@boris1gary wrote:froth, maybe you should read the article in op. here is the rest of it
below is taken from The Guardian - The Worker's Weekly - issue number 1625 - dated today's date.
The ABC’s “crimes”
Use of the Snowden material was entirely justified. The ABC is obliged by its charter to find news and broadcast it. However, the ABC’s obligation to reveal the significance of the news is not acknowledged by Abbott, who stated he wanted the ABC to be a “straight news gathering and news reporting organisation.” That appears to exclude broadcasting open discussion and interpretation of current events.
Abbott added: “You would like the national broadcaster to have a rigorous commitment to truth and at least some basic affection for the home team …” Yet a commitment to the truth must be impartial, and must exclude the prejudice of “affection for the home team”.
Abbott also resents bitterly the ABC’s new fact-checking unit, because it casts a critical eye over concepts and statements used by politicians and the entire media spectrum, not just the ABC.
As the government has pointed out, the work of defence personnel is often very hard and dangerous, and when they do good work it is often under-appreciated. But forcing the Navy to tow asylum seekers back to Indonesia, in violation of the UN Refugee Convention and international law, is certainly not good work.
Moreover, it’s entirely possible that the burns were, in fact, inflicted because of the Navy’s actions.
Last week one asylum seeker said he had been temporarily blinded after being sprayed in the eyes by a Navy officer, and had accidentally grasped a hot engine pipe. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison was forced to admit grudgingly that the Navy does use anti-personnel gas to subdue asylum seekers, but still denied it made anyone grasp the pipes.
But the Navy has not denied it made the male asylum seekers crowd around the hot engine, and it’s likely that those closest to it had to grasp it to steady themselves against the rocking of the boat.
Abbott dismissed with outrage the idea that someone had forced them to do so. But why? Any organisation, military or civilian, can include people who are sadistic. After all, the Navy has recently had to deal with many cases of sexual abuse within its ranks.
Recruits are trained to do things prohibited under civil law, and must be constantly vigilant they don’t cross that line in peacetime. Yet the dividing line between war and peace has become blurred by the government’s demonisation of asylum seekers and its strident militaristic approach.
When the burnt hands story was first broadcast by Channel Seven (not the ABC) Abbott refused to comment, saying he would not give information that would help a war enemy
I have read that, thank you gary.
Still hasn't answered my question.
Why is ABC trumpeting about that it's under threat by the Government to be shut down?
All I can see is that the tender for the Australian News service is under review!
Paranoid much? Or a guilty conscience?
