in Senate Estimates on this issue.

And what about the reference to “three self-confessed pederasts” – MWD hears avid readers cry. Well, MWD has covered the matter over the years.  It is a scandal concerning which the ABC is in denial – and about which the ABC managing director should have been briefed before appearing at Senate Estimates on 28 October 2018.

Evidence provided to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse indicates that the crime of pedophilia was at its height in Australia in the late 1960s, the 1970s and early 1980s. It was at this time that the ABC Radio program Lateline employed Richard Neville (1941-2016) as a presenter. This in spite of the fact that Mr Neville was a self-confessed pedophile, having boasted about having sex with an underage 14-year-old London schoolgirl in his best-selling autobiography Play Power which was published in 1970.

On 13 July 1975, Richard Neville invited three pederasts into the ABC studio in Sydney to appear on the Lateline program. The episode was titled “Pederasty”. The occasion was reported by David Dale in an article titled “Richard Neville shocks them again – on ABC’s ‘rough radio’” (National Times, 21-26 July 1975).  “Pederasty” was also referred to in K.S. Inglis’ This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission – 1932-1983 (Melbourne University Press, 1983). Professor Ken Inglis had unrestricted access to ABC records for his two-volume history of the public broadcaster.  In other words, the question directed to Anderson in 2018 is referenced in what is effectively the ABC’s official history.  This should not be a secret to the managing director.

During the 13 July 1975 Lateline program, in response to presenter Richard Neville’s questions and comments, the three pederasts spoke of their sexual preferences.  Richard Neville told David Dale about what he termed the atmosphere of relaxation and lack of guilt on Lateline’s “Pederasty” program: “The pederasts on the program….were unrepentant. They were people just talking about what they enjoy doing. There are people who want Australia to be a completely uniform society. The Australian media usually presents conventional people with conventional attitudes.  I want to explore the diversity of people in this country.”

Two of the three pederasts who appeared on Lateline were personal friends of Richard Neville – one of them proposed the “Pederasty” episode. A part of the discussion was edited out before Lateline went to air – it covered the anal rape of a boy.  David Dale also reported: “As the teenage boy on the program described in detail his first experience with a male, one of the pederasts began to moan.”  The ABC decided to run this part of the program uncut.

Not surprisingly, Lateline’s  1975 “Pederasty” episode created controversy.  According to K.S. Inglis, (then) ABC managing director Talbot Duckmanton was concerned about the program. However, he was overruled by his chairman Richard Downing.  This is what Professor Downing wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 19 July 1975 in his capacity as ABC chairman: “…the phenomenon of pederasty seems appropriate for public discussion in a society which, if it is to be open, democratic and responsible, needs also to understand [emphasis added] the diverse natures of the people who compose that society.”  The letter was signed “Prof. R. Downing, Chairman Aust. Broadcasting Commission”.

Professor Downing, writing on behalf of the ABC, overlooked the fact that pedophilia – and pederasty – was a crime in 1975.  As it is today.  However, no one at the ABC reported the pederasts to NSW Police – then or since. This remains an unreported crime – despite the fact that other cases of historic child sexual abuse are investigated by police.  Tingle could have found out about this by a simple web search.

Despite the fact that the Lateline “Pederasty” program was referred to in Ken Inglis’ This is the ABC in 1983, the ABC has never publicly contradicted Professor Downing’s statements made on its behalf in 1975.

What’s more, there is no evidence that the ABC ever adopted a duty of care with respect to the victims of the three pederasts. This despite the fact that, if alive, they would be about 65 years old today – about the same age as some of the victims and complainants who appeared before the Royal Commission.

Also, Professor Downing was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald as having said: “In general, men will sleep with young boys.” (SMH, 19 July 1975).  This comment has never been publicly criticised by any of Downing’s successors.

MWD is not aware of any leader of a public, private, religious or secular organisation who made statements like ABC chair Richard Downing did in 1975.  This was an extraordinary intervention into the public debate by the chair of the public broadcaster.

Over the last decade or so, ABC journalists have focused attention on clerical child abuse. It is impossible to imagine that any ABC presenter or reporter would accept that a bishop in the Anglican or Catholic churches today would leave such a statement by a predecessor uncorrected.  Today, Professor Downing’s view that we should understand the needs of pederasts would be condemned on the ABC.

Sarah Ferguson recently did a three-part ABC TV series titled Revelation in which she focused on historical cases of child sexual abuse.  But she failed to mention that her current employer took a libertarian approach to pedophilia and pederasty when such crime was rife in Australia.

In view of this, it was quite reasonable for Mr Anderson, in his capacity as ABC managing director, to be quizzed in the Senate Estimates about a scandalous program concerning which the ABC has been in denial for half a century.  However, in her Australian Financial Review  column, Comrade Tingle just ran cover for the taxpayer funded public broadcaster’s 1975 scandal.

Media Watch Dog will continue to remind readers of the ABC’s  past record on pederasty – until an ABC Chair publicly acknowledges that the pederasty program should not have gone to air, since it would only have been of comfort to the pedophiles, and renounces the comment of Richard Downing (1915-1975).

 

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Until Next Time

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