PUBLIC BROADCASTER’S EXISTENCE UNDER THREAT
At its meeting in Sydney on June 16, 100 delegates of the Liberal Federal Council voted two-to-one that the ABC should be sold.
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Two members of the Institute of Public Affairs have just published a booked entitled “Against Public Broadcasting: why we should privatise the ABC and how to do it”.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and ministers have said on television that the ABC will not be sold off.
Despite these assurances there is a widely felt fear that the ABC’s continued existence as an independent broadcaster is under very real threat.
Apart from the vite by the Liberal Federal Council and the active advocacy of the Institute of Public Affairs, there is the matter of the government’s savage cuts to the ABC funding: the latest $83 million in addition to the $254 million already lost.
There are now 1000 fewer employed by the ABC than four years ago. Yet the government gave $30 million to Fox Sports and has set aside $50 million to celebrate Captain Cook!
The ABC is valued by 80 per cent of the viewing and listening public and should be properly funded so that it can meet its obligations to the Australian people under its charter.
Ron Kirkland, Cootamundra
NSW MOVING CLOSER TO ‘POLICE STATE’
What a nightmare this whole forced council amalgamations has become.
Firstly, the Berijiklian/Barilaro government kicked out our democratically elected council for no good reason whatsoever then secondly, they denied them the right to procedural fairness.
As if that wasn’t enough, they now want to take away our right to peaceful assembly! Heaven forbid – what next?
From what I have read legal scholars have traced the right to assembly back to 1215, to the signing of the Magna Carta.
A meeting may assemble by the spontaneous act of any portion of the people… All that the law requires is that the meeting assemble peaceably… and that it be conducted without any violence, leading to a breach of the peace.
The common law right to assembly has been expressly recognised by Australian Courts, including the High Court of Australia and the NSW Supreme Court, in terms which illustrate an “acceptance of the role of protests as part of democratic systems of government.” Peaceful assemblies are “integral to a democratic system of government and way of life.”
And now this government wants to take this right away from us.
Green’s MP, David Shoebridge recently said that NSW is moving closer and closer to a police state.
And he is right. Unless we can get rid of this shameless, dictatorial government who doesn’t believe in democracy or procedural fairness, then who knows where we will end up?
It would be interesting to know just what our local member, Steph Cooke thinks about all of this.
Geoff Field, Gundagai
REST OF THE WORLD IS ENVIOUS
No wonder world leaders are envious of our PM, Malcolm “The Magnificent” Turnbull. Why?
We have cheap electricity, gas, petrol, etc.
No one sleeping outside, full bellies, warm in the winter, cool in the summer.
Now that’s what I call leadership.
Colin Field, Gundagai
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