Thousands of ABC supporters and staff rallied in Sydney's Town Hall Square on Saturday (22 November 2014) over Abbott Government funding cuts. Public journalism advocate and 20-year ABC veteran Quentin Dempster delivered this following stirring address.

I acknowledge we stand on Aboriginal land. Always was … always will be.

Friends,

Thanks for turning out for the ABC and SBS today. Those of us who are about to be industrially executed are buoyed by your solidarity.

I thank the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Friends of the ABC, GetUp!, Jonathan Holmes and our professional colleagues, friends and allies throughout the Australian media industry — including commercial television and radio; the now many online news, conversation and analysis websites; the print media including Fairfax … and our closet supporters in News Ltd. I thank you all for your moral support.

Putting aside rivalry, all thinking content creators, journalists and program makers know what is at stake here.

On Monday executives from the human resources department of the ABC (if you were a tabloidist you’d call them ‘hit squads’) will start to administer targeted redundancy notices. It is at that point the real agenda and its motivations should become apparent. We will see for sure the ABC abandon localism on TV current affairs with the loss of the 7.30 Friday shows — New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Audiences in the one newspaper capitals will be left to endure the dogmatic simplicities of the Murdoch Press. We will see Lateline, which over 25 years, has held government to account and exposed the abuse of political and corporate power and institutional child sexual abuse, stripped of much of its field reporting capacity.

From early intelligence, it appears those programs on radio which require a depth of analysis, specialisation and preparation in production will be targeted. Classic FM faces an uncertain future with loss of staff and outside broadcasts in the short term. Radio news bulletins will be cut from ten to five minutes, giving audiences just the headlines ... not much more than the headlines … less substantive coverage of what is really going on, particularly at the local level.

A news executive will fly around the world to sack many of our wonderful support staff and close some foreign bureaux completely. The ABC wants more foreign correspondents to move to what’s called video journalism where the reporter has to shoot, light, sound-record and video edit his or her own material as a cost cutting exercise. Camera crews on foreign shoots for instantaneous news, live crosses and longer form current affairs are vital in the editorial collaborative process and for physical safety in sometimes very dangerous situations. The quality of the ABC’s international reporting which has helped make the broadcaster so distinctive and trusted is so sure to suffer. The ABC will be more reliant on syndicated agency material. The engagement of Australians with the world through the eyes of our in situ correspondents will also suffer as those who remain will increasingly be instructed to chase ambulances and natural disasters for a bigger visual bang in the 24 hour news cycle.

Thanks to Christopher Pyne, a panicked constituent politician and disloyal Cabinet minister from South Australia, for highlighting what we have long known. Through successive budget cuts and a management resourcing priority to win the digital race, the ABC is Sydney-centric. The loss of the ABC’s Adelaide TV production house, the last remaining regional TV producer outside Sydney and Melbourne - with the loss of more than 100 jobs — is a cultural and local tragedy.

What is about to happen on Monday comes after the mindless vandalism to Australia’s engagement with Asia and the Pacific through the termination of the Australia Network contract.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who I acknowledge has done some determined diplomatic work to bring Vladimir Putin and Russia to account over the MH17 atrocity, (Julie Bishop has assisted in our efforts to liberate journalist Peter Greste from prison in Cairo. I gratefully acknowledge that). But Foreign Minister Bishop has exposed the shallowness of her thinking when she terminated the Australia Network contract.

She cited the ABC’s display of editorial independence apparently over its coverage of the ‘burnt hands’ case and the ABC/Guardian exposure of the Australian Signals Directorate’s bugging of the mobile phones of the Indonesian president and his wife as a motivating influence in her decision to terminate the contract. 

She wanted Australia Network to be a propaganda arm of the Australian Government, in spite of the already agreed objective with DFAT to project Australia as a robust liberal democracy capable of questioning domestic authority, reporting human rights abuse and political dissent wherever it occurred.

The ABC and Australia has lost 70 of our Asia Pacific News Centre international program makers, in situ correspondents and the chance to wire this country into Asia as never before through specially-made quality, ethical news, business, sport and entertainment programs to reach the region’s estimated 3.3 billion mobile phones users. Radio Australia has been distressingly reduced to ‘rip and read’.

Please note that Julie Bishop terminated the contract at the nagging insistence of the Murdoch Press. I can only hope she eventually realises what she has done through the exercise of her ministerial discretion.

I must mention what is happening at SBS.

Dateline has been gutted of its reporting strength and reportedly is to be made lighter if and when it returns to air next year. Dateline has been a most courageous and cost effective contributor in public broadcasting and investigative and exposure journalism world wide. To make it ‘lighter’ in an age of geopolitical tensions, terror, corruption and inhumanity is … laughable. I appeal to Michael Ebeid and the SBS Board to think deeply before they do further damage to the hard won reputation of SBS as an editorially independent service to a now polyglot Australia.

The Government wants to amend the SBS Act to allow SBS to increase its prime time advertising from five to ten minutes per hour. This will further dislocate audience loyalty for SBS with the already aggravating in-program advertising interruptions. Audiences trying to engage with Jenny Brockie’s excellent Insight, Dateline, their documentaries and movies are unnecessarily provoked each time. This destructive dynamic, for whatever millions it will add to revenue in the short term, can only erode taxpayer support for SBS over time. In an age of fear and terror Australia needs SBS as a counter measure, delivering a sense of inclusion through multi-lingual services to our rapidly increasing migrant population including this country’s 600,000 muslims.

The noted casuist Malcolm Turnbull has said the incoming prime minister’s pre-election statement that there would be no cuts to ABC or SBS has to be taken in the context of his and Joe Hockey’s prior warning about efficiency at the broadcasters.

Tony Abbott said unequivocally and unconditionally:

A casuist is a person, especially a theologian, who attempts to resolve moral dilemmas by careful distinction but ultimately false reasoning.

In the Australian vernacular, that means: "Bullshit". Malcolm Turnbull is a bullshit artist. 

I remember him once promising never to tell a lie to the Australian people.

Let me recalibrate this ... Malcolm Turnbull is a bullshit artist … who has now compounded Tony Abbott’s lie.

I appeal to members of the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party to think carefully about the power play now apparent in what is a Rupert Murdoch-directed ideological attack on the public broadcasters of this country. If you get into bed with Murdoch in the hope of tactical advantage in the adversarial game of politics you will sell your souls. When the tide turns, he will dump you in the gutter and laugh at your gullibility. Memoirs from fallen political leaders, double-crossed business partners and pubs full of sacked editors attest to his ruthlessness, unethical culture and expediency. 

The ABC was created in 1932 by the A.J. Lyons Coalition Government, its creation actively supported by Robert Gordon Menzies, then a Victorian MP.

SBS was created in 1979 by the Malcolm Fraser Liberal/National Coalition Government largely because the ABC was then seen as deficient in providing multi-lingual services for millions of new comers.

There are forces at work in this country out to destroy the ABC and SBS, and our unique public broadcasting system.

We must not let this happen.

We must never get tired.

This speech was originally published on the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance website.

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Please note: Russia (and Putin) has not been proven to be involved in the downing of MH17. It is likely that MH17 was downed by a Ukrainian war plane, or such plane that hid around MH17 when targeted. NO-ONE can assume Russia's responsibility until further investigation is made.

The mess that the ABC quandary is is to be shared by Mark Scott (and possibly his right wing inquisition team that was pushing for an ultra right-wing view-point at the ABC?). He should resign. But sometimes stay with the devil you know... Slowly but surely, it appears Scott has reduced the ability of the ABC to produce excellence and investigative journalism. Comedy shows have drifted into the bland and investigative journalism is reduced to Annabel's Kitchen...

Even with proof of shenanigans from the part of politicians, journos have had to jump through hoops or were prevented to make stories due to a complex set of checks and balances that end up placing so many caveats on the truth, that it becomes ragged. 

Due to agreement with the union, it's illegal for the ABC management to "target" people it does not like or want sacked", management has started a program like "Survivors" where formerly dedicated colleagues have to compete against each other in a musical chair style attrition. It's ugly:

The former Middle East correspondent Greg Wilesmith is one of four senior Foreign Correspondent producers to have been sacked by management in a purge of the ABC’s most experienced journalists.

In what has been described as “an ABC version of Survivor” all the senior reporters and producers on Lateline – and most of those on the national 7.30 – have been put into a redundancy “pool” from which management will choose who to sack after conducting a four-week skills audit.

While the Lateline and 7.30 staff face a harrowing month in which they will be measured against each other, Wilesmith and the other three were made redundant without consultation.

“I’m surprised to be asked to walk the plank given managers acknowledge my extensive international experience and high skill level,” Wilesmith told Guardian Australia on Tuesday.

“They should withdraw their proposals. Foreign Correspondent is being cut disproportionately. I can’t see any rationale for it.”

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/25/four-producers-sacked-and-others-placed-in-redundancy-pool-in-abc-version-of-survivor

Veteran journalist Quentin Dempster has announced he is leaving the ABC after a 30-year career.

Dempster made the announcement at the end of Friday night's 7.30 NSW program, a show which is being axed under the ABC cuts strategy outlined by managing director Mark Scott this week.

"Thank you for your support, story ideas and constructive criticism over all this time," Dempster told viewers.

"It has been an honour to work with Australia's great and unique public broadcaster."

Dempster joined the ABC in 1984, and was widely acclaimed for his reporting of the Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland and the Wood Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service.

ABC director of news Kate Torney said Dempster's departure was a "huge loss" and described his coverage of corruption in Queensland and New South Wales as "exemplars of the fearless and forensic journalism which has earned Quentin the respect and admiration of his peers and the gratitude of his viewers".

"Quentin is much loved and highly respected by audiences and colleagues alike. He has helped shape the ABC, on and off screen, over more than three decades," she said in a statement.

"The public is aware of Quentin's outstanding track record as an award-winning journalist. What they don't see is his commitment behind the scenes in mentoring, encouraging and guiding colleagues. He is passionate about the craft and role of journalism and is always keen to share his experience with those around him.

"He will be much missed. On behalf of the broader ABC family, I wish him and his family all the best for the future."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-28/quentin-dempster-quits-abc-after-30-year-career/5926684

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Here at YD, we can only hope that Quentin will be happy — possibly maintaining the rage he should feel at the present destruction (let's face it: IT'S NOT A RESTRUCTURING !) of the ABC and exposing all the forces of trickery that led to his early "departure". Dempster deserves a gold watch the size of Big Ben and we hope to see him sharpening knives somewhere else or read his enlightening views on that crap that has been going on at the ABC... and seem will be going on for a while — as the CONservatives of the Abbott Regime are still hell-bent at destroying the place to cinders...

One does not know though, Dempster may chose to go easy and retire in bliss away from the "mediacirkus" and all the porkie merchants he had to deal with nigh after night — all pretending to be politicians......

When veteran ABC broadcaster, Quentin Dempster, says "bye-bye" in his Queensland, boy-from-the-bush way next Friday night, it will be for the last time.

After more than 30 years with the national public broadcaster, Dempster told viewers on Friday night that he plans to go out with a "bang".

"Next Friday will be the final edition of 7.30 NSW," he said. 

"I will be leaving the ABC after 30 years to return to the private sector. It has been an honour to work with Australia's great and unique public broadcaster."

The ABC is abolishing local TV current affairs programs including 7.30 NSW.

"I think the ABC is making a big mistake in axing these shows and will have to revisit the deficiency in future years," Dempster said.

Within two hours of ABC managing director Mark Scott's announcement to staff on Monday that 400 jobs would be lost around the country, director of news, Kate Torney, called Dempster into her office to tell him he had no future role at the ABC.

"I will be among 300 staff retrenched in the first round of the ABC's cuts," he said. 

"This is a very emotional time for me.

"I have worked extremely hard for the ABC to faithfully use the opportunity it has given me."

On why he was being "sacked", Dempster says he "only ever sought to uphold the integrity of Her Majesty's institutions, the Parliament and the police, in Queensland and NSW." 

"That's not left-wing," he said. "There could be nothing more conservative.

"Why isn't Rupert Murdoch being sacked for phone hacking, invasion of privacy, intimidating the politicians, his tax havens and all those tits on page three? Just asking."

The federal government would gain new powers to set out what it expects from the ABC, raising fears of political interference in the national broadcaster, under a recommendation of the confidential Lewis review.

And some services now provided for free may attract a user charge as the government looks to rein in costs and clip the ABC's wings.

The Lewis review into the ABC and SBS has recommended the Minister for Communications issue each broadcaster with "a statement of the government's expectations" relating to "financial management and transparency".

A leaked copy, obtained by Fairfax Media, also reveals Peter Lewis identified a number of efficiency measures that have not been taken up by the ABC or SBS, which would be highly controversial with viewers and within the broadcast industry. 

These include outsourcing most of the ABC's production, scrapping the retransmission of the ABC and the SBS on Foxtel's cable services (which could have implications for viewers with poor reception), scrapping digital radio and charging for the ABC's iView service.

The proposed "statement of the government's expectations" will fuel suspicions of potential political interference in editorial policy given the Coalition's well documented hostility to the broadcaster's approach.

In February this year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott used a radio interview in Sydney to complain, arguing "a lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone's side but Australia's".

Greens senator Scott Ludlam said the suggestion "really crosses the line, especially with all the 'Team Australia' talk Mr Abbott has engaged in".

As the debate over the ABC's announced cuts continues to cause angst within the Coalition, notably for members from rural areas, Mr Turnbull is expected to release the Lewis report on Monday, when Senate committees hold more hearings.

In his speech announcing a cut of $207 million over four years from the ABC 10 days ago Mr Turnbull made an oblique reference to the controversial proposal. "An interesting insight from the efficiency study was that the ABC and SBS boards would benefit from a clearer understanding of the government's budget priorities and the outcomes that the government is seeking from its annual investment of taxpayers' money," he said

The proposal has been raised privately with the ABC board, which is understood to be strongly opposed to this level of intervention because it fears directions on where cuts should be made would amount to editorial intervention.

The Lewis report acknowledged that  "a ministerial statement of expectations would be controversial and could give rise to concerns that the government is intervening in the ABC and SBS for political reasons".

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/lewis-report-on-abc-canvasses-role-for-minister-in-directing-how-cuts-be-made-20141128-11w5ja.html

Is your ABC is being shaped (hammered) to become a propaganda tool for the neo-fascist capitalist or what is known in this country as the ultra right-wing nazi zealots led by B A Santamarianic scientifically ignoramus Tony Abbott-the-Extreme-Liar... or is the ABC destined to become extinct to satisfy the ultra right-wing greedy zealot gamblers led by disinformative-scientifically-ignoramus Mr Murdoch?