This week Communications Minister Mitch Fifield obligingly introduced what ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie calls “legislation designed to further a political vendetta”, the One Nation-sponsored Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Fair and Balanced) Bill.
“The ABC is facing a perfect storm,” ABC Friends’ president Margaret Reynolds tells Mike Seccombe. “They face an unsympathetic, opportunistic government – they’ve got real haters of the ABC in both government and crossbench ranks – and now they’ve got commercial attack dogs on them as well. As if that isn’t enough, they’ve got a media platform revolution.”
Plus: Paul Bongiorno on Malcolm Turnbull’s new energy policy.
The Saturday Briefing
The postal survey on same-sex marriage and impending change to the law has activated some Australians not normally directly engaged with the political system, drawing views generally exchanged in dark corners out into the spotlight. As the parliament moves to legislate marriage equality, reports Karen Middleton, Australia’s online “alt-right” community are saying the fight is only just beginning.
“All of us on the right have been marked as Nazis for holding counter revolutionary views,” writes activist Dean Anderson. “Some are… most aren’t.”
Plus: Paul Bongiorno on the government’s “trouble at mill”, and Martin McKenzie-Murray on Donald Trump and nuclear war.
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The Saturday Paper
