News never seems easy at ABC
NATIONAL broadcaster is again caught short by a major story.
It says a lot about the ABC that on Monday, when one of the biggest news stories of the decade was breaking, its primary television station first continued to broadcast Monarch of the Glen and then, when it was the last network to go to coverage of Osama bin Laden's death, it switched to Qatar-based broadcaster, al-Jazeera. So much for an Australian perspective. We can only presume Ultimo was slow to realise the significance of the story, disorganised in how to cover it and uncertain whether its hosts could anchor the on-air coverage until President Barack Obama spoke.
Judged by the ABC's charter, which requires "innovative and comprehensive broadcasting", this was another epic failure. The ABC also neglected to go live to air with the dispatching of our Prime Minister last year, so despite all of its resources and annual taxpayer funding of $1.13 billion, the ABC bungles the major stories. The viewing public is entitled to believe this is not good enough. Defensively, ABC boss Mark Scott has pointed to coverage on the digital 24-hour news channel, but this has a tiny audience and is not even available to many viewers. TV's channel two and local AM radio are the mainstays of ABC audiences and should be treated as such. Mr Scott needs to get these right before spending all his time and our money tinkering with ever more channels, increasing the ABC's "platforms" and spruiking about how "tech savvy" it is.
Australians grew up expecting the national broadcaster to deliver reliable and timely news and current affairs. Now they must wonder about its priorities, with the managing director and many staff seemingly spending more time on Twitter than they do broadcasting. Clearly Mr Scott should spend more time on content and developing the news-focused, can-do attitude that seems to flourish in the commercial media. The ABC likes to deride commercial media but, yet again, its rivals showed better judgment and greater flexibility.
Given News Limited's corporate investment in the successful Sky News channel (which went to the bin Laden story 20 minutes before the ABC's 24-hour news channel) it would perhaps be in The Australian's commercial interests to leave the ABC to its lumbering ways. But we are fiercely concerned about the stewardship of taxpayers' money and the ABC's ability to perform its proper duty in the national interest.
Baillieu budget nets more debt
VICTORIAN taxpayers to face some pain but not till later.
Incoming Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu did all the pre-budget softening up, blaming his predecessor for blow-outs and black holes, but he has failed to follow through on his promised tough budget. Given his rhetoric and the reality of a state living beyond its means, the budget needed to demonstrate fiscal discipline. The economic and political reality demanded much of the hard work be done immediately, in the first year of a fixed four-year term.
Delivering popular election promises is one thing, digging taxpayers further into debt to pay for them is quite another. Treasurer Kim Wells says he will deliver a $140 million surplus next year, and ongoing surpluses averaging $164m, despite $5.1 billion of increased spending. He is paying for this through some welcome budget cuts totalling $2.2bn but, more worryingly, by nearly doubling state debt to more than $23bn, taking it to almost 6 per cent of gross state product.
The focus on police numbers and public transport security is understandable given Melbourne's particular crime problems, but efficiencies could have been found elsewhere. And stamp-duty cuts and utility concessions are all well and good, but only when states can afford them.
Medium-term threats remain for Victoria with diminishing payments from the federal government's GST revenue possibly eroding further as a result of Canberra's review of federal-state financial relations. By borrowing instead of cutting, the Baillieu government hasn't avoided a reckoning, merely forestalled it. If there is a dampening of national economic trends before the cuts are made, the difficulties will intensify and Victorians might be wishing their government had muscled up when it said it would.
Obama's opportunity to increase the war on terror
THE US must demand Pakistan stands up to extremists.
Just as Osama bin Laden's odious attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, did not threaten the country's survival, his death does not mean the war on terror is at an end. This is not to underestimate the US achievement in killing him or its international impact. As the crowds congregating outside the White House and World Trade Centre construction site on the night it was announced understood, bin Laden's end illustrates their nation's global reach. As much as it is appropriate retribution for the thousands who died on September 11 at bin Laden's command, as well as all the other innocents murdered by his al-Qa'ida organisation, his death demonstrates that for the US appeasement is never on the agenda. This was the outcome George W. Bush promised and Barack Obama announced, in a speech which will lift his standing in the polls and his country's reputation all over the world.
But there is still much for the the US and their allies to do. It seems certain bin Laden no longer led the al-Qa'ida terror organisation, that his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri who remains at large, has long been in charge. This means the watch against terrorists on city streets and in airports all over the world must continue. The fight in Afghanistan against the heroin-exporting warlords who command the Taliban must also go on. To abandon the long-suffering Afghan people to men who protected bin Laden and claim Islam justifies their misogyny and feudalism would send a signal to ordinary Muslims that the US is cynically selective in defending human rights.
The Americans lost interest in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union was forced out a generation ago -- it must not make the same mistake again. And in Pakistan, leaders who take US aid while officers under their command talk to the Taliban must be called to account. If US intelligence could find bin Laden living near Pakistan's military academy, how could he have eluded the nation's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate?
The challenge for President Obama is to use bin Laden's death as a circuit-breaker in Pakistan, birthplace or spiritual home to terrorists responsible for attacks across the border in Afghanistan and across the world in Britain and the US. The country's armed forces have been preparing for war with India for 60 years, but have proved variously incapable and uninterested in protecting their country against terrorists. In 2009, the central government lost control of the famous Swat Valley to an Islamist militia. Last January, a provincial governor who campaigned against the country's blasphemy laws was murdered by a member of his military escort. We still do not know whether presidential candidate Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007 for being too liberal, a woman or both. President Asif Ali Zardari, who appears a genuine opponent of terrorism, faces leading a failed state where the government cannot protect its citizens unless he imposes his will on zealots in his own ranks. That the US caught and killed bin Laden alone should shame Mr Zardari into stiffening his spine. And if he needs encouragement, Mr Obama need only spell out Pakistan's choice: stand with the world against terrorism or slide into the hatred that Osama bin Laden espoused.
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