Australian ABC Journalistic Independence Threatened By Coalition Government & Largely Coalition-appointed ABC Board

Australian ABC

Michelle Guthrie , the  Chinese-Australian Managing Director of the Australian ABC (Australia’s equivalent of the UK BBC) has been  sacked by the ABC Board without satisfactory public explanation. After it was revealed that Ms Guthrie had failed to respond to suggestions that she sack top ABC journalists Emma Alberici and Andrew Probyn that the Coalition Government did not like, the Chairman of the ABC resigned. Now there are calls for the largely Coalition-appointed ABC Board to resign over their involvement in this scandal. Horrified Australians are demanding that the independence of the ABC be preserved but the Liberal Party that dominates the Coalition Government demands privatization and selling off  of the ABC.

  1. Australian Coalition Government subversion of ABC integrity and journalistic independence.

The Australian people and the ABC staff strongly believe in an independent and taxpayer-funded ABC. Then Coalition PM  Malcolm Turnbull responded to the demand by the 2018 Liberal Party National Conference to sell off the ABC by unequivocally stating “[the ABC] will always be in public hands. It will never be sold. That is my commitment” [1]. Unfortunately the powerful, climate change denialist and ferociously anti-ABC  Far Right of the Liberal Party removed Turnbull as PM and Leader of the Liberal Party on 24 August 2018 in Australia’s 4th PM-removing Coup in 8 years [2].

A month later, on 24 September 2018 Michelle Guthrie , the  Chinese-Australian Managing Director of the Australian ABC, was sacked by the ABC Board  half-way through her appointment and without proper public explanation. A shocked Ms Guthrie declared that she was considering her legal options, stating: “”While my contract permits the board to terminate my appointment without cause and with immediate effect, I believe there is no justification for the board to trigger that termination clause. .At no point have any issues been raised with me about the transformation being undertaken, the Investing in Audiences strategy and my effectiveness in delivering against that strategy. As the first female managing director of the ABC, I felt a tremendous responsibility and unique privilege to lead Australia’s most important cultural institution. At all times I have promoted the ABC’s importance to the community, including having to defend and protect the ABC’s independence.” [4]. David Anderson, the ABC’s director of entertainment and specialist, will serve as acting managing director until a successor is found [4].

Shortly thereafter it was revealed through publication of an e-mail that the Chairman of the ABC, Justin Milne, had proposed that Guthrie sack top ABC journalist  Emma Alberici in order to placate the Coalition Government which was upset with her reportage.  In response to Milne’s assertion that the reported e-mail quotation was taken out of context, the respected Sydney Morning Herald published the full e-mail: “Ms Guthrie pasted a copy of the email in a document to the [ABC] board last week, days before she was fired. The full version, read to Fairfax Media by a person who witnessed Ms Guthrie’s presentation, reveals the extent of his concerns about Alberici as chief economics correspondent. The text read: “After two glasses of red of course there’s an agenda. They fricken hate her [Emma Alberici] . She keeps sticking it to them with a clear bias against them. We clear her as ok. We r tarred with her brush. I just think it’s simple. Get rid of her. My view is we need to save the corporation not Emma. There is no g’tee they will lose the next election [sic]”” [5].

ABC journalists,  the  Australian public, the Australian commentariat and Labor and Green politicians were outraged by this evidence of political interference with the ABC. The former PM Malcolm Turnbull, a friend and former  business associate of the ABC Chairman , could no doubt truthfully declare from New York that he did not demand the sacking of Emma Alberici,  but it is clear from the released e-mail that the  Chairman of the ABC,  Justin Milne, in calling for Alberici’s sacking was well aware of the ire of the Coalition Government that has already savagely cut the ABC budget. It is also clear that the rest of the ABC Board was aware of the sacking demand and Ms Guthrie’s failure to sack Alberici well before the actual sacking of Ms Guthrie. While Ms Guthrie was criticized by some ABC journalists  as a media technocrat insufficiently interested in actual ABC content, after these revelations Ms Guthrie has emerged as a hero for not giving in to pressure to sack ABC journalist Emma Alberici.

It should be noted that Emma Alberici in my opinion is a class act as a top ABC journalist who is a very well informed, articulate and very polite but dogged and persistent in interviewing evasive and dishonest politicians. Indeed she raised the ire of the neoliberal Coalition Government by garnering data and expert opinion (notably from leading economist Saul Eslake) that the Coalition’s Trumpist policy of handing $80 billion in tax breaks to big corporations would not result in significant ”trickle down” benefit to employees and would endanger Australia’s AAA credit rating by adding substantially to Australia’s circa $600 billion gross debt. Under pressure from the Coalition Government,  the cowardly ABC removed Emma Alberici’s article from the ABC website.  However the Sustainable Engineering Society re-published the article, stating “In the interests of transparency here is Emma Alberici’s article on corporate tax cuts that the Prime Minister [Turnbull] asked the ABC to remove.    His appointed General Manager of the ABC complied by removing the article saying it was opinion not fact (which is rubbish).   This action by the PM is abhorant [sic] to democracy, amounting to political censorship.   Read and make up your own mind” [6].

A key argument was in the title of the censored Emma Alberici article, to whit “There’s no case for a corporate tax cut when one in five of Australia’s top companies don’t pay it” [6]. Indeed  Emily Clark  of the ABC recently  reported the following (as yet uncensored) (2017): “There were 732 companies [out of 2,043] who paid no tax in Australia in the 2015-16 financial year. Collectively, their income was more than $500 billion. It’s all in a dataset on corporate tax just released by the Australian Tax Office. You can see who’s paying what by searching the full database below…” [7].

It gets worse. According to the respected Sydney Morning Herald: “ABC chairman Justin Milne reportedly asked managing director Michelle Guthrie to sack the public broadcaster’s political editor Andrew Probyn, saying “you have to shoot him”, due to government complaints about the reporter. A document circulated to the ABC board by Ms Guthrie ahead of her sacking earlier this week, and reported in The Daily Telegraph on Thursday, outlined a conversation between the former managing director and the chairman in which Mr Milne said refusing to fire Probyn was “putting the future of the ABC at risk” and risking “half a billion dollars” worth of funding for project Jetstream, which is a plan to create a digital hub for the public broadcaster. Ms Guthrie’s outline of the phone call with Mr Milne described the chairman as having “berated” her about Probyn, saying that former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull “hates” him, and that she pushed back and said she could not terminate his employment on this basis” [8].

It gets even worse still.  Thus popular music ABC radio station Triple J reported via  its Triple J Hack website: “ABC chairman Justin Milne tried to stop triple j moving the Hottest 100 music countdown [from 26 January, Australia Day,  to 27 January] because he was afraid of what Malcolm Turnbull would say, sources have told Hack… When the announcement was finally made, on November 27 [2017], Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said he would be asking the ABC board to review the decision, but the prime minister’s reaction was muted. The Hottest 100 went ahead on January 27, and a record of number of votes were cast in the lead-up to the countdown (over 2.3 million)” [9]. The reason for the shift to 27 January is that celebrating 26 January as Australia Day is deeply offensive to Indigenous Australians because it marks the invasion of Australia by the genocidal British in 1788 and the commencement of the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide that has been associated with 2 million Indigenous deaths from imposed deprivation, imposed disease and from violence (0.1 million) and commencement of an ongoing Aboriginal Ethnocide (350-750 Indigenous  languages in 1788 has shrunk to 150 today with all but 20 seriously endangered) [10].

Faced with these revelations of involvement in Coalition Government-inspired censorship of the ABC and numerous calls for his resignation, the Chairman of the ABC, Justin Milne, eventually resigned as Chairman and from the Board of the ABC, leaving behind a huge mess that will have to cleaned up in the interests of ABC journalist independence and Australian democracy.

  1. Flawed ABC “balance” and ABC fake news through lying by omission.

In my opinion, the Australian ABC ranks 3rd after The Guardian Australia (1st) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) (2nd) among Australian Mainstream electronic media. The ABC is funded by the Australian taxpayers to the tune of about $1 billion each year  but is under sustained and ferocious attack from the mendacious, Zionist-subverted, US lackey, serial war criminal, effective climate change denialist, anti-science and climate criminal  Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government. Successive Coalition Governments have subjected the ABC to successive big budget cuts in the last 5 years. Indeed the Liberal Party National Conference has recently voted to privatise the ABC i.e. to sell it off to neoliberal One Percenters (one notes that the same Liberal Party national conference voted to move the Australian Embassy to nuclear terrorist and democracy-by-genocide  Apartheid Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem).

The Australian political spectrum from Left to the Extreme Right successively encompasses  the genuinely Leftist Socialists  (socially and economically radical with about 1% of the vote), the Green Left Greens (socially and economically progressive with 10% of the vote), Left to Right Labor (socially progressive and economically progressive to conservative with 40% of the vote), the Right to Far Right urban Liberal Party and rural National Party Coalition (socially conservative to progressive  and economically conservative with 35% of the vote), Extreme Right, racist and bigoted  One Nation (socially conservative and economically conservative  with 10% of the vote). The remaining 4% of the vote  is for single issue parties.

With increasing social inequity in Australia, Labor is presently split about 50-50 between Left and Right. In the recent Prime Minister-removing Coup (Australia’s 4th PM-removing Coup in 8 years) the Liberal Party was split 50-50 between the “moderate” Right and the climate change denialist Far Right. Political pragmatism has meant that there was little difference between the Liberal Right and the Labor Right who could be described as the politically dominant and Rightist Lib-Labs.    The ABC has a charter that demands impartiality and truth-telling from its employees. However the ABC egregiously violates this Charter by generally adopting the Rightist Lib-Lab position halfway between the Left and the Far Right. Unfortunately the ABC seems to give far more oxygen to the outrageously newsworthy and bigoted Far Right and Extreme Right than to the sensible, science-informed and humane proposals of the Green Left Greens. The similarly science-informed, pro-Humanity and pro-Biosphere Socialists are utterly ignored to the detriment of science-informed public education and public debate.

Many examples of this failure of the ABC can be given. Indeed I have generated an alphabetically-ordered collection of 190 Elephant-in-the-Room  matters that are totally or substantially ignored by the ABC because of its commitment to  “balance”, “respectful conversation”,  “not frightening the horses” and to what PM Malcolm Turnbull described as the “sensible centre” (I would call it the “PC racist centre”) [11].  The ABC not only disgracefully and totally or substantially ignores this veritable Herd-of-Elephants-in-the Room but deliberately softens the language used after the fashion of Orwellian Newspeak. Thus, for example,  “onshore or offshore concentration camps” highly abusively and indefinitely   imprisoning thousands of refugees  are described as “detention centres”. Horrendous Israeli Apartheid, if ever mentioned, is referred to as a future hypothetical reality in Palestine if no “solution” is found rather than the horrible present actuality of an Apartheid Israel that prevents 74% of the  now 50% of its subjects who are horribly oppressed Indigenous Palestinians from voting for the government ruling them [12].

The most existentially dire threats to Humanity are (a) nuclear weapons (that could wipe out most of Humanity and the Biosphere at any time), (b) poverty  (that kills about 16 million people annually in an ongoing Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust),  and (c) man-made climate change (that according  to several  eminent climate scientists could wipe out all but 0.5 billion people this century in a worsening Climate Genocide).  The ABC is grossly derelict when it comes to reporting these worsening, existential issues. The fundamental  reason for this gross dereliction of the ABC is that the politically dominant Rightist Lib-Labs have made Australia disproportionately  complicit in these looming atrocities.  Thus (a) Australia is opposed to nuclear disarmament, is blindly committed to the US Alliance, and is complicit in US nuclear terrorism via hosting  nuclear-armed US warships and through the Pine Gap US-Australian spying station that is crucial for US nuclear strategy; (b) Australia is one of the richest countries in  the world and thus is disproportionately  complicit in the ongoing Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust; and (c) Australia is complicit in the worsening Climate Emergency and worsening Climate Genocide through being among the worst countries in the world  for  the following 14 climate criminal activities or parameters: (1) annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution, (2) live methanogenic livestock exports,  (3) natural gas exports, (4) recoverable shale gas reserves that can be accessed by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), (5) coal exports,  (6) land clearing and deforestation, (7) speciescide – species extinction, (8) coral reef destruction, (9) whale killing  and extinction threat through global warming, (10) terminal carbon pollution budget exceedance, (11) per capita carbon debt, (12) GHG generating iron ore exports, (13) climate change inaction,  and (14) climate genocide [3]. The climate criminal Lib-Labs have common climate criminal policies of unlimited coal and gas exports although Labor has a much greater, if insufficient, commitment to renewable energy [3].

The ABC is a quantum jump above the xenophobic, jingoist, climate change denialist and mindlessly crass and neoliberal Murdoch media (US citizen and king-maker Rupert Murdoch has about 70% of the city daily readership in Murdochracy Australia). Nevertheless the ABC has adopted the look-the-other-way culture of Australia as a whole that probably has its roots in the convict era and the extermination of 90% of Indigenous Australians in the first century after the British invasion. Lying by omission is far, far worse than lying by commission because the latter at least permits public refutation and public debate.  Like the UK BBC, the Australian ABC has an appalling entrenched culture of fake news through lying by omission [15].

  1. Disproportionately high White, Female and Jewish ABC Board membership – Non-Whites, Muslims & Aborigines now totally excluded.

Australia loudly boasts of its success as a multicultural society but this national narcissism hides huge deficiencies in organizational cultural diversity. The 2018 “Leading for Change” analysis shows that while Whites and non-Whites are 76% and 24%, respectively, of the population, they represent 94.9% and 5.1%, respectively of the senior leadership of Australian organizations and institutions. Australia is currently being rocked by huge scandals in the 4 Big Banks in which Whites and non-Whites average 89.7% and 10.3%, respectively, of Board members. Lack of cultural diversity evidently may facilitate corporate malfeasance [13, 14]. The scandalous sacking for no apparent good reason of Chinese-Australian ABC CEO Michelle Guthrie invites scrutiny of diversity in ABC management.

Australia has a population (25 million in 2018) that is 76.0% White, 24.0% Non-White, 50.4% Female, 49.6% Male, 3.3% Indigenous, 2.6% Muslim and 0.5% Jewish.

However before Guthrie was sacked, the ABC board of 9 was 88.9% White, 11.1% Non-White, 66.7% Female, 33.3% Male, 0.0% Indigenous, 0.0% Muslim, and 11.1% Jewish.

After Guthrie’s sacking  the ABC Board (now 8 members) was  100.0% White, 0.0% Non-White, 62.5% Female, 37.5% Male, 0.0% Indigenous, 0.0% Muslim, and 12.5% Jewish.

After Justin Milne’s resignation, the current Board (7 members) is 100.0% White, 0.0% Non-White, 71.4% Female, 28.6% Male, 0.0% Indigenous, 0.0% Muslim, and 14.3% Jewish.

  • If Milne is replaced by a White, Jewish Woman, the Board (8 members) will be 100.0% White, 0.0% Non-White, 75.0% Female, 25.0% Male, 0.0% Indigenous, 0.0% Muslim, and 25.0% Jewish.

  • If both Milne’s replacement  and a new CEO are White, Jewish Women, the Board (9 members) will be 100.0% White, 0.0% Non-White, 77.8% Female, 22.2% Male, 0.0% Indigenous, 0.0% Muslim, and 33.3% Jewish.

The  hypothetical scenarios indicated above with an asterisk (*) simply reflect the present quite evident preference for having ABC Board members who are White, Jewish or Women.  Indeed a boundary condition (and a wet dream for White supremacist Zionists) would be an ABC Board that was 100% White, 100% Female and 100% Jewish. So much for “diversity” in the ABC management which presides over an horrendous, racially-informed ABC culture of fake news through lying by omission.

Now  a compromise suggestion to making non-diverse appointments would be to have me – Dr Gideon Polya – as a new ABC Board member. Gideon Polya is White (although the father of 4 Non-White Australians  and grandfather of 3 Non-White Australians),  Male (but no doubt perceived by the jingoist Rightists  as Effeminate by being fervently pro-women’s rights, pro-child, pro-peace, pro-environment, anti-war, and pro-human rights), anti-racist Jewish (with a sole allegiance to Australia and a long record  of support for Indigenous human rights and Muslim human rights, and  of fervent opposition to racist Zionism and the horrendous policies of nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, serial war criminal, UK-, US-, and Australia-subverting, grossly human rights-abusing, women-abusing, mother-abusing, child-abusing, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel).  Indeed the ABC makes offerings to an educated audience  in contrast to most of the US-dominated Australian Mainstream media that to an appalling extent variously offer ignorance, stupidity, crassness, bad taste, anti-science, climate change denialism, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, Sinophobia, racism, bigotry and jingoism to a poorly educated audience. Dr Gideon Polya is a scientist, secular humanist, writer, journalist, artist and pro-Humanity and pro-Biosphere activist who has always been heavily dependent on the ABC for reliable news, intelligent commentary, reliable information, interesting ideas, good music and sophisticated entertainment.

Now there are expert suggestions that the whole Board was aware of alleged internal demands/suggestions  from a Board member for ABC journalists to be sacked in order to placate the anti-ABC Coalition Government that wields the very real stick of actually cutting funding for the ABC. Such alleged internal demands/suggestions violate the key requirement of ABC journalistic independence.  It has been expertly suggested by eminent Australian Alan Fels (Australian economist, lawyer,  public servant and long-term opponent of corporate malfeasance as chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) that if this indeed is the case then the whole Board should quit and be replaced via an independent and  depoliticized process. Indeed it now appears that the ABC Board was well aware of internal demands for the sacking of ABC journalists to placate the Coalition,  and supported the sacking of Managing Director Michelle Guthrie after she had evidently refused to sack  top ABC journalists Emma Alberici and Andrew Probyn.

Professor Alan Knight ( Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the Queensland University of Technology, Emeritus Professor at Central Queensland University,  journalist, academic ,  former director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and formerly Friends of the ABC National spokesperson) (2007): “The conservative British PM John Major introduced new regulations to encourage the appointment of qualified people to the boards of public institutions. Anyone can nominate through an independent commission, There are strict merit guidelines… that’s what’s needed for the ABC”  [16].

Indeed such a merit-based ABC Board nominations system for the ABC and SBS was set up in 2013 but the Coalition has ignored this process in recent years. Thus The Guardian reported on 28 September 2018: “Almost all the directors of the ABC’s eight-member board were appointed directly by the [Coalition] minister for communications, Mitch Fifield, and some were appointed after being rejected by the merit-based nominations panel, documents obtained by the Guardian show. In a week that has seen the national broadcaster sack its managing director, Michelle Guthrie, and lose its chairman, Justin Milne, in the fallout, scrutiny is now shifting to the ABC board and the calibre of its directors. Milne stepped down on Thursday following a series of damaging leaks that suggested he had pressured Guthrie to “get rid of” senior ABC reporter Emma Alberici, who was the subject of the Coalition government’s ire. The leaks, which sparked a departmental inquiry, raised concerns about the independence and integrity of the ABC” [17].

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull, a fervent Christian Zionist and  a supporter of democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel and serial war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, has trashed Australia’s international reputation by making Australia second only to Trump America as a supporter of nuclear terrorist,  racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, grossly human rights abusing Apartheid Israel. In 2017 he made a “captain’s pick” appointment of Jewish Zionist Joseph Gersh to the ABC Board. The Australian Financial Review reported: “And now its official: Melbourne businessman Joseph Gersh has been appointed by the Turnbull government to the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. After the recent retirements of Luminis Partners’ Simon Mordant and Deutsche’s Steven Skala, Aunty’s [ABC’s] board was briefly short of its requisite Jewish investment banker. All is again right with the world! Well, at least [fervent Zionist] Colin Rubenstein‘s…” Arnold Bloch Leibler’s former office managing partner is no stranger to Commonwealth directorships” [18].

At the  same time in mid-2018 the Turnbull Government appointed to the SBS Board one Mrs Christine Zeitz,  Chief Executive of Leidos Australia who has more than 25 years’ experience with BAE Systems [19]. Leidos Australia is connected with Leidos Israel that is involved, among other things, in export of Israeli military-related defence and intelligence technology around the world [20]. One notes that Apartheid Israeli  military-related systems are “pre-tested” on the 5 million helpless Indigenous Palestinians in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2 million) or in military-ruled West bank ghettoes (3 million) . Apartheid Israeli companies have sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of such military- and intelligence-related systems to Australia [21], and engage in co-research with Australian universities [22, 23].  Apartheid Israel regularly violates Australian sovereignty [21], the Zionist-subverted US shares raw intelligence on Australia with Israel [24], and Pine Gap in Central Australia supplies targeting information for illegal bombing attacks to the serial invader Americans  [25] . It is accordingly quite likely that Pine Gap also gives military targeting information to serial war criminal Apartheid Israel.

The ABC Board composition is worth comparing with that of Australia’s 4 major banks. Remembering that  Whites make up 76% of the Australian population,  Non-Whites make up 24%, and Males and Females about 50% each, we can summarize the cultural diversity and female representation on the Boards of Australia’s  4 Big Banks as follows:   

ANZ: 88.9% White, 11.1% Non-White, 66.7% Male, 33.3% Female.

CBA: 90% White, 10% Non-White, 60% Male, 40% Female.

NAB: 80% White, 20% Non-White, 70% Male, 30% Female.

Westpac: 100% White, 0% Non-White, 77.8% Male, 22.2% Female.

Average: 89.7% White, 10.3% Non-White, 68.6% Male, 31.4% Female.

In comparison, the ABC Board has a much higher Female representation and with the sacking Michelle Guthrie  now has zero Non-White representation. Remarkably the only Big 4 bank with a Jewish board member was the Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) Bank [26] . The average composition for the 4 Big Banks is 89.7% White, 10.3% Non-White, 68.6% Male, 31.4% Female, 5.3% Jewish, 0% Indigenous and 0% Muslim [26].  One might surmise that the Australian Establishment, that was traditionally anti-Jewish anti-Semitic as well as being generally racist and elitist, historically excluded Jews from Boards and Clubs [13, 27],  and that the tradition has continued in the 4, “to big to fail” Big Banks. Of course, despite the absence of Jews from the Boards of 3 of the 4 Big Banks, the overall 5.3% Jewish presence is still 10 times the Jewish proportion of the Australian population (0.5%). In stark contrast,  Jews represent about 14.5% of Australia’s richest 200, which has a compositional breakdown of  92.0%  White, 8.0% Non-White, 90.5% Male, 9.5% Female, 14.5% Jewish,  0% Indigenous and 0% Muslim [26], this being consonant with general Male and White dominance in Australia, economic subordination of Women, laudably high Jewish education and enterprise, and entrenched racism against Non-Whites, Indigenous Australians and Muslims [27]. One notes that Jews are 19% of the Forbes 200 World’s richest list [28] and Jewish media report with pride a disproportionate number of billionaires in the US and around the world [28-31].

For all that the ABC is a key cultural icon in Australia, it only has an annual budget of about $1 billion that the Coalition has been stripping away over the last 5 years. By way of comparison,  Defence has an annual  budget of about $35 billion and organized religion  (associated with physical abuse of children, sexual abuse of children and intellectual child abuse) is subsidized to the tune of about $30 billion per year [3].  The proportionately high Female and Jewish representation on the ABC Board might be due not so much to the Australian Establishment disproportionately highly valuing Women and Jews but rather to the Establishment not valuing the ABC.

It is germane to compare the generally corporate world-based ABC Board composition with the composition of top American media. organizations.  While numerous anti-racist  Jewish intellectuals are resolutely  critical  of the  ongoing Palestinian Genocide and the horrendous crimes of Apartheid Israel [32-37], Western Mainstream Media variously  censor  or white-wash  the nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, and grossly human rights-abusing conduct of Apartheid Israel.  A part  explanation for this huge moral discrepancy is that the American 60% of the world’s 30 biggest media companies have a disproportionately high  Jewish Board membership. Jews and females represent 2% and 51%, respectively,  of the US population but average 33% and 19%, respectively, of Board members of the top 18 US media companies [38].

Any compositional analysis of this kind is fraught with potential abuse. As an anti-racist Jewish Australian whose family members were variously  subject to persecution, dispossession, killing and exile in the WW2 Jewish Holocaust, I am deeply conscious of how the phrase “disproportionately Jewish” was malignantly exploited by racists in Europe from the Dark Ages to the Nazi era.  Conversely,  the racist Zionists are notorious for routinely, savagely, and  falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish humanitarians as “anti-Semites” for expressing any criticism of racist Zionism, Apartheid Israel and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide.   Further, peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Numerous anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish humanitarians lack “effective free speech” but vigorously protest the genocidal crimes of Apartheid Israel, whereas the billionaires, whether Jewish or non-Jewish,  are not be seen in these lists of decent humanity. The obscenely rich, look-the-other-way, multi-millionaire and  billionaire One Percenters  with vast resources to advance human rights are pro-Zionist by omission – silence is complicity. Accordingly, one reasonably supposes that Jewish One Percenters sitting on the boards of Mainstream media are  at the very least pro-Zionist by omission. The Zionist domination of all but pro-peace Jewish organizations strongly suggests that Jewish One Percenters involved in the Mainstream media as Board members,  are likely to be fervently pro-Zionist [38].

Final comments.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is an iconic Australian institution and has a very good reputation within Australia as an independent, taxpayer-funded organization critically involved in news reportage, public affairs commentary, sporting coverage, entertainment and in intelligent public discussion about important matters from politics and society  to science and the arts.  However the ABC interprets its Charter by largely “balancing” itself between Left-Right Labor Opposition and the Right-Far Right Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government, to the substantial exclusion  of the science-informed  pro-environment and pro-humanity policies of the progressive Green Left Greens and total exclusion of the science-informed, pro-Humanity and pro-Biosphere  Socialists. In contrast, the sheer and insupportable  ignorance, bigotry and racism of the  Extreme Right One Nation Party guarantees extensive, “shock, horror”  ABC coverage. Further, the Australian ABC  (like the UK BBC) has an appalling record of fake news through lying by omission. I have alphabetically catalogued 190 Elephant-in-the-Room realities that are largely or totally ignored by a cowardly and  “balanced” ABC to the detriment of Australia and the World  [11, 15, 27].

Notwithstanding its huge but largely-ignored deficiencies, the ABC legitimately aspires to be Australia’s  number 1 media organization. With its national coverage and commitment to accurate reportage and rational discussion, the ABC is crucial for Australian democracy. Accordingly the attacks on the ABC from the Right-Far Right Coalition and the Extreme Right One Nation can be seen as attacks on “democracy based on an informed electorate”.  These attacks have come to a head with massive de-funding of the ABC,  the national Liberal Party policy to sell off the ABC,  and now clear evidence of attacks on the independence of the ABC. In short, Chinese-Australian media expert Michelle  Guthrie was sacked as Managing  Director of the ABC after the largely Coalition-appointed ABC Board became aware that she had refused demands that 2 top ABC reporters be sacked because the mendacious, corrupt and homicidally neoliberal Coalition Government didn’t like them.

The present highly-compromised ABC Board should continue shortly in a caretaker mode until it can be replaced in a merit-based, needs-based and de-politicized process by an expert,  talented and sophisticated Board unequivocally committed to ABC journalistic independence. The message to the endlessly mendacious, Zionist-subverted, US lackey, serial war criminal , anti-science, anti-environment and climate criminal Coalition Government is hands off refugee children, hands off grossly betrayed Australian children, hands off the Great Barrier Reef, hands off Indigenous and under-privileged Australians,  hands off Australia’s  endangered ecosystems and species, hands off the world’s common atmosphere, hands off the world’s common ocean, and hands off the ABC.  Decent Australians who value the ABC will utterly reject the anti-democracy  Coalition, vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.

References.

[1]. Lane Calcutt, “ABC “will never be sold”: Turnbull”, 9 News, 18 June 2018: https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/06/18/12/29/malcolm-turnbull-rules-out-privatising-abc-after-liberal-conference-vote .

[2]. “Malcolm Turnbull”, Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Turnbull .

 

[3]. Gideon Polya, “Offences Of Pentecostal Christian Scott Morrison,  PM After Australia’s Fourth PM-Removing Coup In 8 Years”, Countercurrents, 18 September 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/09/18/offences-of-pentecostal-christian-scott-morrison-pm-after-australias-fourth-pm-removing-coup-in-8-years/ .

[4]. “Michelle Guthrie sacked from  managing director role halfway through term”, ABC News, 24 Septemebr 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-24/michelle-guthrie-leaves-as-md-of-the-abc/10297608 .
[5] . Michael Koziol & Jennifer Duke, “”They fricken hate her”: full Emma Alberici e-mail shows Justin Milne was not taken out of context”, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 September 2018: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/they-fricken-hate-her-full-emma-alberici-shows-justin-milne-was-not-taken-out-of-context-20180927-p506hs.html .

[6]. Sustainable Engineering Society, “Emma Alberici’s deleted article on corporate tax cuts”, https://www.seng.org.au/node/767 .

[7]. Emily Clark, “The ATO just dropped corporate tax data and more than 700 companies paid nothing”, ABC, 7 December 2017: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-07/corporate-tax-data-released-by-ato/9236878 .

[8]. Jennifer Duke, “”Shoot him”: ABC chairman told Guthrie to sack political editor”, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 September 2018: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/shoot-him-abc-chairman-told-guthrie-to-sack-political-editor-20180927-p5069v.html .

[9]. Triple J Hack, “ABC chairman tried to stop triple J moving date of Hottest 100, sources confirm:, 26 September 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/abc-chairman-tried-to-stop-triple-j-moving-date-of-hottest-100/10308214 .

[10]. “Aboriginal Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .

[11]. Gideon Polya, “Australia shocked by cricket ball tampering but ignores horrendous Australian crimes from child abuse to genocide”, Countercurrents, 24 April 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/04/24/australia-shocked-by-cricket-ball-tampering-but-ignores-horrendous-australian-crimes-from-child-abuse-to-genocide/ .

 

[12]. Gideon Polya, “70th anniversary of Apartheid Israel: history of violent invasion. Chronology of the Palestinian Genocide:, Global Research, 12 May 2012: https://www.globalresearch.ca/70th-anniversary-of-apartheid-israel-history-of-violent-invasion-chronology-of-palestinian-genocide/5640210 .

 

[13].  Gideon Polya, “Review: “Leading For Change” – Corporate Cultural Diversity Deficiency & Australian  Financial Scandals”, Countercurrents, 3 May 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/05/03/review-leading-for-change-corporate-cultural-diversity-deficiency-australian-financial-scandals/ ;

 

[14]. Tim Soutphomassane, Greg Whitwell, Kate Jordan and Philipp Ivanov, “Leading for Change. A blueprint for cultural diversity and inclusive leadership revisited”, 2018.

 

[15]. Gideon Polya, “Australian ABC and UK BBC fake news through lying by omission”, Countercurrents, 2 May 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/05/02/australian-abc-and-uk-bbc-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/ .

 

[16]. “Independent board appointments needed for ABC: Friends spokesperson Alan Knight”, Radioinfo, 24 May 2007: https://radioinfo.com.au/news/independent-board-appointments-needed-abc-friends-spokesperson-alan-knight .

[17]. Anne Davies, “ABC Board members appointed by Fifield despite being rejected by merit-based panel”, The Guardian, 28 September 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/27/abc-board-members-appointed-by-fifield-despite-being-rejected-by-merit-based-panel .

[18]. Joe Aston, “Joe Gersh appointed to ABC board by Turnbull Government”, Australian Financial Review, 10 may 2018: https://www.afr.com/brand/rear-window/joe-gersh-appointed-to-abc-board-by-turnbull-government-20180510-h0zwuw

[19]. Minster for Communications and the Arts, “”Appointment of new directors to the ABC and SBS boards”, 11 May 2018: https://www.minister.communications.gov.au/minister/mitch-fifield/news/appointment-new-directors-abc-and-sbs-boards .,

 

[20]. Leidos: https://www.leidos.com/markets .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”, Palestinian Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli .

[22]. Gideon Polya, “Australian Universities Complicit With  Pro-Zionist Censorship And Genocidal Israeli  Militarism”,  Countercurrents, 24 May, 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya240512.htm .

[23]. Vacy Vlazna, “Israeli Hawkademia in Australian Universities”, Palestinian Chronicle, 05-02-2012: http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19268 .

[24]. Philip Dorling, “US share raw intelligence on Australia with Israel”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September 2013: http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-shares-raw-intelligence-on-australians-with-israel-20130912-2tllm.html .

[25]. Peter Cronau, “Pine Gap plays crucial role in America’s wars, leaked documents reveal”, ABC News, 21 August 2017: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-20/leaked-documents-reveal-pine-gaps-crucial-role-in-us-drone-war/8815472 .

[26]. Gideon Polya, “Foreign interference in Australia 1. Hugely disproportionate Jewish Zionist representation in Australia’s richest 200”, Countercurrents, 11 June 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/06/11/foreign-interference-in-australia-1-hugely-disproportionate-jewish-zionist-representation-in-australias-richest-200/ .

 

[27]. Gideon Polya “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008, now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  .

 

[28]. “Jews make up 19% of Forbes 200 World’s richest list”, Jewish Business News, 7 March 2018: http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2018/03/07/jews-make-19-forbes-200-worlds-richest-list/ .

[29]. Michael Epstein, “48% of U.S.  billionaires are Jewish”, Topix, 19 August 2017: http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TCEL6H6L79C279EVA/48-percent-of-u-s-billionaires-are-jewish .

[30]. Gabe Friedman, “10 Jews in Forbes top 50 billionaires”, Times of Israel, 3 March 2015: https://www.timesofisrael.com/10-jews-in-forbes-top-50-billionaires/ .

[31]. “World’s 165 Jewish billionaires worth a combined $812 billion”, Times of Israel, 19 April 2013: https://www.timesofisrael.com/worlds-jewish-billionaires-worth-combined-812-billion/ .

[32]. Gideon Polya, “Anti-racist Jewish humanitarians oppose Apartheid Israel & support UN Security Council Resolution 2334”, Countercurrents, 13 January, 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/01/13/anti-racist-jewish-humanitarians-oppose-apartheid-israel-support-un-security-council-resolution-2334/ .

[33]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[34]. “Boycott Apartheid  Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/.

[35]. “Gaza Concentration Camp”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration  .

[36]. “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ .

[37]. “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .

[38]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist subversion, Mainstream media censorship”, Countercurrents, 9 March 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/09/zionist-subversion-mainstream-media-censorship-disproportionate-jewish-board-membership-of-us-media-companies/ .

 

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript

) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine  ;  Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home  ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ) . When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/  .

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