Conservatives to recommend ABC, SBS Board members.
Janet Albrechtsen and Neil Brown are appointed to the panels recommending Board members for ABC & SBS.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Two conservative voices will assist in choosing Board members for ABC and SBS, following the appointment of Dr Janet Albrechtsen and The Hon Neil Brown QC by the government.
Both will join the independent Nomination Panel which was set up by the Labor government to end politically-influenced appointments.
Journalist Dr Janet Albrechtsen writes a weekly column in The Australian and recently called on ABC managing director Mark Scott to resign. She has also written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review and was a member of the ABC Board from 2005 until 2010.
Neil Brown QC is a former Fraser government minister and is currently a prominent arbitrator and adviser in the domain name field and on intellectual property matters.
But Glenys Stradijot, ABC Friends national spokesperson, described the appointments as ‘a declaration of war on the ABC’s independence.’
“Ms Albrechtsen is widely perceived as a right-wing political warrior. It is disturbing that someone so clearly partisan and a strident opponent of the ABC should be appointed to such a position,” she said.
“Mr Brown is a former politician who has held senior positions in the Liberal Party. ABC Friends also knows him to be a strong critic of the ABC.
“ABC Friends worked long and hard for the introduction of a system which would depoliticise appointments to the ABC Board, one in which board members would be appointed on merit.”
Albrechtsen and Brown join current panel members Mr Ric Smith AO PSM, Chair, and Mr David Gonski AC who were both re-appointed to the Nomination Panel in 2013, for a period of three years until 29 June 2017.
SBS Chairman Joe Skrzynski stepped down in March and has not yet been replaced.
18 Responses
Neil Brown and Janet Albrechtsen have not the slightest interest in preserving public broadcasting. They are only concerned with limiting the ability of the ABC to do its job effectively. Way back in 2002, Media Watch host David Marr questioned whether Janet Albrechtsen was guilty of plagiarism in some News Ltd articles she had written about Islamic gang rape problems in Sydney. Her response then was to attack the ABC for attempting to limit free speech.
Albrechtsen served on the ABC Board for 5 years, so how can she be unqualified to serve on the board assessing candidates?
The idea that Rudd appointing people to a board which appointed people to the ABC makes the decisions somehow independant was just a smoke screen.
The left is just claiming their left wing appointees are independent while any right one ones aren’t.
Cronyism.
Totally disgusted with this announcement. Fancy that the liberal govt of the day forcing the public broadcaster to tow the party line with the appointment of right wing fools to the board to make sure that the liberal party view is presented on air.very sad day for fair and balanced views. Under the liberal govt the ABC will become another Sky news channel which also tows the liberal party line in all its views.
Somewhere right now, there is a bridge without a troll.
This is great news.
It is always good to have folk who will cast a critical eye over things rather than a load of yes men/women.
As this is a perceived right wing takeover of the abc/sbs (a good idea in my view), then surely it will only be a matter of time before Sir Andrew Bolt is given an executive dictatorial role with a remit to purge all the commies and left wing propaganda from these organisations.
Happy Days yes?
Loving it! And great points Vince!
Unbelievable (actually not really unbelievable given what Abbott and Co have done so far to wind back democracy and independence).
The Nomination Panel is supposed to avoid political interference in the Board selection process. How can Albrechtsen, who is such a strident critic of the ABC, be considered to be independent? The last time she was on the Board was when Howard stacked it with his cronies and there was a noticeable shift to the right.
This does not bode well for anyone who thinks that the ABC should be truly independent.
The underhanded , relentless undermining of the ABC/ SBS by the Abbott govt.is gaining momentum.
Sadly, so predictable that this would happen.
Not sure if this is a brighten my day afterthought or as my kids would say, I’m just having another ‘Delusions of Grandad’ moment.
But hopefully and if Janet Albrechtson is to be a truly ‘ Independent member’ of the Independent Nomination Panel, shouldn’t that then exclude her from programmes such as ‘QandA’ and the ‘Drum’ etc thus leaving her much more free time for other network programmes such as The Bolt Report ???
This would be Pythonesque if it wasn’t so terrifying. Janet Albrechtson is such a hypocrite – why agree to be on the Board of an organisation you despise and now seek to influence Board appointments? And why is this done behind Malcolm Turnbull’s back?
Abbott and Co at their worst, and typical of more broken pre-election ABC promises, no doubt justified in typical ‘Abbott and Co Style’ by claiming they are not stacking the ABC Board, but we also never promised ‘ not’ to stack the ‘Independent Nomination Panel’.
The damaging legacy of these two appointments announced out of an ideologically driven hatred, by our present shamelessly egotistical ‘born to rule’ government, will only be surpassed, when’ their’ anointed board appointees, influence the destiny of our public broadcasting network.
I only hope the ABC’s final public service, will be a documentary either titled ‘Voters do Get the Government they Deserve’,or ‘Just Deserts’, with hours of vision of voters hanging their heads in shame.
Two excellent appointments to the committee. Albrechtsen is a former ABC Board member herself and Brown has a distinguished career. Let’s hope the new board members who get selected can help lift the ABC up from their recent history of missteps.
Anyone with a skerrick of interest in an independent quality public broadcaster should be very concerned.
This does not bode well for either broadcaster.
One has to query the logic in appointing two very vocal critics of the ABC to this panel. The only justification I can see is that the government wish to undermine the panel’s raison d’etre: that of ending politically-influenced appointments.
Typically disgusting behaviour from this vicious pack of lunatics. All that time we were laughing at the Americans for being so ignorant as to elect someone like Bush. And then we got this bunch of anti-democratic, anti-education, anti-humane, anti-ABC pack of hoodlums. As Tony Wilson has said, the Head Boys of the toffy private school are running things, and they’re pissing on everyone not in their wealth and class based clique from atop the shelter sheds.
I’m alternating between numb and outraged. Why does this government feel the need to politicise everything?!
Neil Brown was never a minister under John Howard as he left Parliament in 1991, five years before Howard became Prime Minister.
Brown however was Howard’s first deputy Liberal leader from 1985 to 1987.
Reading the headline of this article made me think back in the 1990s when then Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Tim Fischer said he wanted capital C conservative judges on the High Court.