Call for a Public Inquiry into the conduct of ABC Editorial Policy.

Excerpts from Alan Sunderland’s 3 February blog (http://about.abc.net.au/2014/02/the-story-is-the-boats-not-the-abc/) have been edited to illustrate the basic principles he espouses for investigating the boat story, and how they should be used to address EXTREME POPULATION GROWTH; if he chose to investigate it. The words added are those in UPPER CASE to substitute "Population" for "Boats". At the foot of the page I compare the issues raised by the ABC about the Boats and some of the facts raised by me, and others, about Extreme Population Growth. This is intended to help Alan understand what he should investigate next.

But in the meantime this article calls for a Public Inquiry into the conduct of ABC Editorial Policy.

Alan's ironic blog is really just a template for how any important issue should be investigated by the ABC.

What Alan doesn't seem to understand is that resentment of ABC Editorial Policy is not just about the investigation methodology. It is about the ABC's decision-making on what it should prioritise for investigation. This is what Editorial Policy is all about - and Alan's blog tells me that his Editorial Policy isn't balanced. It appears to be about Agenda-Setting without due diligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda-setting_theory).

Given the relentless denial of the newsworthiness of the Extreme Population Growth issue over the years, the only conclusion I can reach is that there is no fit and proper Editorial Policy at the ABC.

The related conclusion is that there are many key operatives within the ABC who treat the organisation's Code of Practice with contempt. Editorial Policy at the ABC seems to have nothing to do with identifying political issues of greatest importance to Australia's short, medium and long term future. If it did, EXTREME POPULATION GROWTH would have been the subject of the kind of frenetic investigation the ABC loves to perform on so many arguably less important issues.

MY EDITED VERSION OF AN EXTRACT FROM ALAN'S BLOG, SUBSTITUTING THE EXTREME POPULATION GROWTH ISSUE FOR THE BOAT ISSUE:

By any measure, and regardless of whether you consider the Government’s decision to USE EXTREME POPULATION GROWTH BY STEALTH AND WITHOUT CONSENSUS good policy or bad, these are important and highly newsworthy matters.

This time, the Australian Government has adopted a carefully considered position of making no comment whatsoever on operational matters when it comes to EXTREME POPULATION GROWTH. They have NOT EVEN put forward their clear and principled reasons for taking such a stand, and they have stuck to it.

Journalists, though, have a different set of responsibilities to Governments. Journalists have a responsibility to inform the public about important matters that affect them. Good journalists will chase important stories through every available source, even when official sources refuse to comment.

So when EXTREME POPULATION GROWTH WAS IDENTIFIED AS HAVING MANY PROBLEMS DIRECTLY RELATED TO IT, the ABC started reporting. Equally importantly, we started probing.

Behind the scenes, the ABC’s journalists kept probing.

We reached out to all of our contacts in Australia, to get information from as many sources as possible.

And at every possible opportunity we sought official information on the details of precisely what happened.

As the result of a lot of hard work and persistence from many good journalists we now know that some extraordinary and dangerous things happened.

Due to the lack of official information there is still great confusion, claim and counter-claim about the precise details, and without a formal public inquiry we may never know.

CONCLUSIONS:

Should ABC Editorial Policy be so focussed on these issues:

(1) "claims by some asylum seekers that their hands were deliberately hurt by navy personnel"
(2) "there have been assertions that people were pepper sprayed and, as a result, stumbled blindly into hot engines"
(3) "That people threw themselves into the ocean"
(4) "that there were angry and violent confrontations and that boats were deliberately disabled."

Yet ignore the Population Growth Management issue and all these facts for over 5 years as if they do not exist:

(1) Australia's GDP and population growth rates in 2012 were roughly 4 times the OECD country averages. (1.8% population growth in 2012)
(2) Australia's public and private sector debt are rising steeply; and population growth may be a direct cause
(3) Infrastructure expansion is not keeping up with demand, so intangible "debt" may be much higher; and population growth may be a direct cause
(4) Australia's unemployment has been increasing by 2.3% per year for a decade; and population growth may be a direct cause
(5) Australia's Multifactor Productivity (an ABS reported statistic) reduced at a compound rate of 1% per year from 2004 to 2011; and population growth may be a direct cause
(6) Australia's ability to provide global philanthropic aid is impacted by adverse domestic economic outcomes at home; and population growth may be a direct cause
(7) Over 20,000 children die every day in the developing world as a direct result of lack of philanthropic aid
(8) Etc................

Don't we really need to see the ABC made accountable for Editorial Policy that overlooks important issues and then denies bias regardless of the facts?