Your Favourite Aunty’s 75th Birthday

Most of my weekend was taken up with the official launch of the Democrats election campaign (I’ll write more about that later, once I’ve uploaded some photos from my camera – but you can read accounts here here or here) but I also briefly popped in  to the celebrations of the ABC’s 75th anniversary at the Botanical Gardens in the city (next door to the campaign launch).

By the time I got to the ABC event, it was clouding over and looking a bit ominous, but the atmosphere was still great and the families all seemed to be having fun. A band was tuning up, and someone I couldn’t quite make out was making a presentation about something science-y but I couldn’t get close enough to find out what.

I would have liked to stick around longer, but I had been running around since early that morning, so I bunked off after about 20 minutes.

I do think it’s worth celebrating the vital role that the ABC plays in our country, but I also think we have to address the ongoing threats to its independence and vitality. The celebration yesterday understandably steered clear of that, which is why despite the smaller turn out and fewer resources, I preferred the Friends of the ABC picnic in the park the Sunday before.

The Friends of the ABC celebrated the 75th anniversary on the actual date – 75 years since the first broadcast of the ABC with a picnic in Guyatt Park, St Lucia.  It was aimed specifically at families, and so was less overtly political than some of our previous events, but we did manage to make a few points about the losses to Australian families from a poorly-funded ABC.

In the last year or two, the ABC met with government to pitch the idea of ABC 3 – a digital channel which would be entirely made up of children’s programming – so there would be at least one station that parents could feel confident in sitting their children in front of, without exposing them to upsetting news breaks, or the more persistent evil of advertising.

ABC 3 never got off the ground – the government isn’t funding the national broadcaster enough to adequately resource its current commitments, let alone any expansions.  Which is truly a shame – as annoying as advertising is for the rest of us, when it’s directed at children who have fewer defences, it can seriously distort their world view.

One of the key problems faced by the ABC is that while the commercial networks are seen as its natural competitors, they are actually in a different industry.  The ABC’s charter guarantees that it works to deliver information, entertainment and education to the public, whereas the other networks are merely delivering their audience to their advertisers using programming as bait.

I had been down for the count with a nasty chest infection leading up to the picnic, and the antibiotics I was taking for it were really knocking me around - I’d only had about three hours’ sleep the night before.  So it was especially unnerving to find when I got there that the MC hadn’t been able to make it, and I had to give a speech, chair the speakers and talk to the media without preparation.

I dodged the journalist until I’d gotten a sugar hit under my belt (his article on the Brisbane Times luckily got some quotes from Professor Alan Knight, our new national spokesperson, to supplement my ramblings – last paragraph, here)

We also had speeches from the Queenslander of the Year, Professor Matt Sanders and former Radio National presenter and producer Alison Cotes both speaking about the vital role of the ABC in both our children’s development, as well as that of our comunity more broadly.

Despite being much smaller than the official celebrations, I think we signed up enough new members and spread the word on the need for an independent ABC enough to count our event as a success.

We had approached the ABC management about having a stall at the official events, but were turned down which was a bit of a slap in the face.  But as always, the Friends of the ABC want to make it clear that our problems are with the management of the ABC, and the overt government influence, not with the staff themselves.

(I’ll add some photos from our picnic as soon as I unearth them from my camera)