One Nation sends biased ABC into panic mode

ABC journalists are becoming noticeably impatient with their few conservative guests. This may reflect a growing concern within the socialist collective that Labor’s time in government may be limited. Or worse, that One Nation may possibly govern or at least significantly influence policy direction.

Worrier-in-chief Sarah Ferguson has heard the dogs barking and it isn’t just Barnaby Joyce’s hound Stella.

For Ferguson, no opportunity can be missed to disparage or scorn her right-of-centre guests. Those on the other side of the political and cultural divide are frequently and conspicuously spared.

Take shadow treasurer Tim Wilson, who, in a 7.30 interview, criticised the integrity of Labor’s latest budget. In full stride, Ferguson abruptly interrupted him. Looking up from her own notes, she scolded: “When you talk about honesty, do you need to read that off your notes?”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor also appeared on 7.30 to speak about the budget, but Ms Ferguson was more interested to hear the Opposition Leader agree that the Coalition and One Nation would collaborate at the next federal election.

Despite being interrupted 34 times, Mr Taylor refused to oblige.

No such disrespect was shown to Treasurer Jim Chalmers in his post budget interview.

It’s true, focus groups and major public polls are pointing to a loss for the Victorian Labor government and a tight contest for federal Labor when that election rolls around. One Nation is on track to sweep the Victorian election by winning up to 34 seats.

With One Nation promising to defund the ABC and turn it into a subscription service, Pauline Hanson’s party represents an existential threat. The Ultimo collective knows raising $1.3bn a year through subscriptions would be an impossible task.

Seeking to rise above the fray, ABC chairman Kim Williams decided to enter the lion’s den by agreeing to an interview with News24’s Chris Kenny.

Mr Williams must have hoped that by fraternising with the enemy, he could persuade a largely conservative audience that taxpayers’ money was being well spent.

Yet rather than persuade conservative hearts and minds that the ABC is editorially balanced and complies with its charter, Williams only reinforced their beliefs that it has become a green-left megaphone. When Kenny raised the absence of conservative presenters in the ABC’s line-up, Mr Williams could only cite Tom Switzer, whose full name he seemed to forget.

Unable to name another program or presenter, Williams continued to insist the ABC is a “force for impartiality and objective journalism”.

To be fair, perhaps his own ideological position is so far to the Left, Williams is unaware of the almost daily editorial indiscretions of ABC management and journalists?

Maybe if the broadcaster’s violations were at the margin, that could be excused? However, so egregious are the breaches, so many defamation cases lost and so tone deaf the ABC’s ombudsman, established to adjudicate questions of editorial impartiality, that Mr Williams and his board must be turning blind eyes or, are themselves members of the ABC’s inward looking collective. If it were otherwise, the ABC’s editorial position on Israel, climate change, Donald Trump, immigration, gender politics, Indigenous affairs, Australia Day, Anzac Day, the ALP, the Coalition and Senator Hanson would not be so laughably predictable.

Such selective blindness and the realisation that One Nation may pose an existential threat could explain the airing of a disgustingly sadistic and violent program that seemingly encourages viewers to commit acts of sodomy and murder against a One Nation financial backer as well as Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart.

Hancock Prospecting, on behalf of Mrs Rinehart, reportedly sought removal of the content along with an apology. Allegedly, the ABC’s managing director, chief executive and editor-in-chief, Hugh Marks, did not respond. However, their media team defiantly defended the segment as “editorially justifiable”.

Subsequently, Hancock Prospecting has formally placed Mr Williams, deputy chairwoman Lisa Caffery and Mr Marks on notice of detailed allegations of serious contraventions of multiple criminal and civil laws. Whatever the outcome, the ABC has demonstrated, once again, that when politics and vanity are involved and, with taxpayers paying the bills, the values on which it was founded count for nothing.

In a nutshell, a diminishing number of hardened left-wing followers aside, the ABC has ceased to be relevant to those who fund it.