John Howard and Alan Jones are friends. They�re also political allies. Mutual backscratchers, in other words, for mutual advantage. So Howard invites Jones to his exclusive barbecue for George Bush last year. And Howard chooses Jones, every time, when he�s in political trouble and wants a supportive radio interview.
Of course Alan Jones has political power. And he uses it, big time, to get his way, in politics and to line his pocket with advertising dollars.
Cool. But what happens when the third party in the mutual admiration and mutual benefit society is the bloke Howard appoints to enforce the law on radio broadcasting licence holders � in this case 2GB, in which Jones is a substantial shareholder � and to set standards of conduct to protect citizens from abuse of power?
And what happens when a big company � in this case Telstra, which is majority owned by the Australian people – joins the cosy circle?
It�s a recipe for corruption, deceit, and outright betrayal of the foundation of our democracy � the public�s right to know.
Watching Lateline�s discussion with former Australian Broadcasting Authority executive Kerrie Henderson and opposition communications spokesman Lindsay Tanner last night, I was struck by the fact that Tanner proposed no REAL, SUBSTANTIVE changes to the law to protect the citizens politicians allegedly represent. Henderson raised the issue, but Tanner wouldn�t touch it. No, let�s just have an inquiry on who said what to whom at THAT dinner party.
Why won�t Labor bite the bullet and promise to do what needs to be done to halt the mainstream Australian media�s slide into effectively lying, consistently, to its readers, listeners and viewers for profit. BAN CASH FOR COMMENT. Criminalise the disgraceful, unethical practice of media selling the news and comment it pretends to be independent? AND ban companies from offering to buy media comment?
I wrote about a scheme by Howard�s tawdry government to spend citizen�s money to buy favourable comment in regional newspapers in Whatever it takes: the Howard Government’s cash for comment play, Is the government ethical? No comment and Howard’s cash for comment: an update. At the time, I asked Tanner whether Labor would stamp out cash for comment for once and for all. It hadn�t been considered, he said.
Of course not. Which major political party would dare offend Alan Jones and John Laws and the other shock shocks who abuse their positions of trust with Australians for personal financial gain? Let alone Kerry Packer, another lucky invitee to the Bush barbecue?
A few years ago, just after the first cash for comment scandal involving Laws and Jones, I was travelling with the Deputy Prime minister John Anderson when he got a call from Laws� producer asking for an interview. �You won�t agree, surely,� I said. �He�s unethical.�
�I have no choice,� Anderson replied. Laws had clout with voters and he couldn�t afford to get him offside. Same for Labor.
And Labor, in truth, is responsible for the diabolical state of ethics in Australia�s radio and commercial television media. There was once a strong, independent, ethical and courageous regulator. It was called the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and its head was Miss Deirdre O�Connor, who later become a Judge.
Back then, there were licence renewal hearings every three years � TV and radio licences are PUBLIC assets – at which complaints could be aired and licence holders called to account. O�Connor, silly woman, took the law seriously. When Alan Bond, then the owner of Network Nine, effectively admitted bribing Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen by paying him $400,000 to settle a defamation action against Nine so he could do business in Queensland, she called an inquiry into whether he was �a fit and proper person� to hold a licence, as required by law. Her inquiry decided he wasn�t.
The Labor Government, through communications minister Kim Beazley, then abolished the Tribunal and replaced it with a ‘light touch� regulator, the one now headed by David Flint. The industry would self regulate, and most investigations would be in private.
This disastrous move, made at the behest of Big Media, has led to this sad state of affairs. As Professor Graeme Turner argued in Remote Control: new media, new ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2003), the decline in ethical standards in radio is �a consequence of increased and unregulated competition between broadcasting organisations since the deregulation of the radio industry formalised in the Broadcasting Services Act (1992)�.
“The Act understood the media more as a business than a cultural industry and the media have behaved increasingly unequivocally like a business ever since. Issues of media ethics dropped off the regulatory agenda as a result of the so-called co-regulation arrangements that effectively allowed the industry to police its own ethical standards. The expectation of civic responsibility that underpins a commitment to media ethics also, necessarily, dropped off the agenda as regulatory environments were increasingly designed to ensure the profitable operation of commercial media companies rather than to serve the interests of citizens (or even consumers).”
Add to this a twice appointed sycophant of John Howard as industry regulator and, it is now clear, Alan Jones, and anything goes. Telstra�s involvement in paying huge money to get favourable comment from Jones to deceive its own major shareholder, the Australian people � without a word of protest from the trustee of the people�s shareholding, the Howard Government, just adds to the stench.
Come on, Labor, are you game to clean this up? If you are, make sure you include newspapers in your ban on cash for comment too.
But how could Labor be game. Who�s REALLY got the power? Certainly not the citizen.
Is Australia still a democracy or have the Big Parties, Big Media and Big Business taken it away from us? The big parties will only act if citizens tell them to or else. Do we care enough to take them on?