PRIME MINISTER
Speech by the Prime Minister
Opening of ABC Ultimo Centre
Sydney 22 June 1991
Managing Dircector, David Hill
Chairman, Bob Somervaille
Friends and supporters of the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation This ceremony marks, without doubt, an historic milepost in
the story of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation one
of the enduringly respected institutions of Australian
culture and, in many ways, one of the abidingly great
institutions of Australian national life.
We are not ' Just celebrating the opening of a new building
as magnificent an achievement as the Ultimo Centre is.
We are celebrating the survival, and indeed despite all
the dilemmas and challenges of the 1990s the continued
improvement of Australia's independent, non-commercial,
publicly-owned broadcasting service.
Today's ceremony tells the people of Australia that their
national broadcaster remains the dynamic and creative force
that has done so much to shape Australian cultural life.
It tells the nation that the ABC is flourishing as never
before, because it is succeeding as never before in being ~ a
quality non-commercial broadcaster that reaches out to
embrace the overwhelming majority of the Australian people.
The Ultimo Centre is the end product of a successful and
effective process of consolidation a micro-economic reform
that represents savings worth millions of dollars a year.
Mathematicians take note: twelve into one does go. This one
building replaces 12 separate ABC offices scattered
throughout Sydney and in doing so it provides the best
accommodation that corporate management, ABC radio and the k
Sydney Symphony Orchestra have ever had.
2.
if we want an example of Australia as the ' clever country',
it is right here. Because this building is fitted out with
state of the art equipment, including the highly advanced
acoustics in the Eugene Goossens Hall and the largest
installation of touch-screen technology by any broadcaster
anywhere in the world international-best technology
developed by an Australian firm.
So my first task today is to congratulate everyone who has
been involved in the vast and complex process of designing,
constructing and fitting out the new building and of
managing the move into it.
I recognise achievements like this don't just happen. They
are the result of careful and deliberate strategic planning
planning which has been made more possible by the stable
funding environment in which the ABC now operates.
The triennial funding guarantee instituted by the Government
in 1988 has been a success because it has given the ABC
flexibility, with a stable and predictable bottom line.
As you know, the Government recently decided to continue
real terms funding for this and the next two financial
years, with-tie-icception of course of the efficiency
dividend deducted from all Government agencies.
During this period, the ABC will continue to retain any
extra income that it earns.
This means that we have decisively put behind us the
acrimony of that annual budget scrum that was never an
enjoyable or an enlightening experience for any of us.
With guaranteed funding, the Australian people know, and we
in the Government know, that you are giving them value for
their money.
Let me add, once more, that the Government believes the ABC
must and will remain free of commercial advertising and
sponsorship.
We recognise that the ABC's strength, and the basis for the
enormous reservoir of goodwill that exists in the community
for the ABC, is its non-commercial style its capacity to
be an independent provider of news and information.
In an industry where broadcasters are too often blamed for
appealing to the lowest common denominator, the ABC is still
the quality alternative.
And what is just as important, this quality alternative does
not mean that the ABC is forever locked into serving a
narrow elite of the community.
On TV, programs: like Qiuan= u and The Irvmiat are
winning ratings battles against tough commercial opposition
and they are doing so because they are insisting on
providing quality.
In the samet way, the radio revolution at the ABC has seen a
dramatic expansion of the audience without any loss of
quality. In the country, millions of Australians who used to have
only one ABC radio station now have a choice of three: Radio
National, their local regional station and ABC FM.
And Triple J is now broadcasting to every capital city and
to Newcastle.
Let me add that the ABC's international news reporting
remains one of its greatest strengths. At this time of
historic and exciting change around the world, it is vital
that Australians be well informed and that they be informed
by Australians, and from an Australian perspective.
Whether it be in the United States or the Soviet Union, in
Europe, the Middle East or our own region, the ABC's news
bureaus are reporting the world with insight and great
expertise and we are all the beneficiaries of that.
The number of international radio and television awards that
the ABC is winning is further proof of the ABC's commitment:
to quality. And this international recognition is being
matched with increased overseas sales of ABC programs and
increased revenue from co-productions with foreign
broadcasters.
And talking of quality, I want to make special reference to
Kthe Sydney Symph) ony Orchestra.. As you know, Hazel spent ten
y days touffiir the United States with the SSO in 1988,
culminating in that fantastic concert in Carnegie Hall. You
already have a lot of fans, and you won a lot more on that
tour many of them in the United States and one of them who
lives with me in the Lodge.
It is my hope, and it is certainly Hazel's, that these new
facilities will enable the Orchestra to continue to make
great music and we are looking forward to hearing you play
shortly. So in all these respects, the ABC is delivering the goods
repaying in full the half-billion dollar investment made by
the Australian tax-payer each year.
At the same time, and without compromising the ABC's
political and editorial independence, it is important that
the ABC be fially accountable to its audience the taxpayers
who support it.
I welcome the fact that the ABC has set up an independent
Complaints Review Panel.
We will monitor its progress closely, as part of a review
later this year of the total question of accountability of
the ABC, and of SBS.
My friends,
This is the ABC's day. It is not the occasion for any
lengthy comments from me about the broadcasting industry
generally. But I do want to say this by way of comment about the recent
upheavals in commercial television and radio.
It's been a painful process, as the whole industry has come
to terms with the unrealistic commercial expectations that
some people had created for it.
But all the evidence is that the industry is rebuilding
itself in a disciplined and positive way. And why not: the
economic fundamentals of commercial broadcasting in
Australia are sound.
That is the way back to profitability. It does not lie
through cutting back services or through seeking concessions
from Government to relax our policy on ownership, control
and Australian content. We've made that clear before, and I
repeat it today.
There will be no dilution of the status quo in which three
Australian-owned commercial television services broadcast to
as many Australians as possible.
That is the level of service that Australians have come to
expect, and they are entitled to expect it in the future.
My friends,
It won't have escaped your notice that the difficulties
afflicting the commercial side of the industry have left the
ABC in a position of unparalleled industry strength to
complement your unparalleled obligation as a public
broadcaster to serve the people of Australia.
The maintenance of full public funding for the ABC is a
significant commitment in the current economic climate and
it is one which has helped the ABC stay strong.
And that in turn has ensured that your audiences can still
rely on you for quality news, information and entertainment.
And whether they live in the capital cities or in provincial
towns or in the bush, whether they listen to the radio or
watch TV that is what they get.
That is a particular credit to Bob Somervaille, Wendy
McCarthy and to their Board and I join Kim Beazley in
thanking them for their energy and dedication over these
years, and in welcoming the new Board members.
At the end of the day, however, credit for the ABC's
achievement is, properly, shared by the whole Corporation.
And it is with the confident expectation that the
Corporation as a whole will continue to serve the Australian
people well that I have pleasure now in declaring open the
ABC Ultimo Centre.