Even apart from all of Shadow Minister's argument, as a matter of principle should the decision-maker/s who permitted it to go to air and later refused to apologise be allowed to hide behind nine lawyers and the almost unlimited resources available to the ABC?

That is how large organisations, particularly public agencies, get away with poor management practices and unfair decisions. Internal dispute resolution procedures are a joke against anyone foolish enough to pursue them and the final option, of appeal externally, is frustrated by managers and lawyers who know how to play the game.

'Your' ABC is not acting like a respectable, principled corporate citizen. If it was a private company the same people who are here defending the ABC would be calling for a boycott of its services and products. Why the double standard?

>>there is a professional and far less costly method of dealing with mistakes.<<

Mistakes? What the hell are talking about? A mistake is a unintentional gaffe, like calling Chris a dog-rooter but showing a graphic with him rooting a pig. I'm quite sure that then Chris was called a dog-rooter the script-writers did so quite intentionally, and on the assumption that Chris had never been convicted of bestiality with a domestic canine. In short, they were inventing obvious fictions for entertainment value. Claiming Hitler had one testicle when you don't know any better is a mistake; claiming he had sixteen the size of grapefruit is an obvious fiction. Both are factually incorrect. See the difference?

But maybe people should apologise for making up obvious fictions (or maybe not). That it would be less costly I don't dispute; professional perhaps. But I don't like the idea that people should just roll over and apologise when humour causes offence. I sets a bad precedent - humour has an important role to ridicule society and public figures. It's been that way since some bloke had the idea of tying bells to his hat and an inflated pig's bladder to the end of a stick, and I think this a tradition that society would be wise to hold on to (with some obvious modification: where the hell can you get a pig's bladder these days?).

>>If it was a private company the same people who are here defending the ABC would be calling for a boycott of its services and products.<<

Really? AU$1,00 says that you're talking nonsense. I'm happy to wager one hundred shiny dollars that if this was the one of the commercial networks defending this case I would be equally happy to encourage them in a vigorous defence of the value of ridicule against one man's 'right' not to be offended. The principles involved are irrelevant of who is defending them, and the principles involved are that a comedian's right - and responsibility - to ridicule are more important than Chris "Dog-Rooter" Kenney's over-inflated sense of his own self-importance.

Cheers,

Tony