![Picture](/uploads/8/4/1/7/8417532/5873378.jpg?430)
People object to cuts to the ABC and fear the impact it will have on their favourite prorams (which includes more than just Peppa Pig). What they tend to notice less is the underhanded nobbling of the public broadcaster. And the best way the Tories have found to do this is by appointing ineffectual managing directors (like Jonathan Shier), or by stacking the ABC board with friends. In the past this has included:
- Janet Albrechtsen (right wing warrior and second rate columnist for the Australian newspaper)
- Keith Windshuttle (second rate academic made notorious for denying our country's crimes against Indigenous people... and John Howard's favourite historian)
- Peter Hurley (president of the SA branch of the Australian Hotels Association)
- Ron Brunton (Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs - right wing thing tank whose wishlist for Tony Abbott includes - ceasing funding to the Australia Network (done), Breaking up the ABC and putting its functions out to tender, and privatising SBS)
![Picture](/uploads/8/4/1/7/8417532/239647.jpg?368)
- Maurice Newman (current head of Abbott's Business Advisory Council and someone who described Global warming as a delusion)
- Donald McDonald (member of the Liberal party and close personal friend of John Howard)
Albrechtsen will fill a position on the four-person nomination panel that plays a crucial role in appointments to the ABC and SBS boards. The panel was put in place to stop political appointments to the relevant boards... but now the Mad Monk has found a way around this attempt at putting independence in place.
The other appointee is Neil Brown - A conservative columnist and a former minister in the Fraser government.
With two of the four member panel being made up of Coalition stooges, prepare to thave the ABC board again loaded with Tony Dumb Dumb apologists.
And communications Minister Turnbull stands idly by.
ABC Friends has labelled the move a 'declaration of war on the ABC's independence'.
I'd have to agree... Tony Dumb Dumb will have them cheering for the Home Team before you know it.