Balding Fails to Front Senate Committee

The managing director of the ABC, Mr Russell Balding, has been heavily criticised for failing to attend the Senate Estimates Committee examining the operation of the ABC.

Senator Santo Santoro, who has in the past questioned Mr Balding closely in regards to bias in ABC radio and television news and current affairs programming, was outraged that Mr Balding had failed to appear.

ʺAs I outlined in my opening remarks to the committee, I find Mr Baldingʹs conduct - and that of the ABC more broadly - disrespectful of the Senate and the Parliament, to which the ABC is ultimately accountable.ʺ

Senator Santoro, armed with over 600 documented examples of ABC journalists breaching their own news and current affairs rules and guidelines on balance and fairness, compared Mr Baldingʹs non-attendance with Rupert Murdoch playing truant from a News Limited AGM.

ʺYou simply wouldnʹt see that happen. Mr Murdoch at least has the common courtesy to front up to his shareholders. Mr Balding today didnʹt even extend that courtesy to the Senate and the Parliament.

ʺThe Senate has a right and a responsibility to hold the ABC accountable for the almost $800M in taxpayer dollars that it spends each and every year. And Mr Balding canʹt even turn up.ʺ

ʺMy questions are: did the ABC Board know that Mr Balding wouldnʹt be in attendance today? If the board was aware, why didn’t they direct him to attend? And if the Board was not aware of Mr Baldingʹs absence from todayʹs estimates, why not and what do they intend to do about it?ʺ

ʺThese are serious questions that deserve serious answers, not the typical stonewalling and balderdash that the ABC has used in recent times to justify their overt and demonstrable bias in favour of the ALP, immigration activists and against the Liberation of Iraq.ʺ

Despite Mr Baldingʹs non-attendance, Senator Santoro will place on notice the balance of his questions, detailing over 600 different complaints of specific recorded bias.

Putting aside his concerns relating to news and current affairs bias, Senator Santoro told the Senate Estimates hearing that he remains a strong supporter of public broadcasting and the ABC. In fact he has recently tried to join the ʺFriends of the ABCʺ in order to publicly show his support for the excellent work that the network does, particularly in rural and regional Australia. Senator Santoro has yet to hear back from ʺThe Friendsʺ.