BY CAM PARKER
SYDNEY — Australian Broadcasting Corporation staff voted no confidence in ABC managing director Jonathan Shier at stop-work meetings across Australia held on November 29. The meetings followed revelations in the Senate Estimates Committee of the depth and severity of management cuts to the ABC and management refusals to meet with staff.
"These are the first cuts at the ABC that can't be traced back to cuts in government funding — they can be readily traced to the excessive growth of Shier's new senior executive", said Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) ABC section secretary Graeme Thompson.
The ABC's science television production unit, which produces Quantum and many other science shows and documentaries, has been axed by management. The removal of the science unit staff now clears the way for further outsourcing of ABC program making.
The sacking of journalist Paul Barry as presenter of MediaWatch demonstrates that the new ABC regime is not interested in the principles of journalistic independence. Barry cited as a possible cause for his sacking management's unhappiness with his interview with ABC board chairperson Donald McDonald. In the interview, Barry quizzed McDonald over Liberal Party interference in the workings of the ABC and its board. That was the last MediaWatch program Barry presented.
At a cost of nearly $10 million in redundancies alone, Shier's first nine months as managing director has been a series of cuts, sackings and compromises of the ABC's charter, especially relating to commercialisation. With the executive car fleet expanding from 220 vehicles to 408, it's not hard to see where all the ABC's money is going.
At the staff meetings it was revealed that since Shier arrival at the ABC artist fees have halved, but the 50 new executive positions have doubled the ABC's executive salary bill, reportedly to $8.9 million.
The Friends of the ABC group will be picketing the ABC board meeting on December 6. The board members should expect to be greeted at the ABC building in Harris Street Ultimo by an angry group of ABC supporters and workers.
ABC unionists at the Ultimo stop work meeting, attended by more than 180 people, resolved to begin building nation-wide rallies to coincide with Shier's first year at the ABC.
To join Friends of the ABC telephone, (02) 9990 0600, email <bcnsw@mpx.com.au>
or visit their web site at <www.fabc.org.au>.Copies of its "ABC independence and funding" petition can be obtained by writing to PO Box 1319, North Sydney, 2059.