Phoney justification for backdoor censorship

The axing of the popular ABC program The Glass House confirms the trend.

The PM says that "it isn't his doing" and that is correct.

It is censorship by stealth, through the backdoor.

He has all the right people in place to minimise criticism of his government, to neuter the ABC.

How could this happen in Australia?

The policy recently announced by the new MD of the ABC, Mark Scott, at the Sydney Institute, the home of Liberal Party orthodoxy, objectively can only be described as completely unnecessary, impractical and dishonest.

Scott pretends to "get serious about any bias", a phoney justification by an official appointed by an ABC Board full of Howard stooges.

Programs now have to be tested on "balanced" presentation ostensibly to protect the ABC but in reality to protect the Howard Government.

This form of censorship is the latest phase in Government interference in the ABC, a dangerous development, dangerous for all media.

The cause of this situation surely is the political system itself which consistently produces incompetent Governments - and Oppositions - while the Westminster system is supposed to do the opposite.

We have a two-party tyranny of look-alike parties and amateur Ministers.

New entrants and new ideas are effectively barred from entry.

Both these parties want to control the ABC.

Political appointments to the board of the ABC have always been the norm.

Their system allows that.

It is amazing that the ABC has existed since 1932.

The cream of the nation works there.

Don't allow politicians to stop their excellent work by shutting them up and starving them of money.

Klaas Woldring Pearl Beach