Adrian Black responds to 'In defence of the Australia Network', by Alex Oliver:
As someone who has lived and worked overseas, seen a fair bit of the ABC's overseas television and had a good opportunity to gauge the reaction to it from the locals I can draw two conclusions:
- The program content varies from reasonable to ridiculous — often just filling time slots — but even so the net impact on those we are trying to influence is probably slightly more positive than negative.
- It falls so far short of what it might be in terms of promoting Australia, particularly in a vital business and economic sense but also culturally and diplomatically, that it is both embarrassing and frustrating.
The politically biased decision to keep the Australia Network going under ABC control despite new blood being twice recommended is Australia's loss, as why would the ABC have any incentive to improve? Another waste of a potentially valuable resource.
The author's declaration of her commissioning by the ABC at the end of the article was disappointing but illuminating. After a lifetime of listening and watching the once splendid ABC, to my great regret, has become a bureaucratic, politically correct, biased plaything of a political mediocrity.
