Pauline Hanson has, for now, won a small but significant victory in Australia’s Culture War:
“Communications Minister Mitch Fifield won support from Pauline Hanson’s party yesterday (for the government’s media reform package) in exchange for strict new oversight measures for the ABC and SBS, including an inquiry into their “competitive neutrality” and requirement they disclose the salaries and allowances of staff earning more than $200,000.
“The ABC Act would also be amended to include the words “fair” and “balanced”, although the legal duty of the board is already to “ensure that gathering and presentation by the corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism”.
Evidence perhaps that quite a few who walk the corridors of power read The XYZ?
An inquiry may not achieve much, but it could be a first step toward either destroying the ABC, or giving half of its funding to The XYZ, so that we may provide a government-funded news service equally as biased to the right as the ABC is to the left. We would be more than happy to contribute to said inquiry, and would have as our first line of questioning, “How soon can you shut down operations?”
On this note, there is still time to vote in The XYZ’s latest Viewer Poll:
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.As it stands, the socialist front that is Nick Xenophon’s NXT appears likely to scuttle the legislation, precisely because of the deal made with One Nation. This, and the fact that Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young claims that “Pauline Hanson has a personal grudge against the ABC”, and that Labor’s Mark Butler called the deal “a crusade against the ABC for ideological reasons”, gives credence to the meme The XYZ has been sharing for a couple of years:
Finally, considering that the ABC’s charter already requires it to “ensure that gathering and presentation by the corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism” amending it to include the words “fair” and “balanced” won’t alter the fact that a charter, a constitution, or any agreement to abide by certain rules, is only as strong as the will to abide by the rules, and the will to enforce the rules.