The similarity with totalitarian dicators is all Binoy Kampmark's own, in thinking that it is any business of government's to be running a propaganda arm in the first place.

For how could the reporting of political events be anything but a matter of interpretation. And how could that interpretation be anything but a matter of ideology?

The reality is that the ABC consistently runs an agenda biased not just to the left wing, but to the left wing of the left wing. Why should everyone else be forced to pay for that group to have their own private propaganda service 24/7 on mutiple channels on multiple media?

Notice how Binoy gives no reason whatsoever why governments should be in the business of providing broadcasting services in the first place?

If people want the ABC's endless biased nauseating propaganda for big government, they should pay for it, and if they don't want it, they should not be forced to pay for it. What could be fairer than that?

There is no justification for the ABC's existence and it should be abolished immediately.

Binoy's defence of big-government having a dedicated propaganda machine is exactly the intellectual drivel we have come to expect of any defender of the ABC; in comparing to North Korea he has kicked himself up his own arse.

Why should the public pay for a bunch of ideologically welded on Lefties who provide one sided news stories? The ABC's disparaging of the Navy was a vain attempt to get at their ideological opponents,their employer, the elected Govt. In doing so they are also thumbing their nose at the electorate. To do that they were happy to publicise completely unsubstantiated and unlikely claims without ANY corroborating evidence. Politically biased journalism at its worst. AND from the same people who resisted any reporting of their salaries!

The ABC/Labor Party/Trade Union monolith is about to be torn down and not before time.

Ex lawyer David Johnston could have been the inspiration for Gilbert and Sullivan’s “When I Was A Lad”, from HMS Pinafore:

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney's firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.

Chorus.
He polished up the handle of the big front door.

I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!

Chorus.
He polished up that handle so carefullee,
That now he is the ruler of the Queen's Navee!

Jardine is entitled to his ideological position that “There is no justification for the ABC's existence and it should be abolished immediately”. But if he intends to engage in rational debate, he will have to offer evidence instead of ranting, “The reality is that the ABC consistently runs an agenda biased not just to the left wing, but to the left wing of the left wing.”

Hi Binoy,

I have yet to hear any case for keeping a public broadcaster and nor do I see any correlation between democracy and having a public broadcaster.

You could have made the case that our media market needs the ABC, you could have made the case that the ABC represents value for public money and is financially well managed. You might even have made the case that the ABC is politically well balanced?

But no. Like all members of the progressive Squalk-a-tariat you launch an attack on the majority of Australians that “voted out” your ideology, you liken our choice of PM to a North Korean dictator and you ignore the deep sense of indignation expressed by the majority of Australian’s in relation to the ABC’s editorial content.

This tells us much about you and your case “for” the ABC.

Like so many Australian’s, I think the Daily Globe, The Guardian, a range of Fairfax masthead publications and the myriad of internet publications like the “Conversation”, give more than enough coverage to your political position.

Having a publicly funded version of these is offensive.

If you want more of such “voices”, perhaps you should write to the government and tell them what you like on the ABC, I would strongly support putting all the content you desire on pay per view and you can have as much of it as you want.

What could possibly be fairer than that?

A bonus for people like me is that this would rid us of the rude, petulant, offensive and arrogant progressives who want taxpayers to fund your political “jollies”.

Bourgeois is a better description than "Left Wing", as an organ of the state the ABC is biased toward the very narrow range of Liberal Humanist dogma. Liberal Humanism is the established belief system in Australia and it's not inaccurate to describe it as the official state religion and the glue that binds the upper and middle classes.
There's no Left/Right schism in the "Cathedral", so to speak, just doctrinal and procedural disputes between factions who share the same fundamental and unshakeable convictions and who will stand united when push comes to shove.