The damage the Turnbull government and its puppet, new managing director Michelle Guthrie, is inflicting on the ABC must be stopped. Guthrie clearly doesn't have a grasp of the fundamentals of the ABC Charter and its obligation to be "the provider of an independent national broadcasting service".
After relentless carping by the IPA and other conservatives, the previous managing director appointed Amanda Vanstone and Tom Switzer, IPA adjunct, as presenters to ensure political "balance". Guthrie plans to worsen the conservative bias by expanding Switzer's air time and adding Kim Williams, former CEO of News Corp, to the line-up.
![Illustration: Michael Leunig](/web/20161126081127im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/v/2/v/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsuyw1.png/1479822799787.jpg)
Less than a month after telling a Senate hearing no "major changes" were proposed for Radio National, and rejecting Eric Abetz' claim that the ABC was biased, Guthrie announced job cuts and awful programming changes to Radio National. Its independence, quality journalism, popular presenters and successful programs are all to be savaged. And listeners have been given no opportunity to have a say. Did Guthrie bow to pressure from the Coalition? Regardless she should be sacked. Integrity and independence are at the heart of our public broadcaster, and we deserve an ABC managing director who is committed to these principles. The board must intervene to stop these changes from being implemented.
Liz Schroeder, Thornbury
Guthrie promised no cuts
How do public figures get away with telling lies? Michelle Guthrie said no cuts to the ABC and then calmly goes about cutting. Politicians said the same. Why are they so afraid? Free speech for politicians but no one else. And who will monitor the bias of the new ABC and will they be heard?
Pam French, Ringwood East
Dumb down the masses
When I read of the ABC's decision to change the agenda of the long-running Life Matters, I felt like the frog in the pot of water who suddenly saw boiling point approaching. My outrage was boundless. Topics deemed "social issues" are to be replaced by a focus on "family and parenting". The traditional morning audience of people at home and those engaged in childcare will now be deprived of the opportunity to steep themselves in the debates and controversies that shape the modern family.
Conservative politicians' recent coining of the phrase "elite media" to describe anything that can't be comprehensively described as right wing is clearly having an impact on the ABC. God forbid that daytime radio should stir up the masses, and just in case it does we are going to make sure they are sent back to the kitchen sink.
Barbara Friday, Richmond
People in glass mansions ...
Is anyone else screaming mad to hear the word "elite" hijacked by those wishing to heap odium on the ABC and Fairfax press and, by implication, their lackeys? Especially infuriating is that by aping Donald Trump, our "silver-tongued", silver-spooned Prime Minister-extant is declaiming such pejorative nonsense. People in glass mansions shouldn't.
Jill Mazzotta, Balaclava
Network illustrates its value
Last Monday I realised yet again why the ABC is so brilliant. It has the courage to show intelligent, heart-wrenching programs that resonate in the soul. First was the Australian Story about Khaled Naanaa confronting the brutal Assad regime, which, with the assistance of Vladimir Putin, is starving civilians. Then Liz Jackson on Four Corners showed the devastation of living with Parkinson's disease. Both programs illustrate what it means to be truly human; the joy and the heartbreak of being alive in today's world.
Doug Stark, Fish Creek
THE FORUM
Were it only fiction
My world order is in shambles. Donald Trump is elected despite appalling behaviour. His apologists suggest he may be more moderate in future, reminiscent of the abusive partner who excuses his behaviour by blaming drink or, in Trump's case, the media. It is unacceptable.
Women in high office are personally attacked. Clinton, Janet Yelland and Gillian Triggs were all dignified in their responses to the onslaughts. Younger aspirants would need a suit of armour to pursue such career paths.
Finally, program cuts at Radio National. RN has been the audio background to my life, educating and entertaining me over decades. I already switch off Tom Switzer because of his conservatism, and Michael Mackenzie for his mindless pap between reheats and leftovers. The axing of the programs of Jonathan Green and Lucky Oceans especially upset me. I do not want to switch to podcasts or continually change stations. I want a return to the intellectual and musical stimulation I love and value.
Where's Howard Beale? Oh that's right, he's fiction. I wish all of the above were also.
Barb Ashworth, Castlemaine
Lost in translation
Malcolm Turnbull quotes Mario Cuomo: "We campaign in poetry, but we govern in prose." I hardly think poetry is the word to describe Trump's campaign. Graffiti? Unfair to graffiti artists. Dog whistling? Trump wasn't that subtle. Demagoguery and hate-speak? Yes, that describes it.
Ann Nicholson, Clarinda
Back seat driver
Amanda Vanstone writes that "democracy is the vehicle but you have to drive it" (Comment, 21/11). Who or what is the driver? The recent events in democracies around the world – the UK, US, Indonesia, Australia – show democracy in action. When functioning unfettered, it allows a voice for any opinion, which, as we have seen, can give rise to unexpected and potentially disruptive results. In all these recent cases the end result could be chaos and an overthrow of democracy itself. In this sense democracy is its own worst enemy, containing within itself the seeds of its destruction. The unanswered question remains – who is to be the driver that can avoid this catastrophe?
Bob Malseed, Hawthorn
Deep misgivings
In seeking to understand the political changes sweeping through many Western nations, I read a phrase that resonated. Many feel like "strangers in their own country". According to the cosmopolitan worldview, such an attitude smacks of conservative nationalism and, worse, bigotry and xenophobia. However, there seems to be more people feeling insecure than the more optimistic would like to believe. Those feeling "left behind" are not just the ageing, white, working class that can safely be ignored.
Indeed, many people who exhibit all the signs of a progressive worldview may at a deeper, more private level, harbour serious misgivings about the way their lives are changing. While displaying appropriate behaviour in public, who knows what they are really thinking and how that might influence their vote when faced with a candidate who promises to restore the type of society they cherish?
Rod Wise, Glen Iris
Traumatic competition
I do voluntary work with refugees and asylum seekers in temporary detention. The deal with the US has been heralded by many as a positive outcome – yet it gives America the opportunity to cherry pick who it wants. In truth, the deal has added much unnecessary stress.
One mother whom I support has responded thus: "I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. I cannot play with my family. I cannot watch TV. I cannot read. I only think. I only worry. The doctor has doubled my antidepressants. They are not working. She wants to change the medication – again. Medication is not good for me, but what can I do? I don't want to live. We cannot go to America unless we go first to Nauru. But if we go to Nauru and America does not pick us, then they will give us a 20-year visa for Nauru. I cannot go back to Nauru."
This chance to enter the competition to go to America is furthering the torture and trauma – forcing those who are in Australia for medical treatment to return to the offshore detention camps to be "in the running" for the trip of a lifetime to the United States of Trump.
Name and address withheld
Feelings over facts
During the US election campaign, Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich was interviewed on CNN and argued that under Obama, crime had gone up. The host pointed to statistics indicating Gingrich was wrong; that crime had gone down. Gingrich replied: "The average American, I will bet you this morning, does not think that crime is down ... people feel more threatened. As a political candidate, I'll go with what people feel." The message was simple: feelings trump fact – a message clearly reinforced on November 8.
On Monday, the Murdoch media and other outlets reported that Victorians "feel" crime has gone up. Yet statistics show youth crime is down, repeat offending is down and that arrests are up. But such "facts" are thrown on the trash heap when there is an agenda to scare the public into "feeling" they are in danger. Recent scenes at the juvenile detention centre in Parkville indicate change is required, but the myriad issues need to be tackled systematically, not with a "less carrot, more stick" approach.
David Mitri, Belmont
And Plan B?
Victoria's "youth crime wave" reportedly centres around Dandenong, where youth unemployment is up to 39 per cent. Census data (2006) for youth in Casey show only 2.3 per cent attended TAFE, with similarly few at university. William Angliss Cranbourne TAFE campus developed successful re-engagement programs for at-risk youth, along with VCAL, VCE, VET and hospitality training. Yet, in 2013, under the Baillieu-Napthine government, William Angliss closed that campus and opened one in Sri Lanka as training operator for Crown Casino in Colombo.
The then skills minister, Peter Hall, described the closure as "disappointing" but "a matter for the William Angliss board". This demonstrates the absurdity of educational management by unelected boards with no accountability to taxpayers.
How are people, especially young men, to establish stable households without training and jobs? What is Plan B? Does it extend beyond construction of billion-dollar prisons?
Barbara Chapman, Hawthorn
Riding coffee wave
Jessica Irvine (Comment, 21/11) discussed Bernard Salt and his smashed avocado reference. However, Salt overlooked how integral the cafe/restaurant culture is to the economy. In my area, on Moreland Road from the train station to Sydney Road, a distance of about 250 metres, there are six cafes. Three are of hipster standard, another has a niche pastry market, the fifth offers basic fare, and the sixth kebabs. They provide employment, income to suppliers, work for refrigeration mechanics and so on. If the smashed avocado set stay away, what happens then? What I see in my area is multiplied thousands of times around Melbourne. Aren't we now a society that rides on the back of a coffee cup?
Des Files, Brunswick
Compromised selves
Louise Adler (Comment, 22/11), discarding stereotypes would mean the end of satire. Whatever the medium, satire is funny when we – all of us – recognise compromised elements of our human selves in the satirical image. And irrespective of our point of view, "satire" is not funny, just vicious, when the stereotype is seen as simply contemptible (the "derelict" Indigenous father in Bill Leak's cartoon). In such cases "satire" simply becomes an attack on the stereotyped group. And when that group is a race or religion, Sections 18C and D rightly applies.
Peter Deerson, Mornington
Uphold high standards
While I am somewhat empathetic with Jerusha Mather's desire to study to be a doctor (The Age, 22/11), a request to sit exams over several days to avoid fatigue would indicate a latent incapacity inconsistent with the high standards required of a medical practitioner. Should we have a similar relaxation of visual standards for partially sighted bus, train and tram drivers?
The cornerstone of professional competency is the ability to compete on a level playing field at the standards necessary to demonstrate capacity and achievement. The authorities are not underestimating her. Unfortunately they are requiring her to demonstrate competency within a prescribed time frame.
Greg Angelo, Balwyn North
Could all end in tears
My heart sank as I read of the parental preparation put into the quest for a scholarship to a private school – seven hours' preparation daily on Madi Brooks' summer holiday (The Age, 22/11). Ye gods! I wonder if her father considered the awful outcome if his efforts had not been successful? Failure is an important learning experience for all children, but baby steps, please. Flunk a piano exam – not nice; miss out on a part in a school play – pretty upsetting. However, dashing the hopes and dreams of a loved father who has so much invested in his daughter's success is failure indeed. Therapy would loom!
Georgina Batterham, Richmond
AND ANOTHER THING...
Multiculturalism
Peter Dutton's latest divisive comment could actually promote terrorism. A strong PM would sack him.
Stephen Baldwin, Frankston
When did Dutton defect to One Nation?
Ruja Varon, Malvern
Minister, how many generations of those from non Anglo-Saxon backgrounds must be born here before they become Australians?
Patricia Watkinson, Hawthorn East
The government rushes full tilt into Trumpism, blaming minorities and migrants for everything. It worked a treat in the US, didn't it?
Jerry Koliha, South Melbourne
Politics
Malcolm, Prez Obama, a selfie ... and a doe-eyed look.
Hugh McCaig, Blackburn
When they (the US) go low, we go lower (apologies to Hillary Clinton).
Michael McNeill, Bendigo
The US
Trump makes America great again? More likely Trump makes America hate again.
Michael Kino, Caulfield North
Of all US politicians, only Abraham Lincoln can really complain that the theatre is not a "safe space" ("Trump demands apology from Hamilton cast", 20/11).
John Murphy, Aberfeldie
It's said that for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, attractive ... and wrong. America has chosen such a solution.
Rod Williams, Surrey Hills
The ABC
Where does it say in the charter the ABC has a responsibility to promote right-wing think-tank the IPA?
Kim Bessant, Footscray
Rather than force ABC radio into a marriage with News Corp, just give it a full frontal lobotomy.
John Hayward, Weegena, Tas