The communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, says the ABC’s $223m Australia Network contract is being reconsidered only because its role has been “overtaken by technology” and not because of the concerns about program content repeatedly raised by his cabinet colleagues.

Emphasising that no decision had been made, Turnbull told Guardian Australia the future of the Asian broadcasting service was being reconsidered because “there is a view … held by many people that the Australia Network per se has been rather overtaken by technology and that, for example, if you want to provide a universally available Australian news service, why wouldn’t you simply ensure ABC News 24 could be streamed over the internet, regardless of geography?”

“I just want to emphasise the criticism of the Australia Network is not being made because of its content … the more substantive criticism is to say, in the internet age, do we still need this?” he said.

“The real issue is if you want to give people an insight into what’s going on in Australia, the internet is in all probability a much more cost-effective platform for doing that.”

The responsible minister, foreign minister Julie Bishop, has repeatedly raised content as one reason for reconsidering the tender.

“What I have to look at is whether this is the best use of that money and whether we're getting the outcomes: are we getting a positive image of Australia portrayed into the region or, given some of the recent incidents – for example, the Snowden allegations, and now these allegations about the navy's treatment of asylum seekers – is the ABC fulfilling its contractual agreement? And that's what I'm looking at at present,” she recently told Sky news.

And Bishop was quoted in the Australian on Wednesday saying “this is not about the ABC and its independence as a public broadcaster … This is a separate contract that was put out for tender for public diplomacy. They have an obligation to relay quality content to promote Australia in the region and promote a positive perception of Australia."

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/05/australia-network-overtaken-by-technology-malcolm-turnbull

It was Fasher who alleged a month ago that three asylum seekers had their hands deliberately burned by the Australian navy during its second operation to tow back an asylum vessel to Indonesia in January.

But since then, as the storm raged on, he was left largely alone. This week, in the Tanjung Pinang immigration detention centre on a little island off the coast of Sumatra, that changed. Fairfax Media conducted the first extended face-to-face interview with Fasher, who says he was an eyewitness to the incident, and he told his story in unprecedented detail. 

They are allegations which, when given credence and air time by the ABC, encouraged the Abbott government and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to open a culture war with the national broadcaster, to review its funding and question its reach into Asia.

PM urged to review ABC standards...

This of course comes from Greg Sheridan at Murdoch's The Australian... The small print or whatever is called an article reveals that this urgency comes from "within the cabinet"... as the subtitle tell us that "Mildest minister enraged by attacks on ADF personnel"... Mildest minister? What sort of beast is that?... Does this reflect badly on the others? Are the others nasty? Sure...

Well, there are several things here... A new video emerged at the ABC showing a contingent of asylum seekers being towed in a "lifeboat" by an Australian Navy ship.

Should these asylum seekers have been found in Australian waters (claim by asylum seekers to be very close to Christmas Island), the navy is breaking international law on asylum seekers. 

Should these asylum seekers have been found in international waters, the navy is breaking international law on maritime conventions. 

Should these asylum seekers have been found wherever and being towed back INSIDE Indonesian waters (claim by asylum seekers to be brought back near Indonesian shore), the navy is breaking international law on diplomatic conventions. 

Whatever the colour of our political underpants, this is far more serious that it looks.

Especially after some reports (inconclusive in the video) that the tow-back was done in darkness (after sunset) and that the ships had NO navigation lights as to do all this in secrecy.

In fact, the Abbott government is demanding our navy break international law and to this it has apologised to the Indonesians for having "lost its way on a few occasions"... Eventually this will flare up far more than expected not on the ABC but on the Abbott nazi government.

The Indonesians population does not need this sort of caper to see Australia in a bad way...

We need direct answers from the navy chief and personnel involved, not from sick in the stomach minister who can't stand a bit of mostly self-inflicted heat.

Milestones in the life of a new government must be celebrated — or, in the case of the Abbott Government, lamented. Alan Austin reports.

THE ABBOTT REGIME has reached a remarkable landmark — its 25th blatant broken promise. That’s one every six days since the September election.

This achievement is astonishing for several reasons. First, because Abbott won office after a three-year campaign centred on one broken promise by Julia Gillard.

Secondly, because Prime Minister Abbott has had none of the obstacles in his path which prevented the hapless Gillard from implementing Labor policy — a hung parliament, minority government, ornery Independents, an obstructionist lower house, treacherously hostile media and an opposition hell-bent on destruction.

... Abbott’s insistence at a press conference in Jakarta in October:

“Can I just scotch this idea that the Coalition’s policy is or ever has been tow-backs … There is a world of difference between turning boats around in Australian waters and the Australian Navy towing them back to Indonesia.”

Pretty clear. No tow-ropes.

Reports by the ABC on Tuesday, however, and by the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday confirm reports in the Indonesian media that boats are indeed being towed back to Indonesia.

Read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-new-world-record-25-broken-promises-in-150-days,6145

The federal opposition is calling for an independent investigation into claims the navy abused asylum seekers, saying it is the only way to vindicate the Australian personnel.

The ABC has admitted it should been "more precise" when reporting allegations that asylum seekers were forced by the navy to hold on to hot engine parts.

The coverage sparked a backlash against the public broadcaster but the abuse claims have been given fresh impetus after being reported again in Fairfax Media.

Opposition parliamentary secretary Matt Thistlethwaite said such claims should be treated with "healthy scepticism" but now they had been aired again it was appropriate to have an independent investigation.

"That's the best way to vindicate the Australian navy," he told Sky News on Saturday.

"I have every confidence in Australian navy personnel."

The government has rejected the claims. Defence Minister David Johnston has pushed for an inquiry into the ABC for "besmirching" the navy's reputation.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the allegations were made by someone who had "an interest in creating certain perceptions".

"There is absolutely no suggestion that there is any truth in these allegations whatsoever and we reject them out of hand," he told Sky News on Saturday.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the focus should be on the government’s success at stopping the flow of asylum seeker boats, not unsubstantiated claims by the ABC.

‘‘In my view, if they (ABC) got it wrong they should apologise and then we can move on,’’ she told reporters in Adelaide on Saturday.

The ABC got it right, even if "badly" expressed...

Asylum seeker burns: claims and counterclaims cry out to be tested

Tony Abbott says he has seen nothing to cause him to believe the navy mistreated asylum seekers, but has he looked?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/07/asylum-seeker-burns-claims-and-counterclaims-cry-out-to-be-tested

It’s such an ABC discussion to end with a discussion about “Lou Reed”. This, you know, heroin addict and transgressional. So ABC … What about Dvořák? … Or Tchaikovsky? … Well?

—Christopher Pyne, Q&A, ABC1, 28 October 2013

For millions of Australians, the ABC is all at once a homely source of intellectual and spiritual nourishment, a reliable source of news and information, and an ungainly emblem of the country’s character. In some measure, it satisfies both their national pride and what remains of their Anglophilia. For millions more, insofar as they are conscious of its existence, the public broadcaster is an irrelevant item of megafauna. On these broad lines the country divides: what is a sort of indispensable national house cow for one large portion of the population, another portion of comparable size scarcely knows and doesn’t give two hoots for. Like the two ventricles of the heart, they pump away in peaceful co-existence.

Then there is a third cohort, possibly numbering in the thousands, who believe the ABC is run by “Leftists” and crusades on “Leftist” causes such as “boat people, same-sex marriage and global warming”. One of the chief spokesmen for this extra ventricle, Andrew Bolt, recently asked readers of his blog to “imagine if every single one of the main ABC current affairs shows” were hosted not by the “Leftists” who presently host them but by him and “fellow conservatives Janet Albrechtsen, Gerard Henderson, Tim Blair, Miranda Devine, Piers Akerman, Tom Switzer and Rowan Dean”.

read more: http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/march/1393592400/don-watson/conservative-crusade-against-abc

Christopher Pyne is an idiot for saying crap like the quote at the beginning...