Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has this morning moved to douse the various garbage fires lit by factions of his own party this past weekend, by assuring everyone that the Coalition Government has absolutely zero plans to sell or privatise the ABC probably. Almost definitely they won’t do it. Maybe.
In case you missed the absolute mess the Liberal Party caused for itself the past few days, here’s a quick catch-up:
On Saturday, a Federal Liberal Council meeting saw a motion to privatise the ABC except for essential regional services where commercial agreements would not be “viable.”
Unsurprisingly, the motion was chaired and pushed by the Young Liberals, who continue to operate as a political organisation with as much brain power as a pantry moth.
Given the meeting holds little actual sway with the decision-making process of the Government itself, and given that most of the Federal Council is chiefly comprised of insane people, the motion passed by a staggering ratio of about 4:1.
Among those who voted in favour was current Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz whose great-uncle was a member of the Nazi Party SS who served 20 years for war crimes. The Tasmanian delegation present voted unanimously in favour of the push, causing Abetz to burst into fits of rapturous applause.
In addition, both Young Liberal President Josh Manuatu and YL Vice President Mitchell Collier voted in favour of the motion; the former claiming he was “duty bound” to vote yes due to the Young Liberals pushing the motion themselves, and the latter being the one who pushed it in the first place.
Collier actually spoke at the meeting and laid out his brain genius reasons for getting rid of the ABC, as well as his even more brian genus plans on how they would go about doing such a complex task.
Now I understand that many Australians, including some in this room, despite the strong economic arguments, have a deep sentimental attachment to the ABC.
And I must confess as a young boy growing up in the southern suburbs of Brisbane, some of my favourite programs were on the ABC –Bananas In Pyjamas, Rugrats, The Ferals. Not so much Play School – I always thought that program was rubbish.There are several ways we could privatise the ABC – we could obviously sell it to a media mogul, or organisation, the government could sell it on the stock market.
Ahh yes indeed. How do you sell the ABC? You simply find a person with a lot of money and exchange it to them for some. Plainly obvious.
So now that we’re caught up on that, here’s this: Today, Prime Minister Turnbull has hastily moved to pour water on that hot mess, telling media earlier this morning that “the ABC will always be in public hands. It will never be sold. That is my commitment. It is a public broadcaster. It always has been and it always will be.”
Labor, sensing the Fresh Blood in the water, has since gone on the offensive in Parliament, forcing Turnbull and Trade Minister Steve Ciobo to abandon a press conference with European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom while it was happening in order to make a hasty bolt to the Lower House floor in order to block Labor from pushing a motion that would have bound Parliament to never privatising the ABC whilst simultaneously ordering a reversal of the $83 million in funding cuts the Coalition levelled against the ABC.
Labor just moved a motion calling on the House to rule out privatising the ABC.
The Coalition voted against it. #auspol pic.twitter.com/J4PwjotCmW
— Andrew Leigh (@ALeighMP) June 18, 2018
So there you go. The short version of all this is that the Coalition Government is outwardly asserting that they wouldn’t even dream of privatising the ABC (probs), despite the fact that their dumbass rank-and-file will not stop pushing for it. And while all this is happening, the Labor Party is rubbing their hands together, safe in the knowledge that it’s a key election issue being gifted to them on a platter.
It’s fun. Politics is so fun, actually.
