senate - parliament of australia · bass, mr walter, 44 holmes street, turramurra, sydney, new...

[PROOF]

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

SENATE

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE REFERENCES COMMITTEE

Reference: Role and future of Radio Australia and Australia Television

SYDNEY

Tuesday, 15 April 1997

PROOF HANSARD REPORT

CONDITION OF DISTRIBUTION

This is an uncorrected proof of evidence taken before the Committee and it is made available underthe condition that it is recognised as such.

CANBERRA

SENATEFOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE REFERENCES COMMITTEE

Members:

Senator Forshaw (Chair)

Senator Cook Senator TroethSenator Eggleston Senator WestSenator Hogg Senator WoodleySenator Sandy Macdonald

Participating Members

Senator Abetz Senator CookSenator Bolkus Senator EgglestonSenator Bourne Senator FaulknerSenator Bob Brown Senator FerrisSenator Brownhill Senator HarradineSenator Calvert Senator MargettsSenator Chapman Senator SchachtSenator Colston

Referred by the Senate for inquiry into and report on:

(a) the contribution to Australia’s foreign policy and trade interests, especially inthe Asia-Pacific region, and the roles as independent broadcasters, of:

(i) Radio Austraila, and(ii) Australia Television;

(b) the activities of similar foreign broadcast services, radio and television,broadcasting to countries in the Asia-Pacific region;

(c) the consequences of the closure of Radio Australia and/or Australia Television;

(d) the relationship between Australia’s overseas information and cultural activitiesand Australia’s foreign and trade policy interests; and

(e) the role of Radio Australia, having regard to:

(i) the cost effectiveness of the service in meeting the needs of targetaudiences;

(ii) the relevance of programming offered by the service in the

context of media choices available to target audiences; and

(iii) the extent to which culturally appropriate ABC programmingcould be delivered by means of re-broadcasting on local or regionalservices.

CONDITION OF DISTRIBUTION

This is an uncorrected proof of evidence taken before the Committee and it ismade available under the condition that it is recognised as such.

WITNESSES

BASS, Mr Walter, 44 Holmes Street, Turramurra, Sydney, New South Wales2074 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

CAMPBELL, Mr Archibald Duncan, 20/300 Riley Street, Surry Hills, NewSouth Wales 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

CLARKE, Ms Cecelia, Deputy President, Australian Institute of InternationalAffairs, 124 Kent Street, Sydney, New South Wales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

COHEN, Dr Hart Kenneth, Lecturer, Media, Faculty of Humanities, Research Centrein Intercommunal Studies, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, P.O. Box10, Kingswood, New South Wales 2747. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

CUSSINETT, Dr Philippe Jean Pierre, New South Wales President, The AustralianInstitute of International Affairs, 124 Kent Street, Sydney, New SouthWales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

DAVIS, Mr Alan Andrew, Managing Director, Alan Davis Media Ltd, 35 YorkStreet, Sydney, New South Wales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

HAZELTON, Mr Phillip James, Executive Officer, APHEDA, Trades Hall,Sydney, New South Wales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

KESSLER, Professor Clive Samuel, PO Box 200, Randwick, New South Wales2031 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

MOORE, Ms Alyson Gabrielle Therese, General Delegate, Council of ELICOSAssociation, P.O. Box 30, Pyrmont, New South Wales, NSW 2009. . . . . 290

NEWSOM, Mr John Christopher, PNG Program Coordinator, Credit UnionFoundation Australia, 432 Kent Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2000 . . 256

POWER, Ms Margaret-Anne Gabrielle, Executive Officer, ELICOSAssociation, P.O. Box 30, Pyrmont, New South Wales 2009. . . . . . . . . . . 290

SCOTT-MURPHY, Mr John, Public Policy and Advocacy Coordinator,Caritas Australia, 19 MacKenzie Street, North Sydney, New SouthWales 2060 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

STONE, Ms Elizabeth, Regional Coordinator responsible for Africa andPacific, Caritas Australia, 19 MacKenzie Street, North Sydney, NewSouth Wales 2060 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

ZEHNDER, Mr Kevin, Associate member and volunteer, Australian ExpertService Overseas Program, 10 Geils Court, Deakin West, Canberra,Australian Capital Territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

SENATE

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE REFERENCES COMMITTEE

Role and future of Radio Australia and Australia Television

SYDNEY

Tuesday, 15 April 1997

Present

Senator Forshaw (Chair)

Senator Bourne Senator Hogg

Senator Eggleston Senator Troeth

Senator Ferris Senator West

The committee met at 9.05 a.m.

Senator Forshaw took the chair.

255

FAD&T 256 SENATE—References Tuesday, 15 April 1997

HAZELTON, Mr Phillip James, Executive Officer, APHEDA, Trades Hall, Sydney,New South Wales

NEWSOM, Mr John Christopher, PNG Program Coordinator, Credit UnionFoundation Australia, 432 Kent Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2000

SCOTT-MURPHY, Mr John, Public Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, CaritasAustralia, 19 MacKenzie Street, North Sydney, New South Wales 2060

STONE, Ms Elizabeth, Regional Coordinator responsible for Africa and Pacific,Caritas Australia, 19 MacKenzie Street, North Sydney, New South Wales 2060

CHAIR —I declare open this meeting of the Senate Foreign Affairs Defence andTrade References Committee, which is inquiring into the role and future of RadioAustralia and Australia Television. I welcome the representatives of the Australian Councilfor Overseas Aid. The committee prefers that all evidence be given in public. If, however,at any stage you wish to give part of your evidence in private you may ask to do so andthe committee will consider your request.

The committee has before it a submission from you dated 11 March 1997. We willproceed to an opening statement and questions, but at this stage are there any alterationsor additions to the written submissions? If not, the committee has already resolved byearlier decision to make the submission public. I now invite you to make a brief openingstatement and then we will proceed to questions.

Mr Hazelton—Thank you. I would like to make some opening comments myselfand then we could go to each member of the delegation for additional comment. ACFOAis the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, the coordinating body of Australia’s non-government organisations working in the field of international development assistance. Itcurrently has over 90 member organisations.

We believe that abolishing or cutting Radio Australia to a shell would be a short-sighted move against Australia’s national interest. It would send isolationist messages tothe region at a time when government policy is to have greater engagement andunderstanding between Australia and our regional neighbours in Asia and the Pacific.Radio Australia plays an important and often unique role in providing independent news,information, education and entertainment on Australian and regional issues as well asissues quite local to the countries to which the service is directed. This is especiallycrucial to those populations where independent media is constrained or underresourced.

Radio Australia has an important role to play in ensuring truth, and promotingdemocracy and civil space through its well respected contribution to the free and diversesources of information to the region. Broadcasting in local languages on short wave meansthat service is available cheaply and broadly to local populations, including thosegeographically isolated, irrespective of their level of literacy in English or their ownlanguage. We believe it would be a disaster not to broadcast on short wave in the future.

Tuesday, 15 April 1997 SENATE—References FAD&T 257

It also provides direct formal and informal training opportunities in the Englishlanguage. In summary, it provides a range of important services directly in Australia’snational interest, at a very low cost, for Australia’s and the region’s long-term gain. It is atragedy that the Mansfield review did not canvass views from the region on value andeffectiveness, that the audience of over 20 million has not been asked.

Before mentioning some specific recommendations from ACFOA I would like toadd that today we are restricting our remarks largely to Radio Australia as the broadcastermost familiar to our constituency in the Asia Pacific region. We would like to proposesome specific recommendations. Remembering that in many remote and isolated places inthe region Radio Australia’s short-wave services are unique, capable of providing relevantservices of news, information and entertainment to less advantaged people, and becausethe region is not currently a high priority for the Northern Hemisphere internationalbroadcasters, short-wave broadcasts by Radio Australia to South-East and East Asia andthe South Pacific should be continued.

Broadcasts in a language used in the region should continue and should beexpanded in scope rather than constricted or discontinued. Specifically, Radio Australiashould be giving short-wave broadcasting in Burmese language and its range of languageservices generally should be more flexible and responsive to current events and emergingneeds in the region.

In order to obtain its enviable and international reputation for objectivity andimpartiality, Radio Australia should not become an arm of the Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade. Conversely, the valuable and cost efficient synergy that flows from theinterconnection between Radio Australia and the ABC’s domestic services should beretained. But, in order to shield the international services from the vicissitudes of domesticfunding crisis, Radio Australia’s annual budget should be separate line items subjectdirectly to approval by parliament apart from the ABC’s domestic services.

Finally, the effectiveness of Radio Australia’s short-wave signals should beimproved progressively over the next 10 years. I would like to now call on John to makesome further additional comments.

Mr Newsom—I am nominally representing the Credit Union Foundation but, in theinterests of impartiality and objectivity, I think it is only right that the committee shouldknow that I worked for the ABC for 29 years and for the BBC World Service for anotheryear—but that was so long ago it is probably not worth mentioning.

What I would like to do is bring a slight broadcasting perspective to the discussionand take this opportunity to say that Radio Australia is held in the highest respect byinternational broadcasters and bring to your attention some comments that have actuallybeen made about Radio Australia by a fellow broadcaster of the very distinguished BBCWorld Service.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE


What I wish to say is that if we close down our short-wave transmitters and ourEnglish language services and non-English language services then we are sending a veryclear message to our region—that Australia is, in truth, retreating into isolationism andthat our new engagement with our neighbours is probably neither more nor less thanopportunism. Other speakers may pick up this point.

Anthony Rendell retired recently as the Controller, Strategy and Corporate Affairsfor the BBC World Service. I have his paper here, which I can table if you wish. Rendellpoints out that Radio Australia has acquired an enviable reputation for objectivity andimpartiality. It has become, with little challenge, a premier international broadcaster in itschosen region. This is very much to Australia’s national benefit.

So, far from closing down Radio Australia’s services, we suggest that they shouldbe extended. It should have the resources to be even more responsive to the flow ofcurrent events and emerging needs. The time has already passed when Radio Australiashould have opened a Burmese language service on short wave. I say short wave ratherthan satellite technology because short wave is still the only way that access forinformation for the oppressed in a country like Burma is guaranteed.

Rendell points out that in the few years since the end of the Cold War the numberof international broadcasters has not shrunk. In fact, it is quite the contrary. It has grownfrom 80 to over 100 organisations. This has been paralleled by an increase in the numberof short-wave transmitters. In other words, short-wave transmitters are not in decline, theyare increasing in number. Radio Australia, as Rendell says, is very small. With a staff of144—and in my day in the ABC 10 years ago it was 220—it is about one-fifteenth thesize of the BBC, Voice of America or Deutsche Welle of Germany. So it is a veryeconomic and targeted international broadcasting organisation.

We would like to suggest that Radio Australia needs a more secure funding base,less buffeted by the gales that blow through the corridors of the domestic services of theABC—and I will not dwell on the reasons for that. There should be a return to the dayswhen Radio Australia’s budget was a separate expenditure line, subject not todetermination by the ABC but to the scrutiny and approval of the parliament itself. Imight say that in his paper Rendell alludes to the good work that was carried out in theparliament of Canada to ensure that the Canadian international service was not cut sometwo years ago.

We submit that over nearly 60 years the diverse short-wave services of RadioAustralia have become a priceless national asset—the envy of much of the internationalbroadcasting world. That asset should not be thrown away lightly.

Mr Scott-Murphy —I would just like to remark on some aspects of RadioAustralia and human rights. With 10 years experience of working with human rightsworkers both government and non-government in East Asia, South-East Asia and the



South Pacific, it is clear that in times of crisis people turn to Radio Australia for credibleindependent information. The essence of human rights is in public opinion. Human rightsare not legally enforceable in international jurisdictions; they depend upon public opinion.Radio Australia provides independent information and news.

The situation in Burma is a particularly important aspect. In Burma you are notallowed to have a fax machine or a satellite dish. The only sources of outside news thatpeople listen to are the BBC World Service and Radio Norway. At the moment you wouldbe able to hear some parts of Radio Australia through the short-wave transmission, but webelieve there should be a Burmese language program directed at Burma.

The contrast with official news providers in particularly South-East Asia isdramatic. For example, in Indonesia and Vietnam people turn to Radio Australia for theiressential news and for outside world comments on their own government’s performance.Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and is guaranteed in the universaldeclaration. It is not just something that we apply in our own country but in our dealingswith other countries as well.

People throughout South-East Asia, East Asia and the South Pacific look toAustralia as a modernising influence. In a region of the world where governing elites areessentially feudal in nature, they look to the services provided by a country like Australiawith admiration. Many people that I have met—for example, in Indonesia—have learnttheir English through Radio Australia.

It is an essential element in our future commercial and trade links with the region.It is essential to our strategic links, because if you accept the proposition that theprovision of information assists in the implementation of human rights and democraticsocieties, it is a basic element of strategic thinking that democratic societies do not makewar on each other. It is one element which goes to assisting regional security.

Ms Stone—I would like to draw the committee’s attention to the sense ofownership that a lot of our partners feel in the Pacific and South-East Asia about theservice operated by Radio Australia. It actually is directed to a region that suffers greatlyfrom geographic isolation through a large proportion of populations living in highlandareas or in outer islands. Populations in these areas can rely only on short-wave radio.There is no other form of communication for them, no other option. At the same time,many of these communities which suffer from geographic isolation are also disadvantagedsocially, economically and politically. Radio Australia is seen as a lifeline to overcome alot of that isolation.

I would like, with your permission, to refer to three submissions from our partnersin Tonga, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia to give you some examples of theirfeelings about Radio Australia. From Tonga, Sister Senolita has said:



. . . Radio Australia gives us:

A. sense of security of knowing what is going on around us.

B. documentary about other Island Countries in the Pacific.

This is a region of the world which finds it very difficult to communicate with each otherexcept through one of the two major Pacific powers—Australia or New Zealand. She wenton to say:

This is a great way of sharing information.

C. Radio Australia is reliable.. . . . . . . . .

Whereas the BBC World Service focuses mainly on Northern Hemisphere news. Radio Australiakeeps us in touch with this part of the world.

From Papua New Guinea we have the point made that many rural communities do nothave any other radio option. They cite specifically the situation in Bougainville where thepeople depend heavily on Radio Australia-PNG services to know what is happening in therest of their own country with Bougainville provincial radio being off air for almost threeyears.

There is a very practical application of Radio Australia in the example from theMilne Bay province in eastern Papua. Some of the islands were recently damaged byCyclone Justin. It was Radio Australia-PNG service that kept the region informed aboutthe progress of Cyclone Justin. There is a very nice comment made by our partner in PNGabout the mutual benefit we gain from Radio Australia. I would like to quote it in full.They say:

I do not know whether I am right here but I think the people of Australia too benefit from RadioAustralia’s ties with PNG. The ABC correspondent Sean Dorney always updates Australia with themost reliable and credible commentaries on events in PNG. The recent political and constitutionalturmoil is a classic example.

So the people of PNG see the presence of Radio Australia and the ABC correspondents asa way of keeping us better informed about our region and our Asia-Pacific neighbours.Finally, we have a submission from New Caledonia. Our partner in New Caledonia makesthe point that the French service is very important to the French speaking nations of thePacific. They are not often nations that Australia has very strong links with, but they havevery important political issues facing them. Next year in New Caledonia there will be areferendum to decide their independence. The French language service to the Pacific isone of the services which has been gradually and very effectively denuded. I understandthat French news is down to half an hour a day.



This reinforces a point made in the PNG submission that radio for many of thecountries of East Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific has been very important for nationbuilding. It seems very unfortunate timing that the people of New Caledonia are about tolose the services of Radio Australia at this very important time in their political history.

CHAIR —Mr Newsom, what did you do at the ABC?

Mr Newsom—Everything except carry the mail around—as so many people oflegend have done. I did everything from announcer to journalist to, dare I confess, in theend, senior executive and controller of programs, et cetera, for ABC domestic radio.

CHAIR —Did you have any specific role with Radio Australia?

Mr Newsom—Not within Radio Australia, but at one stage I was one of thepersons who had the responsibility for massaging Radio Australia’s budget.

CHAIR —Mr Hazelton or some of the other witnesses may care to respond to thisquestion: where does the bulk of our aid go? What region is it? South-East Asia and thePacific?

Mr Hazelton—In dollar terms, it is PNG.

CHAIR —A lot of that is budgetary aid.

Mr Hazelton—Yes. Certainly, the vast majority of our aid program is in the Asia-Pacific region—the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia.

CHAIR —What is the position with aid from, say, the United Kingdom? Whatregion of the world do they target with their aid?

Mr Hazelton—I think, more recently—and maybe others can add to this—it isAfrica and Eastern Europe.

Mr Scott-Murphy —They have certainly withdrawn from the South Pacific.

CHAIR —But the BBC World Service still broadcasts into Asia.

Ms Stone—It is not a regular service in the sense that some of their transmissionswill reach into the Pacific, but they have put no investment into maintaining a Pacific orAsian service.

Mr Hazelton—So what you get is European news in Asia and the Pacific.

CHAIR —Just two other quick questions. Firstly, there has been a suggestion



around—it appears to be more than a suggestion, a report—that Radio Australia might becut back to an English language only service. Do you have any comment about theeffectiveness of such a service—beyond the fact that it helps people to learn English—interms of our overseas aid objectives?

Mr Newsom—To the extent that it is possible in international broadcasting tomeasure audiences. It would be most unfortunate if, for instance, eight million people thatwe know of in Indonesia who use the Bahasa service of Radio Australia regularly weredeprived of that service. Similarly, I think, given recent events, the reach of RadioAustralia in Chinese into China is very, very significantly in our interest. I think also,given the extent of the Australian aid budget that goes to Papua New Guinea—and that isreally close to a third of the budget—the presence of programs in Tok Pidgin is veryimportant, too. They are three examples I could give you. The case of the Frenchbroadcast has already been mentioned.

CHAIR —I should qualify the question, too. The proposal that has been quitewidely reported is for an English language only service using palapa satellite rather thanshort wave.

Mr Newsom—The difficulty we have with that—bearing in mind that aid agenciesare very much concerned with reaching people at the grassroots, alleviating poverty anddealing with human rights questions—is that it would seem to us to be many years beforethe new technologies will actually reach the most disadvantaged people, whereas shortwave does reach them. As I said in part of my submission, the number of short-wavetransmitters around the world is still increasing for that reason.

To give an example—in Burma, delivery by satellite systems and related systemswill reach those people who possess the power and are the elite. It will not serve toprovide programs to the people who are on the wrong side of the power ledger at themoment. That is the great advantage short wave has and, in particular because we live inthe region, Australia’s short-wave services would have in the language.

CHAIR —Just one other question. You have indicated that you are opposed to theservice being run as, I think your words were, an arm of the Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade. It was flagged by Mansfield in his report that this was one option. Youhave opposed it and a number of other witnesses have also raised their concerns,particularly in respect of the question of independence. But AusAID, which essentially isthe funding arm for our overseas aid budget, is attached to the Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade. I make that point to see whether it elicits a comment about whether theservice could be established and still maintain that independence in the same way aspresumably AusAID operates its relationships with the aid agencies.

Mr Newsom—There is, I think, a very significant difference. Radio Australia is adisseminator of information and, to its credit, objective, impartial and very creditable



information. That is a consideration that scarcely applies to the dissemination of aid. It isnot critical of AusAID at all; it is just a different sort of arena altogether.

The reason most people would suggest that it should not be part of foreign affairsis that inevitably what would happen—and this has happened all around the world in allsorts of countries, and it has happened in Australia in the early days of Radio Australia—is that the official policy of Australia in overseas aid would get broadcast as the maininformation item. Very quickly—and Rendell alludes to this in his paper and makes a verystrong point of it—the audience would detect that that is what it is getting. What is lost isthe balance and objectivity of the service. In other words, what happens is the servicebegins to lose its credibility.

The irony is that, if the best interests of the foreign affairs department are to beserved, Radio Australia is better off independent of it because the opinions of foreignaffairs will still be expressed, but they will be expressed in a context which is critical andevaluative rather than just, should I use the word, docile. So that is the reason why we—or, certainly, I as a broadcaster—have that opinion.

Senator EGGLESTON—I would like to ask you a question on that very point.The BBC World Service is funded by the British Foreign Office, yet it has a high degreeof credibility and is well respected around the world. I see you smiling, so perhaps youwould like to comment on that?

Mr Newsom—The BBC World Service also gets its funding from a separateparliamentary appropriation. I am smiling because, when I attended meetings of theleadership of the BBC World Service many years ago, that was always a somewhat vexedquestion, just as it was in the early days of Radio Australia.

The British are capable of great subtlety in their governance arrangements, asubtlety which I think we are yet to develop in this country—we haven’t the history. Theydevelop conventions, drawing lines where people do not tread. I think the BBC hasestablished that both through convention and really through parliamentary scrutiny.

Senator EGGLESTON—I would like to ask two other questions. Firstly, youmentioned the number of people learning English in Indonesia. Do you have any otherfigures on the kind of support there is for English language teaching services throughRadio Australia throughout South-East Asia?

Mr Newsom—Those figures were actually Bahasa figures rather than Englishfigures. There are people who do learn English. I think I gave the wrong impression there.

Senator EGGLESTON—Many Indonesians learn English—

Mr Newsom—Sorry, they learn English through it, but that is carried within the



Bahasa service. So it is part of the Bahasa program rather than an English program. Ithink that is correct.

Mr Hazelton—It is formal and informal—I think that is the other thing. There isformal English language training that goes on through some AusAID funding in a numberof countries, but we also find—and we have programs in, say, Cambodia and Vietnam—you can have very extended conversations with people in the backblocks of Vietnam andCambodia on who is the Governor-General of Australia and issues in Australian politicswhich is extraordinary because of the role that Radio Australia plays. The detail is quiteastounding.

Our office in Cambodia reported just last week that the Governor of Kampotprovince, for example, told her only a couple of weeks ago, completely unsolicited, that helistens to Radio Australia frequently—and that is a real province. He uses it to keep up hisEnglish. He listens to the English language level as well, so there is formal training. Also,a lot of people use it informally to keep up their English and to keep up as well with theinformation and educational aspect. So it is hard to measure.

Ms Stone—Another point to make is that those people who have English willfollow an English service. If you are teaching English, you need to be teaching it usingthe local language. So, if you cut a local language service, you lose your medium foractually teaching English. I think that is a concern, particularly in Papua New Guinea. Alot of people who are geographically isolated are often linguistically isolated as well, andRadio Australia can actually reach them through their local language services and Englishcan be taught that way.

Senator EGGLESTON—The last question I have is about satellite dishes. Yousaid they were banned in Burma. I think they are banned in Malaysia too. What othercountries ban access to satellite broadcasts except for hotels?

Mr Newsom—I could not pretend to answer that question.

Ms Stone—Most of the electro sensitive countries.

Mr Scott-Murphy —Singapore.

Senator EGGLESTON—You cannot produce a list of them, for example?

Mr Hazelton—Not here, maybe we could present that to you later.

Mr Newsom—Not an authoritative list, but we know from our own experiencefrom being in various countries.

CHAIR —I think there may have been some evidence or information on that given



earlier, Senator. The countries that you have mentioned have been named, and I thinkSingapore has been highlighted as well as Vietnam.

Mr Newsom—The other point too is that it is costly. It is often beyond the meansof people even if it is not banned. It would be inconceivable for me to imagine most ofthe people in the remote areas—where I am doing my work now in Papua New Guinea—tapping into services via satellite systems. They are scarcely into a cash economy let aloneinto having the money to do that.

Mr Scott-Murphy —An additional point on that is that, often, people who areilliterate can receive the latest information, even though they cannot read or write.

Senator BOURNE—Where would the Pacific island nations you mentioned, andothers, get their information about the Pacific if Radio Australia were not there for themto listen to?

Ms Stone—For some of the nations like Kiribati, which are spread over enormousgeographical areas and have very scattered populations, I am not sure. I do not think radioin New Zealand reaches that far. People were talking about their radio services in terms ofthe BBC and Radio Australia having the greatest coverage. They may get some newsthrough Voice of America and, if they are French speaking, through French radio. But interms of being consistent and regular, and having the greatest coverage, it is RadioAustralia.

Senator BOURNE—For the Pacific area, in particular, there would not be anawful lot on BBC World Service, would there?

Ms Stone—No.

Mr Hazelton—The issue with one of our programs in New Caledonia is that itprovides a separate source of information to French radio, which is still our territory. Oneof our partners has been at the community radio station in Noumea, which has benefitedgreatly from its contact with Radio Australia in trading journalists. This has enabled themfor the first time to take, as a Kanak radio station, news from other sources besides theFrench. In fact, it has introduced them to their neighbours for the first time. In NewCaledonia, because there is so little English spoken, they had a lot of trouble coveringstories from most of the Pacific, which is English speaking. Now they do that directlythemselves and they can also feed from other sources, like Radio Australia, directly.

Mr Newsom—We should not overlook the news and information gatheringcapacity of Radio Australia in the Pacific, which marks a difference from NorthernHemisphere broadcasters. As has been said, they are broadcasting Northern Hemispherenews rather than Pacific news.



Senator BOURNE—That is a good point because they have the people on theground. Does anybody have any idea of the relative cost of a short-wave receiver asopposed to a satellite dish and the equipment you need with that? I should probably askthe ABC that.

Mr Newsom—That is not a bad question. But a short-wave receiver is one whichyou or I would carry around: it is a transistor radio. A good one would be of the order of$100-150 at the top end.

Senator BOURNE—That is a good point. I take one of those with me when I gooverseas; you could not do that with the black box and satellite.

Mr Newsom—You probably listen to Radio Australia on it.

Senator BOURNE—I do. One of the services—I think the Khmer service onhealth—won a UN media peace prize award, which leads me to this question: are thehealth services and other educative services, but not informative and educative services, alarge part of what is important about Radio Australia? Are they second to the news andcurrent affairs? Is there anything between them and current affairs? Do they serve any sortof an aid purpose?

Ms Stone—Yes, Radio Australia does have a magazine content. This was alludedto in the letter from Tonga about it being a way we share information amongst ourselves.I guess the emphasis is on independent news and current affairs, and comment about whatis happening in the region. We should not forget that in many of the Pacific states themedia is controlled by the government, so this is an alternative. The magazine content isvery widely listened to by professionals in education, health and other fields like that.

Senator TROETH—Mr Newsom, I think you were among several of thewitnesses who mentioned the desirability of the Burmese Language Service. What wouldyou see as the purpose of that?

Mr Newsom—Quite simply, the media are controlled in Burma. While there mightbe shades of opinion, I think most of them would suggest that the SLORC is notnecessarily the legitimate government of Burma and it is an oppressive regime. The simplepoint is really that a Burmese language service would reach those people who currentlyare not capable of getting any outside information or objective reporting on life in Burmaor the rest of the world at all.

Mr Hazelton—I think the point in Burma particularly is that it is an extremelyisolated country. I went up to the Thai-Burma border myself a couple of weeks ago and Iwas there coincidentally on Military Day in Burma, so with the refugees in the town ofMae Sot I watched the television pumping out the Military Day messages from Burma.That was a stark reminder that independent coverage is very important and certainly for



them even trying to find out what is happening inside their own country is only possiblethrough broadcasts like at the moment the BBC and short-wave Radio Australia, if theycan get it. The whole population has no trust in anything in the media the SLORC wouldhave in terms of accuracy.

Senator TROETH—Would you see any Radio Australia services putting adifferent point of view to the Burmese government?

Mr Hazelton—We would hope they would cover the issue independently, whichwould obviously be different from the Burmese government.

Senator TROETH—Wouldn’t that in its own way be a form of propaganda?

Mr Hazelton—No, I think that is the point about independence. If you arecovering a story of fact, which is what we are trying to protect here, I think, then SLORCmight see it that way but in democratic thinking we would not.

Senator TROETH—Who would actually choose the editorial content of what goesto air in Burma or any other country in a similar position?

Mr Hazelton—I suspect you would have to ask Radio Australia that, but I assumethey are program decisions and are not made on the basis of politics or creed, they aremade on the basis of the strength of the story.

Senator TROETH—There was also mention made of the importance ofmaintaining trade links. Any of you may care to make a comment on this: surely thosepeople who we need to influence about the desirability of future trade with Australiawould have access to a lot of other information about Australia; they would not bedependent on Radio Australia.

Mr Scott-Murphy —I do not think we are suggesting they are totally dependent onRadio Australia if we are thinking of senior government officials or large companies in acountry like Indonesia, but I think we need to take a longer view, that increased trade andcommercial links with a country like Indonesia are going to be far advanced by a peaceful,stable and secure Indonesia. The role of Radio Australia in assisting in the free flow ofinformation and of informing people about Australia would be a key element in that. I donot think there is a particular short-term gain in that; it is long term.

Mr Hazelton—The other issue is respect of the service. I think the wider view isthat trade will come from a better understanding, a better cooperation between peoples andcommunities, from trust and all those things that get built up through a variety of means.But—this is an example I mentioned before—there is an awful lot of very detailedknowledge in the backblocks of many Asian countries, but that means also theboardrooms, I presume, of many Asian countries which have a bit more access to other



information about Australia. That I think provides goodwill, it promotes understanding, itbreaks down barriers of distrust, which all go in the long term to develop links, includingcommercial and cultural—a whole range of things.

Senator TROETH—But you would agree that it is the boardrooms that aremaking the decisions about trade.

Mr Hazelton—And governments.

Senator TROETH—And they would no doubt have access to another whole worldof information about Australia which they need to make their decisions.

Mr Hazelton—Sure, that is obviously the case.

Senator TROETH—Mr Hazelton, I think when you started your statement youmade several recommendations involving what you would like to see. Have you any ideahow much additional expenditure those recommendations would entail?

Mr Hazelton—No, not in detail. We note that there has been only one new servicesince 1973, which was the Khmer one set up by Radio Australia. We believe that if weare engaging more with the region, issues like Burma are very clear issues for Australia tobe concerned about—and obviously we are—and it varies from government down topublic. But we have not done a costing on that, in particular.

We understand there has been considerable investment in upgrading and it isalready happening, so it would be silly to throw that away by cutting the service. But weare talking about long-term commitment to upgrading of the service. Our point is that forthe benefit to this huge audience, $13 million is extremely cost effective.

Mr Newsom—The marginal cost of upgrading—$1 million, for instance, added to$13 million—is not, in my opinion at least, a very significant cost increase. And we arenot talking about anything much more than that. That has been progressively developed,so to speak.

Senator TROETH—So you would like to see more expenditure, not less?

Mr Hazelton—Yes. We are also speaking on behalf of our constituency, as weknow, which is many different people and communities around the region.

Senator WEST—Can you give me some idea of the number of Australian peopleyou have working for the various non-government organisations in the Asia-Pacificregion?

Mr Hazelton—That is a good question. No, we cannot give you an exact number.



There are 90 organisations—

Senator WEST—Would each of the organisations have more than 10 people in thearea?

Mr Hazelton—Yes.

Senator WEST—That makes 900 people. What about a place like Cambodia?How many NGO organisations there, do you know?

Mr Hazelton—Hundreds. From Australia, do you mean? Or internationally?

Senator WEST—From Australia.

Mr Hazelton—I know that there are now 44 NGOs from Australia in Vietnam. InCambodia, I am not sure of the exact number. Probably 20 to 30.

Senator WEST—Australians. But there are hundreds from around the world?

Mr Hazelton—Yes.

CHAIR —Could you take that on notice and provide those details if you can?

Mr Hazelton—Yes.

Mr Newsom—If you are taking evidence from the overseas service bureautomorrow in Melbourne, I think they would have some very useful data for you.

CHAIR —I appreciate that you also, from time to time, send teams over for a fewweeks. That data would be helpful.

Mr Newsom—The complexity lies in the fact that we are 90 differentorganisations and gathering the data from each one of those is not something we normallydo.

Senator WEST—I presume, when people are sent offshore to postings with yourconstituent organisations, they are sent with a short-wave radio? Or do they acquire theirown short-wave radio?

Mr Newsom—It is in the kit.

Senator WEST—It is in the kit. It is provided. In places like Cambodia—conflictareas—there were grenade attacks last week or the week before. From talking to yourorganisations, do you have any idea what coverage there was at the local level and how



much your constituent organisations and your NGO personnel there had to rely uponRadio Australia for up-to-date information, or even to provide them with the knowledgethat the grenade attack had taken place and therefore they might want to contact theAustralian embassy? I am thinking of people working in those unstable areas. Just howgreat is the value of Radio Australia to them, knowing—

Mr Hazelton—We had a report from our office there about that. The interestingissue that may reflect on some of the other points was that, because of that grenade attack,everyone rushed to Radio Australia and the BBC, the two services that were available inPhnom Penh. Interestingly, I think Radio Australia ran it all day as the number one storyon the general news bulletin, while the BBC had it five or six times, in a world context. Ithink that was an interesting example of the different priorities of Radio Australia in theregion. But, yes, that is very important at times of crisis in any region. It is also for ourstaff in Cambodia, when they want to know about major issues and events going on inAustralia.

Senator WEST—Even the cricket scores.

Mr Hazelton—Melbourne Cup—things like that.

Senator WEST—I did not mention football.

Ms Stone—There was also an example in Papua New Guinea during the recentpolitical crisis, where Radio Australia was able to extend its transmission beyond thehours. Sean Dorney was reporting from Port Moresby through Radio Australia back topeople in PNG about what was happening. Even Papua New Guineans were listening toRadio Australia because of the great respect they hold for Radio Australia. So you had asituation where someone in the country was actually using Radio Australia to inform allconcerned citizens and residents in Papua New Guinea.

Mr Newsom—I can confirm that. I was in contact with people who were remotefrom the local service, which is very much limited at the moment, and who were thereforeusing Radio Australia as a means of finding out what was happening in Port Moresby.

Senator WEST—I am interested in any information or figures that you can get usto give us some idea of the number of Australian expats who are working in those areasand who are dependent upon the information that Radio Australia actually provides on theshort wave. In relation to short wave, you said, Mr Newsom, that there was an increasingnumber of short-wave transmitters going into the area. Who is going into that area? Arethey all responsible, upright—

Mr Newsom—Caring, objective and—

Senator WEST—Yes, or are there some that are—



Mr Newsom—I have to confess that my data is very coarse—it actually comesfrom a general statement from the BBC World Service rather than being a detailedbreakdown of what is happening. I think it is a sort of question that Radio Australia maybe able to answer more accurately than I. I am 10 years out of date about precise sourceof information of that kind. I must admit that. In general terms, there is a growth. That isall I can say.

Senator WEST—I have heard stories—only one or two—about some organisationsusing cargo cult type methods to get into some of the developing countries. I wonderwhether they are actually using short-wave radio broadcasts as well.

Mr Newsom—I am not sure of that.

CHAIR —There being no further questions, we thank you for coming along thismorning to answer questions and for putting in your written submission.

Mr Hazelton—May we incorporate a number of documents that we discussed?

CHAIR —Yes, certainly. Would you please identify the documents for us.

Mr Hazelton—We have the remarks and recommendations mentioned earlier,extracts from the submission to the Mansfield inquiry by Mr Anthony Rendell of the BBCWorld Service, a letter from the Catholic Diocese of Tonga, a letter from the CatholicCommission for Justice, Peace and Development Secretariat/CARITAS PNG, and one alsofrom the Federation of Melanesian Women’s Associations in New Caledonia written byMarie-Claire Beccalossi.

CHAIR —They are letters of general support, are they?

Mr Hazelton—Yes.

CHAIR —We probably should have done this at the start, but they will beincorporated as additions to your submission. Is it the wish of the committee that thedocuments be incorporated in the transcript of evidence? There being no objection, it isso ordered.

The documents read as follows—



Mr Newsom—I can assure you we have searched diligently for letters ofopposition, but we cannot find any.

CHAIR —Thank you.



[9.55 a.m.]

KESSLER, Professor Clive Samuel, PO Box 200, Randwick, New South Wales 2031

CHAIR —Welcome. Do you have anything to add?

Prof. Kessler—I am a Professor of Sociology—with special reference to Asianstudies—at the University of New South Wales. I am appearing here, in a sense, in apersonal capacity, but in my public identity on the basis of my expertise.

CHAIR —Thank you. The committee prefers that all evidence be given in publicbut if at any stage you wish to give part of your evidence in private, you may ask to do soand the committee will consider your request. The committee has before it a submissionfrom you, dated 13 March 1997. The committee has already resolved to make yoursubmission public. Are there any alterations or additions you wish to make?

Prof. Kessler—I have prepared a slightly modified version of that submission inthe form of an abbreviated form of the letter I sent, prefaced by some account of thecontext out of which my views arise and from which I express them.

CHAIR —Is that intended to be as an addition to the submission or to replace thewritten submission?

Prof. Kessler—I would prefer to use it to replace the written submission, if Icould. I have a written statement and a couple of copies here, which I can table later on ifyou would like.

CHAIR —It would be helpful if you would table the copies now. How long is thestatement and does it differ markedly from the written submission that you sent us?

Prof. Kessler—It does not. It might take me several minutes to present it, perhapsin an abbreviated form. I might emphasise the prefatory material slightly and leave the restto stand, because in the latter part it does not differ greatly from the letter in thesubmission which I have sent.

CHAIR —If you could commence what you wish to say this morning. I point outthat members of the committee have been provided with your original letter of submissionand have no doubt read that and have that in their mind in considering questions. It wouldhelp if we did not repeat things, but I leave it to you.

Prof. Kessler—I take your point, and I will not burden you with undue repetition.I am, and have been since 1980, Professor of Sociology at the University of New SouthWales. I am currently head of the university’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology.



I am a graduate of the University of Sydney. I pursued postgraduate researchstudies in South-East Asia in the 1960s, through the London School of Economics andPolitical Science, University of London. I was appointed a lecturer in social anthropologythere at the LSE and subsequently—from 1970 to 1980—taught anthropology with specialemphasis on South-East Asia at Barnard College in Columbia University, New York.

While in the United States, prior to my return to Australia in 1980, I was a visitingfellow in the social sciences program at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,New Jersey and served as a member of the South- East Asia Council of the Associationfor Asian Studies—a leading international scholarly organisation in the area of Asianstudies. As South-East Asian regional editor, I was a member of the editorial board of theinternationally prestigious publication, theJournal for Asian Studies.

My own special area of scholarly interest and expertise is concerned with Malaysiaspecifically and the wider world of Malay culture and civilisation generally. Since myreturn to Australia in 1980, I have pursued that interest intensively, through research andwriting and through the close connections that I maintain with a number of Malaysianuniversities and with many Malaysians, from village folk and academics to some of theleading figures in Malaysian public life. Moreover, over the last 10 years or so, forreasons that will be readily understood, I have become increasingly preoccupied, as both ascholar and a citizen, with analysing the Australia-Malaysia relationship, its promise andits tensions, its ups and, in recent times, more frequent downs and with fathoming theunderlying cultural and geopolitical sources of strain and intermittent antagonism in therelationship.

Meanwhile, I have continued pursuing my own original research interests inMalaysia, which have focused since the 1960s—well before Malaysia’s fateful 1969election—upon the social origins and political impact of the modern Islamic resurgenceupon Malaysian culture and public life. The political impact of Malaysian Islam,Malaysian politics and elections and the vicissitudes of the Australia-Malaysia relationshipare all matters about which, from time to time over the years, I have been interviewed orasked to comment on Radio Australia.

I appear here, then, to present my views, firstly, as one who over the years hasfollowed Radio Australia’s coverage of Asian, especially South-East Asian, affairs and hasbenefited from and come to rely on that coverage—an often undervalued and, here inAustralia itself, I regret to say, an underutilised coverage; secondly, as one who from timeto time is heard through Radio Australia and who on that specific basis can say somethingabout its impact and the role it plays; and, thirdly and more generally, as one who isconcerned with how Australia projects itself and is perceived in South-East Asia,especially Malaysia, and who sees Radio Australia as having a vital role to play in thequest which, with slightly different inflections, has been over the last 20 years or so thecommon policy direction of both Labor and coalition governments in the country—thequest to find for Australia not an Asian future but an appropriate Asia related future, one



based upon not our becoming in any sense Asian but by finding ways to engage, as wemust, with the countries of the Asian region, based upon the forthright and unapologetic,yet culturally sensitive and constructive affirmation of who it is that, coming out of ourown formative history, we Australians now are.

In appearing here today, I am concerned in particular with Radio Australia’sEnglish language programming, about which and whose impact I personally know morethan about its Asian language services, although I can offer some comment on that, too.Second, I am concerned to affirm the continuing importance of the short-wave mode ofdelivery of Radio Australia programming to Asia. Third, I am concerned not so much torehearse yet again the familiar arguments for Radio Australia, but rather to highlight anundeniable defect in the arguments against it, arguments that have been put for abolishingor drastically diminishing Radio Australia’s role in restricting the modes of delivery of itsprograms. From that point on, I believe my submission largely follows in abbreviated formthe letter that I sent to you, so I believe I can leave my opening statement at that point.

CHAIR —In your statement you said that you regretted to say that Radio Australiawas underutilised. Can you explain what you mean by that? In what way is itunderutilised?

Prof. Kessler—I think Radio Australia has a very effective role in projectingAustralia into Asia. It does this partly by reflecting views about Australia. But I think inmany ways its most effective role is in explaining Asia to Asia, or explaining certain partsof Asia to other parts of Asia.

Even in Malaysia, people have from time to time said that they do not like, or havebeen told they should not like, Radio Australia, or the ABC will say to me—and I spendseveral months a year in Malaysia—‘Mind you, I do find Radio Australia’s coverage ofIndonesia or Thailand or Cambodia extremely helpful.’

When they are saying that, they are referring to a coverage, particularly under theold format that ended in December last year, of theNetwork Asiaformat of two hours ofin-depth current affairs, rather than the post-January 1997 one-hourDateline format. Theyare referring to coverage that includes both the Radio Australia material generated byRadio Australia itself and also to the inclusion in that Radio AustraliaNetwork Asiaprogram of materials coming in particular fromAM, PM, The World Today, and so on.

It has always struck me as being odd and regrettable that the traffic, in that sense,between ABC and Radio Australia in current affairs coverage has been largely one-wayand that insufficient use has often been made of material generated through RadioAustralia into the main ABC news and current affairs programs such asAM andPM.

At times, for example during the ‘recalcitrant’ crisis in Malaysia, there was quite alot of good material that was generated through Radio Australia. The Radio Australia



coverage into South-East Asia included both that and the regular ABC program, butinsufficient use, I think, was made of the Radio Australia generated material in our owndomestic coverage. I think a great opportunity is being lost in furthering the generaleducation of the Australian public about Asia through the underutilisation of RadioAustralia generated materials.

CHAIR —There is a proposal around at the moment that Radio Australia should bepared back to an English language only service using satellite. I take it from yourevidence that if a key role of Radio Australia is explaining Asia to other parts of Asia itwould not be terribly useful. Can you tell us what your views are on the value of havingsuch a limited service?

Prof. Kessler—Let me take it into two components: first, whether it should beEnglish language only or Asian language; and, secondly, the satellite or short-wave mode.On whether Radio Australia should have an Asian languages service, the Asian languageservice I know best is the Bahasa Indonesia service since I spend much of my time inMalaysia and speak Malay fluently and Indonesian is a variant of the Malay language. Ido listen to a certain amount to broadcasting in Bahasa Indonesia.

My answer goes back to a question that Senator Bourne or Senator West asked amoment ago about whether the other short-wave broadcasters in the region are allresponsible. The main Bahasa Indonesia services that I hear regularly going into South-East Asia are: first, Radio Australia; secondly, the Voice of America, which is a seriousprogram but reflects their notions of broadcasting and also their geostrategic politicalinterests; thirdly, various evangelical radio stations that seem to emanate from thePhilippines; and, fourthly, an increasing number of broadcast services in Malay and/orIndonesian that emanate I believe from Saudi Arabia and Iran. The content of thatmaterial, you can imagine, is a rather different perspective from the perspective thatemanates from Australia and projects Australia’s interests. I think there is a vast amount tobe lost by discontinuing, for example, the Bahasa Indonesia service.

I have come across at international conferences Indonesian academics who havereferred to the value of the Radio Australia service in English, which they as academicsand so on can follow, and have also referred to the importance of the Bahasa Indonesiaservice. As for whether broadcasting should continue in the short-wave mode, I believe itshould for the reasons that were discussed by the preceding witnesses in particular. First,there is the large capital cost of satellite dishes. Secondly, there are governmentrestrictions as to whether they are available. Thirdly, access can be shut off quite easilywhen governments wish. Fourthly, much of the audience is maybe far afield. Fifthly, theequipment is small, portable and manoeuvrable.

The large part of my own submission referred to the role Radio Australia has indefining the news sense, setting the agenda for international journalism. Internationaljournalists when they sit at home may be plugged into the satellite but they may then



watch CNN or television, listen to Radio Australia or play around on the Internet. Butwhen stories are developing at least some journalists who are out there have their short-wave radios and are listening very often mainly to BBC World Service and RadioAustralia to get some sense of what the news is, to get the kind of in-depth coverage onSouth-East Asian stories that Australia is particularly capable of providing. That kind ofcoverage, I know from my own experience, gets fed into the whole news making process.

Perhaps I will table this. Some members of the committee may have seen thetelevision series done by Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian broadcaster of Ukrainian originwhose father was the Canadian ambassador in Yugoslavia in the 1960s. Michael Ignatieffthen went and did a very interesting series of television programs about resurgentnationalism calledBlood and Belonging, the first of which was about Yugoslavia, Croatiaand Serbia but then covered other areas including Germany, the Ukraine, Kurdistan,Northern Ireland and Quebec. There is a very interesting point in that book where herefers to the great importance the people in the Kurdistan mountains attach to keeping upwith international broadcasting: they carry around their little Sony, Panasonic or Sharp—Ido not want to use brand names—short-wave transmitters.

Radio Australia is not mentioned in that context, although there is an Australianconnection which occurs in the immediately preceding pages. But that instance makes thevalue and importance of the small, mobile, relatively inexpensive short-wave receiversquite clear and makes clear the basis upon which estimates of short-wave radio audiencesseriously underestimate the range and reach of that modality of broadcasting. It is crucial,particularly in South-East Asia—in places such as Cambodia, Thailand and Burma at themoment—that the short-wave mode be continued.

CHAIR —Thank you.

Senator HOGG—In your original submission, you talk about shaping the debate.

Prof. Kessler—Yes.

Senator HOGG—Is that political, social or economic? What range of factors theredo you consider we have an influence in?

Prof. Kessler—I was using the expression ‘shaping the debate’ as a kind ofmetaphorical shorthand, to say, ‘This is analogous to the main point of my submission,’which is the very important role that Radio Australia broadcasting has in shaping the newssense—the sense of what the stories and issues are, and how they are to be analysed—ofthe international print press and the international electronic media. I was specificallyaddressing the argument which says, ‘What is the use of Radio Australia and of short-wave broadcasting in an era increasingly dominated by CNN and its imitators?’

My argument was that, if you look at the processes through which international



news is formed and shaped, there is plenty of evidence to show that journalists look at thelocal English language newspapers, read theFar Eastern Economic Review, Asian WallStreet JournalandAsiaweekand look at the major international English language pressthat covers South-East Asia, including the LondonTimes, the Daily Telegraph, the Age,the Sydney Morning Heraldand theAustralian. They sit and talk, discussing and arguingthese things among themselves and shopping around information. As a result of that,material which goes out over Radio Australia ends up shaping how these stories areunderstood and covered in the world press. It is greatly to Australia’s advantage that theworld sees the stories in ways that somehow or other reflect—or are not incompatiblewith—our interests and that it begins to see that Australia has a special relationship withAsia that finds expression in that kind of coverage.

An example of the kinds of things I am referring to is this: since I spend quite alot of time in South-East Asia, I repeatedly have the experience of people coming up tome and saying, ‘I liked that story about Malaysian politics you had in the LondonFinancial Times.’ I say, ‘Thanks. Who is using my name? Who is writing stories in myname in the LondonFinancial Times?’ I chase it down, and it is a journalist from theLondonFinancial Timeswho has heard me over Radio Australia and has then askedpeople in Kuala Lumpur, ‘What does Kessler write about and do?’ and they have said,‘Here is some of his stuff,’ and my stuff has been appropriated and recycled. I do notmind that.

Somebody else approached me at the university not so long ago and said, ‘Thatwas a very interesting thing on Islamic fundamentalism in South-East Asia and Malaysiain the South China Morning Post.’ I said, ‘I didn’t write anything in theSouth ChinaMorning Post.’ During the time of the ‘recalcitrant’ problem, a number of things I saidwere picked up by the Australian press in the first instance—particularly the Fairfax pressin South-East Asia, who were listening to the Radio Australia coverage. Then that materialgot worked through in other ways into the BBC, theWashington Postthe New York Timesand theLos Angeles Times. My sense is that there is a tremendously strategic andunacknowledged role that Radio Australia plays in shaping international understanding ofthe news from South-East Asia. It not only shapes an understanding of the news, but itcreates a sense that Australia has a very special relationship with South-East Asia. Thatwas the point I was making.

Senator HOGG—Further on in that same paragraph you refer to ‘winning thepublicity battle to define reality and perceptions of it’. Who is the publicity battle with?Do you see us in some sort of competitive mode there?

Prof. Kessler—In all of that paragraph I was saying that this is the analogue in thepolitical area to the kinds of things that people in the business talk about—setting theagenda and winning the publicity battle. But certainly there were problems. We do haveproblems in South-East Asia—in Malaysia, for example. Australia is seeking to find afuture for itself in relation to South-East Asia through an agenda that runs counter to that



of Dr Mahathir, who has his own agenda and wishes to say that if there is going to beonly one agenda it has to be his, that his agenda is authentic and emanates from the regionand that Australia’s agenda is from outside the region and comes from a former juniorpartner in an already historically superseded imperial system, or a derivative of it.

In a sense, no matter what we do we are at a disadvantage in relation to Malaysia.Dr Mahathir will always want to push his agenda, but in doing so in the ASEAN contexthe has to not only say, ‘This is my view,’ but also get the other ASEAN countries toagree with him in that view of Australia, because ASEAN works on the principle ofunanimity. When they all agree, they can move forward. Dr Mahathir is very often the oddman out, but he is trying to persuade others.

Very much, the kind of coverage that comes out of Radio Australia presents a viewof Australia and the basis of Australia’s intended engagement with South-East Asia whichstiffens the spine, shall we say, and encourages the other ASEAN powers to notnecessarily agree with Dr Mahathir. It also gives a certain degree of encouragement topeople in Malaysia who take a different view—again related to the government ofMalaysia saying that reality in, say, Malaysia is what it says and that anybody who sayssomething different is purely a foreigner and a troublemaker.

The role Radio Australia plays in informing the views of people in Malaysia whoare concerned with questions of human rights, the whole NGO sector and those peoplewho have a very small space on television to comment on public affairs is cruciallyimportant. They require an alternative viewpoint on material. Again, from personalexperience I know that people who do these kinds of programs in Malaysia draw veryheavily on the BBC World Service, on Radio Australia decreasingly—I have to say it isdecreasing with a contraction since even last year—and increasingly on Deutsche Welle,Radio Netherlands and now Radio Canada as well. It is a crucially important role and it isone that needs to be supported rather than undercut.

Senator TROETH—In regard to your comments on the way journalists gathertheir information, wouldn’t those same journalists still be able to perform exactly that roleif, for argument’s sake, the service was reduced to an English language only broadcastthrough satellite?

Prof. Kessler—Yes and no. They could to some degree but, as I said, very oftenwhat they are doing is running around and travelling up country. When they are in thecities, they may not be that dependent on Radio Australia. Certainly, when they moveaway from the cities, very often it is the little trusty nine-band short-wave radio that theyhave with them that serves as that kind of a connection. It provides some of them with thematerial that then gets fed into the discussions amongst all of them.

I think it also does inform the views of local people and provide local people with,partly, the language of talking about things they want to talk about and with, in some



sense, a degree of civil courage to do so. I do not think the expatriate press would betotally paralysed if the service simply went out by satellite, but I think it would bediminished in its effectiveness.

Senator WEST—Can I follow up the comments you made in relation to myquestion to the previous witnesses about the increasing numbers of short-wave radiotransmitters, where the services were coming from, the content of some of those servicesand the potential for them to mislead, destabilise, give an untrue picture or preach prettyrugged propaganda? Just how much of a problem or issue do you think that is in some ofthose countries?

Prof. Kessler—If, indeed, there is an increasing role played by countries such asSaudi Arabia and Iran into South-East Asia, broadcasting partly in Malaysian, Indonesianor Arabic, that does in many ways—one does not want to inhibit other people’s choice ofdirection in their religious life—have the effect, and is intended to have the effect, ofencouraging a strengthening of what we call fundamentalist tendencies. On the other hand,what is the alternative? Again speaking from my own knowledge, there are people inSouth-East Asia, in Malaysia—groups such as the Muslim women’s human rights groupsSouth-East Asia, in Malaysia—who play a very critical role in Malaysia andinternationally. They listen to Radio Australia and the BBC World Service. One of theways in which they keep in touch with parallel developments in, say, the role of AsmaJehangir and the Muslim women’s right movement in Pakistan has been through reportsthat come to them through Radio Australia and the BBC World Service. They rely on thatkind of coverage.

The press in Malaysia and in South-East Asia in general is largely an instrument ofgovernment developmental purposes and there isn’t much scope for alternative avenues—there’s not much public space. The people who are attempting to create that space, enlargeit, to use it—including, in particular, groups such as the Muslim’s women’s rightsmovement in South-East Asia—are, in a sense, largely dependent upon services such asthose of Radio Australia. If that Radio Australia coverage were to go and all that wouldcome in would be the other voices from, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran, this not only wouldnot be in the interests of those human rights movements in South-East Asia but would notbe in Australia’s interests either for the kind of support that they can draw internationallyfrom short-wave radio to be diminished in that way.

Senator BOURNE—You mentioned in your original letter about conferences thatyou have been to in Malaysia, with discussion of difficulties where, when Radio Australiaand the reporting by Radio Australia came up, that seemed to calm everything down andperhaps even turn it around. Can you give us a couple of examples or at least one exampleof that?

Prof. Kessler—The most obvious one was the ‘recalcitrant’ matter; another onewas arguments about the Gulf War. There are certain kinds of views that are officially



encouraged in South-East Asia that certainly go to the whole question of the difficulties inAustralia-Malaysia relations. Is the situation one where Malaysia has its strategic agendaand Australia has its and the two are somehow or other discrepant or contrary or is itsimply the case that Australia’s foreign policy towards Malaysia is governed by ignorance,cultural prejudice and ill-will? Obviously the Malaysian government does run the line thatsuits it and this is the kind of line that academics and scholars at conferences will pick upbecause it is convenient and that is the way you get the attention of the government andget favoured. I have been at conferences and seminars at the university where people havesaid ‘But, however, did you not hear such and such’ and ‘Did you not hear MichaelLee’—who used to be at the University of Sydney—‘and others discussing some of theseissues?’ The moment this thing comes up it actually stops people running a simplistic lineand they say, ‘Well, look, let’s now recognise that there may be tensions in therelationship, but let’s look at them as academics, intellectually. Let’s see them as practicalmatters and not simply as the products of ill-will or ignorance or prejudice.’

Senator BOURNE—Thank you.

CHAIR —If there are no further questions, thank you very much, ProfessorKessler, for your written submissions and also your comments and answers to questionsthis morning.

Short adjournment



[10.36 a.m.]

MOORE, Ms Alyson Gabrielle Therese, General Delegate, Council of ELICOSAssociation, P.O. Box 30, Pyrmont, New South Wales, NSW 2009

POWER, Ms Margaret-Anne Gabrielle, Executive Officer, ELICOS Association, P.O.Box 30, Pyrmont, New South Wales 2009

CHAIR —The committee prefers that all evidence be given in public. However, ifwish to give any part of your evidence in private, you may ask us to do so and we willconsider that request at the time. The committee has before it a submission from youdated 4 April 1997. That submission has been made public by a previous resolution of thecommittee. Before we proceed to a short opening statement and questions, are there anycorrections or additions that you wish to make to the written submission?

Ms Moore—No.

CHAIR —Would you like to make some brief opening comments and we will thenask questions.

Ms Moore—The ELICOS Association represents probably about 70 per cent ofcolleges which have overseas students studying in Australia, and 90 per cent of thosestudents come from the Asian region—principally from Japan, Korea, Taiwan andIndonesia. In 1996, we had about a quarter of a million students studying in Australiaunder student visas, and this represents foreign exchange earnings of about half a billiondollars. That is just in English language studies and does not count the flow-on to otherhigher studies that students may do after their English language studies.

We see the closure of Radio Australia and ATV as being very detrimental togeneral Australian overseas education promotion and general awareness raising ofAustralia in the region. As we belong to a very large trading industry within the region,we would see it as very detrimental to our industry, and Australia Television has been avery good channel for the advertising of our services. Eighteen of our colleges, which arerepresented by the ELICOS Association, have been advertising with Australia TV beforeand after the English language program that is on at the moment. We have gone in underthat venture.

Obviously it is expensive, and sometimes they are very small colleges to advertise,but we have seen it as a good investment. It is a very good medium for advertising,particularly in the face of other detrimental things that have occurred with our industry.For example, the visa increase has had a very severe impact on our student numbers justfrom 1 October when the visa fee was increased. In our principal markets like Taiwan andThailand, visas have gone down by as much as 23 per cent. So we have got to havechannels like Radio Australia and Australia TV to ensure that the profile of Australia is



still there in the face of our key markets and also to counter the effects of our competitorcountries. For example, CNN heavily promotes the US and its interests and also the BBCpromotes the UK.

Australia really should have quite a good market share in Asia, being very close ingeographical terms. Of course, our market share is nothing compared to the UK and theUS. So we have still got to have that presence somehow either in the form of advertising,promotion, awareness raising and so on. That is basically the thrust of our submission. Wedo not support at all the closure of either of those channels.

CHAIR —Thank you. Ms Power, did you wish to make any additional comments?

Ms Power—It is estimated that the ELICOS industry is worth approximately half abillion dollars in net foreign exchange earnings to Australia a year. That does not take intoaccount the flow-on effects. Many students who come here to study English then go on tofurther education. They return home and oftentimes those people end up in very importantpositions in government and in business in their countries. Hopefully, they do so with apositive bias towards Australia. That whole chain begins with young people in thosecountries being aware of Australia, of having those people think of Australia when theyconsider their pathways, and Radio Australia and Australia Television have a veryimportant role to play in that by promoting that awareness.

CHAIR —Thank you. I was actually going to ask a question on that figure that youhave given. It says in the written submission $410 million in foreign exchange earnings. Iam glad that you mentioned it. Am I right in assuming that that is largely the revenuefrom tuition fees?

Ms Moore—From tuition fees, yes.

Ms Power—And living expenses.

Ms Moore—And often home-stay fees. They come and stay with a local family inthe community close to the school. So that would probably be included as well.

Ms Power—On average, for every dollar an ELICOS student spends on tuitionfees, they spend another $1.92 in this country.

CHAIR —You mentioned that you have advertisements on Australia Television.Are you able to indicate what amount of expenditure that involves? What is your budgetfor advertising?

Ms Moore—Every college has committed 1½ thousand dollars to a series of 40exposures, I think.



Ms Power—Yes.

Ms Moore—Something in that range: 40 exposures, 30-second commercials.

Ms Power—There are 19 colleges plus the EA. So it is 20 times $1,500, and thegovernment also contributed through DEETYA. I cannot tell you the amount that thegovernment contributed, but DEETYA would be able to provide that.

Ms Moore—It probably would have been one for one.

CHAIR —Just one other question. In respect of Radio Australia, as you would haveno doubt heard, if you were here earlier, questions were asked about the possibility ofRadio Australia only broadcasting in the future English language only services and onsatellite. Could you give us an indication as to how important—if it is at all important—foreign language broadcasting would be in marketing our educational export services?

Ms Moore—I do not really have a view on that one way or the other. To us, it isjust important that Australia is being promoted and is being talked about in the region.From our point of view, it does not matter really whether it is English or foreign language.This proposal has just come up now; I have not heard of it before.

CHAIR —When you talk about promotion, you are talking in a general sense aboutpromoting the country and understanding a knowledge of the country as well asspecifically promoting our educational services?

Ms Moore—Yes, that is right. It is having Australian accents, talking aboutAustralian news and news of the region rather than American news and news ofAmerica’s region, which is often South America and Mexico and so on. It is all about theAustralian culture and the more general Australian social, political and economic factorsthat come into play.

Ms Power—We have, for example, brought agents out to Australia and before theyhave left they have commented on how surprised they are at what they consider is thegood English that is spoken in Australia, how very British our English is. We need peopleto know before they come here that people in this country speak English well.

CHAIR —Do your colleges provide courses in only the English language? You donot provide courses in, say, Asian languages?

Ms Moore—Some of our member colleges do have other parts to their business.For example, some of the university ELICOS centres have the universities. Some of thebusiness colleges that have English language centres obviously offer business courses aswell. So there is that downstream revenue opportunity as well for our members.



Senator WEST—What sort of level of English do the students have when theyarrive in Australia?

Ms Moore—It obviously varies. From Asia the typical would be a very low levelof conversation and speaking and understanding, but very good writing and grammar. Thewriting and reading are usually at the intermediate level, but the speaking and listening areusually much lower than what you would get from European students, for example.

Ms Power—That does vary, though. Most students from Malaysia, India andSingapore, for example, can go straight into university without doing ELICOS becausetheir English is already at a high enough level. But students from Korea, Indonesia,Taiwan, Japan, et cetera almost all need English language preparation before they canundertake university studies here.

Senator WEST—So some of them would have great difficulty actually listening tothe English language that goes out on Radio Australia at present?

Ms Power—In some of those countries, yes.

Senator WEST—How important is English in those areas?

Ms Moore—It is vital. The numbers that are coming out to Australia and thenumbers that are going to the UK and the US to participate in English language trainingare phenomenal. It is vital for business. The common language for business is English. Iknow that they have just introduced compulsory English language courses for primarystudents in Korea. I think the same has happened in Japan. So that is how important thesecountries view English language.

Senator WEST—You said the visa prices had increased in October last year. Whatprice did they go from and what price did they go to?

Ms Power—From $140 to $250, and there is a proposal to increase it by another$30.

Ms Moore—That makes us extremely uncompetitive with our competitor nations.It puts us well over what they are charging for the same things and it is a majordisadvantage to enrolling in an Australian course.

Senator EGGLESTON—Can I ask you a question about relative numbers. Yousaid that there is a phenomenal market for English language training in South-East Asia.You said in your submission that there are about 25,000 students coming to Australia.How many go to the UK, USA, Canada?

Ms Moore—It is difficult to get market share figures, but our feeling is that we



would have nothing more than 10 per cent market share. Of course, that is a fairly global,sweeping statement, because in Indonesia, for example, I think we would probably havemore than we would in Korea. But you have to weigh up different population sizes and soon. The potential is enormous for us to grab share from the US and the UK without evengrowing the market at all.

Ms Power—The UK and the US are the two big players. We are probably almoston a par with Canada and we are ahead of New Zealand, Malta and Ireland, which are theother providers of English language training.

Ms Moore—And Canada is screaming ahead. It is doing better everything we didabout three or four years ago and is really taking a lot of the interest of people.

Senator EGGLESTON—It would be interesting to meet somebody from Shanghaiwith an Irish accent speaking English. You say that you have received responses fromacross Asia to your advertisements placed on ATV’sEnglish have a golanguage trainingprogram. Can you quantify that?

Ms Moore—No, it is very difficult.

Ms Power—The main aim was awareness raising more so than direct response,and a lot of the responses also go directly to the colleges and not necessarily through theassociation. If clients see a college they like, we encourage them to make direct contactwith the college.

Ms Moore—One of the original disadvantages with Australia Television was thatthe footprint was not covering the countries which are our prime targets. For example, Ithink it did not cover Japan and Korea originally, and I am not sure whether it does now.We have had a response from Mongolia, so it is pretty close.

Senator EGGLESTON—I think it has a much bigger footprint now. You do noteven have a broad idea of what kind of response you are getting?

Ms Moore—It gets very mixed in with other advertising that is going on byindividual colleges and the ELICOS Association in general. All colleges ask students whenthey come, ‘How did you hear about Australia?’ A lot of them say Radio Australia orAustralia TV. But, in relation to specifically how they got their information, because theygo through agents, it is such a mishmash and it is terribly difficult. Also, thoseadvertisings commenced only late last year.

Ms Power—In the recent months or the last 12 months or perhaps less there havebeen so many factors moving in the opposite direction that it makes it even more difficultto sum up. The race debate here, for example, was moving in one direction while we weretrying to move in the other direction.



Ms Moore—To come from another angle on your question: if the colleges wereasked to advertise again, I am pretty sure they would say yes, that they think it has been aworthwhile investment.

Senator BOURNE—Which countries in Asia do you have most interest from?Which countries in Asia do you get most people from and are they different?

Ms Moore—At the moment Korea has a very strong interest, although in Marchthe figures from my college were significantly down. The next would be Japan, althoughin Perth I think people would say that the Indonesians would be the strongest. And thenwe cannot underestimate the Thai and the Taiwanese. The Taiwanese have been verymuch hit by the race debate and the visa charges.

Ms Power—And the US government have eased their restrictions on issuing visasto Taiwanese students. So what other governments do have a major effect on us.

Senator BOURNE—So they eased their restrictions and we increased our fees?

Ms Power—Yes.

Senator BOURNE—Are the countries you get the most interest from also thecountries we get the most students from?

Ms Power—Yes.

Senator TROETH—I just wanted to ask you about your advertising on ATV. Youare aware that ATV is for sale?

Ms Moore—For sale?

Senator TROETH—Are you aware of that?

Ms Moore—No.

Senator TROETH—The Mansfield report did not recommend that ATV closenecessarily. Are you aware of that?

Ms Moore—I wasn’t, no.

Senator TROETH—Assuming that it may be sold, I would imagine there wouldbe no reason why you could not continue your advertising on it.

Ms Moore—Right.



Senator TROETH—I wanted to put that to you. Also, is the advertising you dolargely on ATV or is it on Radio Australia?

Ms Moore—It is all on ATV.

CHAIR —You cannot advertise on Radio Australia, can you?

Senator TROETH—There are other ways, subliminal advertising or mentioningsomething or whatever. I wanted to clarify that.

Ms Power—For the university sector, Radio Australia would probably be moreappropriate for us, because our clients need the visual assistance, if you wish, withunderstanding.

Senator HOGG—Following on from what Senator Eggleston was talking about,you referred to the figure of 25,000, and yet on the second page of your submission yourefer to an estimated 120,000 people from overseas undertaking education and training inAustralia.

Ms Power—The first figure refers to ELICOS—English language—and the secondfigure refers to the whole education industry.

Senator HOGG—Have you done any market research on how big your market is?

Ms Power—Yes, we have.

Senator HOGG—What does that show?

Ms Power—Exactly what we have said here—an estimated 25,000. It also showsthat a lot of tourist visa holders are coming out—probably about an equal number. Thelatest research is not yet available. It is still being undertaken, and we will be publishing itnext month.

Senator HOGG—My second question goes to the third last paragraph on the firstpage where you talk about an initiative of the Australian International EducationFoundation, Austrade and the Australian Tourist Commission with a joint promotionalstrategy in South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand last year. Have you got anyfeedback on how that promotion is going—its impact on the number of students coming toAustralia?

Ms Power—That strategy is actually to attract tourists to come to Australia andstudy English while they are here. DEETYA does not consider them to be students; theyare tourists because they have tourist visas, not student visas. It is a different market to thestudent market. It is a bit early. With most promotional strategies, you look at a lead time



of a couple of years before you really feel the benefits.

Senator HOGG—You have no concept of what you would expect to get out ofthat initiative?

Ms Moore—We have. We just do not have our figures here on what we see asreasonable to expect over the next five years. But the study-tourism market is expandingquite rapidly. I do not know if you know what the term ‘study tour’ means, but it isgroups of people coming, and instead of group tourism—

Senator HOGG—Instead of going to indi—

Ms Moore—That is right. They go to an English language college and then maybeengage in some tourism activities. They may have a ‘home stay’ and so on. So, on atourism visa, it is focused more on education than tourism, although it is focused on both.It would be targeted towards anyone from 14-year-old school students up to middle agedpeople and even retirees—the ‘silver tops’ as they are called.

Ms Power—It is not as regulated as the student market. For example, ELICOSstudents must study 25 hours per week and must attend at least 90 per cent of theirclasses—that is all part of their visa—whereas the tourist visa holders can do two or threehours of class in the morning and go on an excursion all afternoon.

Senator HOGG—My last question is in respect of contact with students once theyreturn to their own home countries. Do you have any contact with them and, if so, doesATV or Radio Australia play an important role for them once they get back to their nativecountry?

Ms Moore—A lot of the colleges have their own alumni programs where they stayin contact with their ex-students by way of meetings or get-togethers every now and then.There are also newsletters that colleges have at an institutional level. More broadly, whenstudents return they do listen to Radio Australia and ATV to keep up that contact withAustralia. That is at a more general level.

Senator WEST—What sort of impact has the race debate had on your numbers?

Ms Moore—In Taiwan, it has been very bad. I have not got the numbers at myfingertips, but there has been something like a 30 per cent decrease from the same periodlast year.

Senator WEST—Have Radio Australia and ATV been able to defuse the issue inany way to correct the misinformation?

Ms Moore—From my personal experience, I am not quite sure—maybe Ms Power



would know.

Ms Power—Again, these are the sorts of things that are very difficult to quantify.Simply by having a positive image there—an image of Australia as a non-racistmulticultural society—has to be moving in the opposite direction to some of the reportsthat were coming out of the country last year. You cannot quantify it because you cannotsee inside a person’s mind. You do not know that if they had not been watching AustraliaTelevision or listening to Radio Australia whether it may have had more effect than whatit otherwise would have done.

Ms Moore—I must say that we are not that familiar with the content, but as ageneral medium for information about Australia, the medium has to be there.

CHAIR —Thank you very much for your written submission, and for coming alongtoday to answer questions. We appreciate your interest in the matter.



[11.02 a.m.]

BASS, Mr Walter, 44 Holmes Street, Turramurra, Sydney, New South Wales 2074

CHAIR —I welcome you to this hearing. In what capacity are you appearingtoday?

Mr Bass—I am the foundation president of the Friends of the ABC, but I amappearing today in my private capacity because a medical condition forced me to retirefrom the Friends of the ABC last year.

CHAIR —I will indicate, as you would no doubt be aware, that the Friends of theABC have made a submission, and that they are scheduled to appear before us inMelbourne tomorrow. Thank you for coming along today. The committee prefers that allevidence be given in public. However, if at any stage you wish to give part of yourevidence in private, you may ask us to do so, and the committee will consider yourrequest. The committee has before it a submission from you dated 13 March 1997. Thatsubmission has been made public by an earlier resolution of the committee. Before weproceed to an opening statement and questions, are there any alterations or additions thatyou wish to make to the written submission?

Mr Bass—No thank you.

CHAIR —I invite you to make some opening comments.

Mr Bass—I am really amazed that I should ever have had to appear before aSenate committee to defend Radio Australia, and that it is in danger of closure.

CHAIR —This is not your first experience of appearing before a committee todefend the ABC, is it?

Mr Bass—It is actually my second, and there are some familiar faces here. This ismy first as a private citizen. While I appear in my private capacity and while it is thecustom that anybody who appears before a committee—to speak on anything from guns toatom bombs—always says that he is speaking for the majority of Australians, I feel that inthis particular case I can say quite confidently that I am speaking for the majority ofpeople. Frankly, I am appalled by the mere suggestion that Radio Australia should beclosed, or by what in many ways would be worse: that it should be presented purely in theEnglish language.

I think Australia is starting a long way behind in our relations with our Asianneighbours. Governments, both coalition and Labor, from the time of Gough Whitlam on,have done a great deal of work to repair the fences that were destroyed because of ouractivities in the Vietnam War, our activities in the Korean War and particularly our



activities in being associated with the British Empire, which is always a difficult load tocarry around your neck in this day and age in Asia.

The horrible racial debate which is going on in Australia today—the ill-informed,silly debate which appears to have been allowed to proceed in this country quiterudderlessly, without any form of denial or disclaimer from the Prime Minister—is doingus an enormous amount of damage in South-East Asia. One of the only ways in which thiscan be repaired is by Radio Australia and by Radio Australia broadcasting in the eightlanguages in which it has always broadcast.

If Radio Australia converts to an English language service, it will cut the audienceconsiderably. The audience will be diminished to those who speak English and who canafford a satellite dish on their roofs. The English broadcast would have to go through thePalapa B satellite in Indonesia, as ATV does, and would therefore be restricted to peoplewho can afford the equipment and who can speak the language. This would enforce, inAsian eyes, the view that Australia is all the way with anything as long as it is white andspeaks English, which we had done a great deal to dispel until now.

I recently entertained a couple of friends from Malaysia who told me that, everytime a small paragraph appears in any Australian press on the utterances of people likePauline Hanson, it makes front-page news, with pictures, in the Malaysian papers.Everybody knows that Malaysia’s racial record is not good, but Dr Mahathir does notappear to like us very much anyway. We would not be doing ourselves any good indestroying Radio Australia.

As far as ATV goes, I think everybody who knows me and Friends of the ABCknows that, while I was with the Friends, I was very bitterly opposed to the foundation ofATV. I am still not happy about ATV being under the ABC’s umbrella while it is acommercial service. I do not think there is a place for it there. But, again, as a counter tothe racial debate, we need ATV if we can afford it.

Radio Australia itself must, in my view, be kept the way it is—although that mightbe a futile view. It must have funding separate from the ABC and the current levelsmaintained so as to counteract and to give Australia the friendly face in Asia which it hasacquired in the last 20 years. That is about all I am going to say.

CHAIR —Are there any questions for Mr Bass?

Senator BOURNE—I just want to agree.

CHAIR —I am sure you can frame that into a question, Senator Bourne.

Senator WEST—One alternative has been put that the funding should come fromDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade. What are your comments about that?



Mr Bass—I think that would be quite suitable—that is the way the BBC runs itsforeign service—provided that ABC people operated the service, as with the BBC, for thecontinuity of the people involved and the experience they have. I would have no problemat all with the funding being found there for Radio Australia. Having had some slightexperience, quite by accident, of overseas Australian missions and other allied missionsover a few years travelling, I am quite sure they can easily afford to trim a couple ofdollars from their foreign service and perhaps give it to a cause which is absolutelyessential to what they are doing.

Another thing which occurred to me is that they might well be able to nip $20million off the $700 million the Department of Defence is saving with its newreorganisation because the existence of Radio Australia might assist the Department ofDefence in never having to fulfil its role.

Senator WEST—So, as long as it is a separate line item in the budget and is atarm’s length from the funding authority—

Mr Bass—My view about what is being done to Radio Australia is that it is part—and I say that I say this in a quite unbiased way—of the vicious campaign of retributionwhich is being waged against the ABC at the moment by the current government. I do notfeel that Australia’s foreign service and foreign broadcaster should fall a victim to partypolitics in Australia at this time. It is much too important a service to be allowed to be thesubject of petty political considerations over a short term.

Senator WEST—You would be totally opposed to any proposition put to the ABCthat they be given $20 million or whatever it is just for satellite in English only and that ifthey wanted to run any more they would have to cut domestic services?

Mr Bass—I am opposed to English broadcasting on Radio Australia because, as Isay, it would be an insult to the millions and millions of Asians who do not speak Englishand who would get the idea that anything that is white and speaks English is acceptable tous and anything that does not is not acceptable.

Senator EGGLESTON—I have a follow-up question about the BBC. Everyonetalks about the fact that the BBC is funded through the Foreign Office.

CHAIR —Not the whole of the BBC. That is funded by licence fees.

Senator EGGLESTON—The BBC World Service, I mean. What about the Voiceof America, Deutsche Welle, Radio Japan and Radio Netherlands: how are they funded?

Mr Bass—Deutsche Welle is permitted to pursue sponsorship and advertising buthas chosen not to as in its view it would have negligible value. Radio Netherlands has justcommenced a sponsorship program. They have the equivalent of 1.5 full-time staff



dedicated to the task. It is too early to assess results, though expectations are that actualsponsorship revenues will be very small. That is the point that ATV has found, that it isvery difficult for a small country to finance a broadcasting service through commercialsponsorship. It was forecast, at one stage when I was pursuing this, that if the ABC, forinstance, received commercial sponsorship it would not provide more than 20 per cent ofthe required funds. It is not the answer for broadcasting and it makes suspect everybroadcaster that is commercial.

I think anybody who has been exposed to the Voice of America in Europe, as Iwas during the election campaign, is very conscious that that service is very muchdominated by sectional interests and has no value at all as an information service.

Senator EGGLESTON—That is a sweeping statement.

Mr Bass—It may be, but I was in Germany in November during the Americanelection campaign and the kind of slander that was being put over Voice of America byprivate people, particularly evangelists, about the Clintons would, I think, in Australiahave made Clinton an even richer man than he is today.

Senator EGGLESTON—Is the Voice of America partially funded or fully fundedthrough advertising and sponsorship?

Mr Bass—I have no idea, but I would be confident that it would be becauseeverything else in America is; all forms of broadcasting except a very limited amount ofpublic broadcasting. But I cannot tell you that.

Senator EGGLESTON—Or is it funded by the State Department? You do notknow.

Mr Bass—I do not know that. The State Department would be up for a lot ofmoney for libel had it been listening to what I was listening to.

CHAIR —Did you make a submission to the Mansfield inquiry—

Mr Bass—I did.

CHAIR —And did you meet with Mr Mansfield?

Mr Bass—No, I did not, because I was overseas at the time. But I prepared thesubmission for the Friends of the ABC, although I was no longer an active member of thecommittee.

Senator WEST—Did Mr Mansfield meet with the Friends of the ABC?



Mr Bass—I believe he did, yes.

Senator WEST—For how long?

Mr Bass—I do not know.

Senator WEST—We will ask him that tomorrow.

CHAIR —You have obviously read the Mansfield report, particularly what he saysabout international broadcasting.

Mr Bass—I have.

CHAIR —Do you have any comment about how adequately Mr Mansfield was ableto deal with the issue, given the financial constraints that had already been announced andthe terms of reference, and so on?

Mr Bass—The Mansfield report, I think, had little value because of the fact thatRadio Australia particularly was tacked on the end. If he was given very definite financialconstraints, I must say I was happy about his report in that it did not recommend theintroduction of corporate sponsorship into the ABC. I cannot recall the way he dealt withRadio Australia. If I could borrow a report, I could glance over it.Would you remind me?

CHAIR —What he said was, firstly, that, as a general principle, the ABC shouldno longer be obliged to be involved in international broadcasting which would require achange to the charter. But he did say that, if the ABC so chose to do that, then it wouldbe for them to decide, which, on one analysis at least, suggests that the decision ultimatelybecomes one for the ABC board if there is no obligation to do it. Then that in turn raisesfurther questions about the trade-off between international and domestic funding. He alsomade references to the way in which it is operated by the BBC. We could ask the Friendsof the ABC this tomorrow but, in terms of your long involvement with the ABC and thecommitment that your organisation has, and that people generally have, to independent,commercial-free, publicly funded broadcasting, Mr Mansfield said that, ‘The ABC charteraccords overseas broadcasting equal priority with domestic broadcasting.’ You wouldagree, I am sure, that that is not, in fact, what occurs, given the relative allocation ofresources.

Mr Bass—No, it is not.

CHAIR —I am interested to know how important you believe it is for the ABC, inits role as primarily a domestic broadcaster, to also be involved in internationalbroadcasting, given that there is no other mechanism for us to be involved in this?



Mr Bass—Precisely. The ABC will always, I think, be involved in internationalbroadcasting in Australia because it has the only non-commercial expertise inbroadcasting. The reason that I recommended it get its own separate line of funding was tomake it an entity in itself using the expertise of Australian broadcasters. There is no needfor the ABC, if it does not want it, to be involved in Radio Australia at all—if that iswhat you call it. The involvement is always that it provide the trained staff to run it, butRadio Australia has its own programming, its own news service, and so on. So I reallythink that the only involvement necessary from the ABC is its expertise, and its particularexpertise is that it is the only broadcaster that does not have that lightweight commercialbroadcasting sound about it which most people now use as background noise.

CHAIR —The follow-up question which I have and which is really what I wantedto specifically ask you is: what is your understanding or experience of the attitude of theABC board and management to international broadcasting services and, particularly, howcould they deal with the situation which appears to be coming where they have had theiroverall funding cut?

It certainly is being acknowledged that there may have to be some trade-off for domesticservices if they are to maintain even a very limited international service. In all of this,what is your view about the attitude of the board and management to continuing ininternational broadcasting?

Mr Bass—That is a very hard question, because the chairman is new but certainlysounds as though he has the ABC’s interests at heart, even though he carries someconsiderable baggage amongst his personal acquaintances.

CHAIR —I caution you about that, Mr Bass.

Mr Bass—No, it is not that. What I really meant to say was that, naturally, it waswidely advertised that he was a personal friend of the Prime Minister and so on and soforth. I think this does give him a certain difficulty with people who have concerns for theABC, because we are all very concerned that the ABC is under very considerable andunnecessary attack—and I stress the ‘unnecessary attack’. But he is a man of considerableintegrity and considerable good public record in matters cultural and cultural affairs. I ambasically impressed by the way he has been handling himself up until now. I think he isdoing a very good job.

But, to come back to your question, you never know which way a board is goingto jump. I would say that probably the prestige they feel it gives the ABC to be involvedwith international broadcasting will swing them very much in the way of trying to supportRadio Australia as much as possible. But $20 million, which is all they are allocated, isvery hard to cut down.

CHAIR —It is going to be $13 million for RA, plus $7 million for—



Mr Bass—No, I thought it was $20 million for RA and $7 million for thetransmission fees. It is $27 million in all. That is a very small amount of money withwhich to perform the wonderful service which Radio Australia performs in all thoselanguages. In the English language, I do not know whether it then would be retainedpurely to keep an iron in the fire. But it has to, and it is doing so.

CHAIR —Some witnesses who have appeared before us have expressed theirconcerns about what they felt was a lack of enthusiasm, or the support was not necessarilystrong enough in this area—from management, particularly. To be fair to Mr Johns whenhe appeared before the committee, ABC management strongly put the case for RadioAustralia. But we have been hearing this other message as well. I am interested in yourobservations, given that you have been a long-time watcher of what the board and themanagement have been doing over the years in terms of ABC priorities.

Mr Bass—I have to tell you that, to us, when I was with the Friends of the ABCand to me personally up to now, the thought of Radio Australia being destroyed neverreally even crossed my wildest imaginings. I could not imagine that any group of peopleshould be stupid enough to wish such an outcome to occur in this area, in this country andin this day and age. I just cannot understand the small-mindedness of the people whowould allow that to occur. I still cannot voice my own opinion—and I am sure that I amspeaking for the majority of people in this country—in my amazement that such a thingshould be able to happen.

So, to all the questions you ask me about what are people’s attitudes and so on, itwas not a subject which I felt needed my attention. It was bad enough with themainstream ABC. Radio Australia, to me, was one of the icons. It was, after all, foundedby Bob Menzies. By God, what could be more of an icon than that? And now it is underattack. I cannot understand it.

CHAIR —It has been subject to reductions in its allocation of funding over theyears. But that has been, as I understand it, commensurate with the general reduction inthe overall funding to the ABC—which, of course, is not what is envisaged here. It is afar greater—

Mr Bass—This is destruction.

CHAIR —Yes.

Senator HOGG—What sort of international feedback on the move to get rid ofRadio Australia do you have from people who might be in like-minded organisations toFriends of the ABC?

Mr Bass—None yet, because it will take everybody by surprise. It just—I cannottell you—is something I never even took into account. In all the 20 years during which I



was associated with Friends of the ABC and when I was foundation president, I neverthought that Radio Australia would be something we would have to fight for. I thoughtsometimes that the orchestra might be under threat—and I was quite prepared to acceptthat—but I never thought that any government would be stupid enough to try to destroyRadio Australia; I just cannot envisage that.

Senator HOGG—What was your experience with the people whom you knew inoverseas countries as to how they perceived Radio Australia and its role?

Mr Bass—I cannot tell you because I have travelled always in European countries.I had a stopover in Malaysia for a week once where all I got was hostility towardsAustralia. That was before the current debate; it was in 1992. So it was before Australiashowed itself to be hankering so much after our good old days of what used to be. So Icannot really tell you; I cannot answer your question. I have never bothered to worryabout Radio Australia because I never thought I would have to. That is my general answerto that.

Senator FERRIS—I notice that in your opening statement you talk about ATVand your fundamental objection to that. What principally did you object to?

Mr Bass—I objected to the fact, basically, that the broadcasting legislation waschanged to permit the ABC to broadcast with commercial sponsorship. I felt that ATVwas really not something suitable to be under the ABC’s umbrella. The main danger to theABC has always been from the intrusion of private funding—through privatisation, inother words. Even with what is being done to the ABC now, while I bleed for it, I knowthat in better days it can still be reversed. But once any broadcaster has any corporatefunding in it, it will never be able to become a proper public broadcaster.

Of course, in this country where everything else belongs to two or three people, itis essential that the media fulfils its role. I did not want to see a thin end of any sort ofwedge being poked into the broadcasting act to allow the ABC to broadcast corporatesponsorship. Also, of course, ATV does have rather a large footprint in northern Australiaand, therefore, basically, the ABC was and is broadcasting commercial material to variousAustralians.

Senator FERRIS—So you do not have an objection to ATV’s establishment.

Mr Bass—Absolutely none, as I have said in my submission.

Senator FERRIS—Were you aware that, following the disclosure of losses ofATV, a group of staff tried to engender a management buy-out of ATV and wereprevented from doing so by a retrospective decision of members of the board of the ABC?

Mr Bass—No, I was not aware of that.



Senator FERRIS—Do you have any comment on that?

Mr Bass—No, because I do not know under what terms they wanted to buy it outand what they wanted to do with it.

Senator FERRIS—But effectively the ABC board made a decision to prevent theABC, if you like, doing what you are saying it should have done—that is, dispense itselfof a commercially sponsored entity.

Mr Bass—The then managing director, David Hill, and I were engaged in four-letter word conversation only for most of his term. That was one of the reasons I felt therewas a very great push—we went through this at another committee—to inject privatefunding into the ABC by the back door. This resulted in an ever increasing morecommercial sound of the ABC—every time you turned on a radio, somebody was trying tosell you something.

I was against ATV for those reasons. I do not know anything about the staff buy-out. But the management preventing it does not surprise me in the least because of themanagement at that time.

CHAIR —Mr Bass, as there are no further questions from members of thecommittee, I thank you for coming along and for your written submission.



[11.30 a.m.]

DAVIS, Mr Alan Andrew, Managing Director, Alan Davis Media Ltd, 35 YorkStreet, Sydney, New South Wales

CHAIR —Welcome. The committee prefers that all evidence be given in public butif at any stage you wish to give part of your evidence in private you may ask to do so andthe committee will consider your request. The committee has before it a submission fromyou dated 10 March 1997. That submission has already been made public by resolution ofthe committee. Are there any alterations or additions you would like to make?

Mr Davis—No, but I would like to make a statement.

CHAIR —I now invite you to do that and we will follow up with questions.

Mr Davis—Thank you for the opportunity to give evidence here today. I do notgive evidence here as an expert but as a concerned Australian citizen, the first member ofwhose family arrived here in 1798. The future of Australia as a white Judaeo-Christiansociety is changing very quickly and, may I say, significantly for the better. The Chinesesay the opposite of change and chaos is opportunity, and it is of that opportunity that Iwish to speak. My family has been involved in the media business for 90 years and wehave been involved in publishing magazines at different times in many different countries.We presently publishAsian Business Reviewhere from Sydney and the great bulk of itscirculation and readership is outside Australia. We have been endeavouring to publish anAsian business magazine here from Sydney, and this is a truly formidable task.

I am not here to sellAsian Business Review, ladies and gentlemen, but I would liketo hand out a copy and make it available. There are a couple of the recent editions here.That is not my purpose here and I made those earlier remarks only as a background to saythat the country is going through great change and we must embrace it and move forward.

I have personally travelled very widely overseas and I have always been aware ofthe high profile we as Australians enjoy. The first question you as a committee have todecide is whether you think these services, and I refer to ATV and Radio Australia, shouldcontinue. I was disappointed to read in the press about decisions being taken, even as wespeak, which may make these deliberations quite irrelevant. I am referring to the materialthat has been published in the last 48 hours in the press. I am also sorry that the fullcommittee is not here.

I believe that Australia Television and Radio Australia have a real role to perform.They give us a significant advantage in trade terms over our rivals. No other country tomy knowledge has such an extensive coverage in Asia. They lift our presence, authorityand prestige. They heavily influence educated and influential groups throughout Asia andthe Pacific. They are, however, wasteful, inefficient, hidebound and conservative, and I



believe they are very poorly placed as part and parcel of the ABC.

If your decision is that they do have a worthwhile function to perform, they shouldbe amalgamated and placed under SBS where the literary, language and multiculturalemphasis of that organisation would usefully be employed to their great advantage. Thereis also a strong argument that the radio signal should be added to the TV signal under thepalapa signature. I have no doubt the committee understands what I mean by that.Properly organised there is a considerable saving of money available there. There shouldbe a complete rethink of management. Advertising should be welcomed and notdescribed—I am putting these in argumentative terms—in prissy and precious terms like‘sponsorship’. It should be recognised as advertising. You get paid for advertising, peoplesell advertising and there is nothing wrong with advertising.

The active involvement of the Australian business and commercial communityshould be encouraged and grasped. There is next to no active involvement, in myunderstanding, of the commercial and business community of Australia and ATV or RadioAustralia. I do not believe we should continue to waste money on either of these activitiesor we are going to approach them in a half-hearted or ABC way. They should be usedactively to promote Australian educational, political and economic aims.

I endeavoured to involve myself actively in Australia Television. The proposals Imade, and which were rejected, would have made it commercially viable. I speak there,ladies and gentlemen, as a member of a family who has been selling advertising for many,many years. I sold my first ad when I was 18.

I believe that ATV and Radio Australia can be made politically relevant andcommercially viable. They should be set up as an autonomous and independent unit underthe SBS with their charter separately defined and they should go out and sell theadvertising commercial opportunities that they represent. I believe that together they canbe run very successfully for some $12 million to $14 million a year and, if they areaggressively promoted, marketed and well run, they can be viable within three years.Personally, I think the money would be far better spent on doing this than building veryexpensive bridges, as we are doing. I think there should be a whole rethink of the way inwhich we are spending our money in Asia and in Austrade.

I spoke earlier of opportunity being the obverse of change. As Australians, we haveopportunities undreamt of by the generations before us to involve ourselves in Asia andthe Pacific. I can assure you that these two services together, under the appropriatedirection and management, can be viable. They represent a great opportunity for Australiaand it would be a pity if this opportunity were squandered.

I trust my blunt speaking has not offended you, and I invite you to think outsidethe square in relation to these two services. I would be happy to answer any questions.



Senator BOURNE—Let me say that it takes an awful lot to offend us. I do notthink that offended anybody. You are the first witness we have had who thinks that aninternational radio service like this could be made commercially viable.

Mr Davis—I am saying that, combined with ATV, it could be made commerciallyviable. One would sell a service. For example, if you promoted ATV to a hotel chainthroughout Asia, you could put the radio on the clicker too and they could be soldtogether.

Senator BOURNE—So you would just be in favour of getting rid of the short-wave services which are not commercially viable and, therefore, not bothering aboutthem?

Mr Davis—No, I am not saying that. In any business one has, if you look at partsof the business as a simple objective part, they might not be, of themselves, commerciallyviable. You might make one widget that has very little profit margin and you want tomake a complete range of widgets. The real issue is whether in fact we want to spend themoney this way.

ATV, properly promoted, can carry those parts of Radio Australia that are not, ofthemselves, viable. That is what I am saying. I am saying that you can sell $15 million or$16 million worth of advertising a year for these things together, and done properly youwill not do it the way we are doing it. I think you got about $2½ million last year. No-onewill talk about advertising. They talk about sponsorship.

Senator BOURNE—No, ATV talked about it.

Mr Davis—No, they talk about sponsorship when they are selling it. Get out thereand sell it as advertising.

Senator BOURNE—There is a difference, of course, between sponsorship andadvertising.

Mr Davis—No, it is only a—

Senator BOURNE—No, there is.

Mr Davis—We can argue all day about that.

Senator BOURNE—There is a technical difference. In Australian broadcastingterms, there is a technical difference between sponsorship and advertising.

Mr Davis—I accept that.



Senator BOURNE—So you would just rather see advertising and not sponsorship?

Mr Davis—No, I am happy to see sponsorship. I think that sponsorship is veryimportant. You can sponsor, for example, the educational and English languageopportunities. There are two huge sleepers in Australian commerce at the moment—one ishealth. We should be selling health in a huge way throughout Asia and the Pacific. Thisshould be the place where people come when they want the highest and most sophisticatedform of medical assistance. The second one is education. At least the educational peopleare trying.

Senator BOURNE—Yes, that is right. We are actually selling that to a very largeextent in the universities and TAFE colleges that are out there.

Mr Davis—I am saying that these two services should be used to promote ourcommercial aims as well as our political aims.

Senator BOURNE—Have you used short wave or watched it on TV in Asia?

Mr Davis—I have watched it on TV in Asia. I have not particularly listened toRadio Australia. I have heard it from time to time. ATV I am very interested in. There issignificant value in the palapa signature.

Senator BOURNE—Of course, if ATV is sold off, we would not necessarily beable to use it.

Mr Davis—If you sell ATV off, that is one thing, but I hope it is sold to someonewho is sympathetic to what could be done with it.

Senator BOURNE—Don’t we all?

Senator TROETH—If any arrangement were contemplated with SBS for RadioAustralia, do you think SBS has the technological expertise to do what Radio Australia isdoing at the moment?

Mr Davis—It might have to borrow a bit from the ABC at the moment. Butpresumably they can sit over a table and work out what they need to do. I simply thinkABC is regarded as a public broadcaster. The thinking is particularly public broadcasting.SBS is some sort of a hybrid. It is neither fish nor fowl. It has a more commercialattitude, looking from the outside. The cultures are different with Radio Australia andATV under the ABC.

Senator TROETH—Let us suppose that Radio Australia moved to totaladvertising mode in order to sustain it. What difference, if any, would there be between itand any other commercial broadcaster—say, 3AW broadcasting to Asia?



Mr Davis—I did not say that it should move to total commercial. I apologise ifyou thought I did say that. I said that they should promote our commercial and politicalaims. I do not think Radio Australia could survive as a radio service.

CHAIR —I think your proposition was that if you combine Radio Australia andATV with SBS you have a single conglomerate and—

Mr Davis—No, I am saying ‘if you combine Radio Australia with ATV underSBS’, not with SBS. I am saying, ‘Drawing on all the language, literary and multiculturalwonder of SBS’—

CHAIR —I took it that the advertising revenue you believe could be raised throughexpansion of the ATV could fund the non-commercial activities such as RA. Is that theprinciple?

Mr Davis—What I would suggest is selling them off a joint rate card so that ifyou bought $30,000 worth of advertising on ATV you also got $25,000 worth of radiospots on Radio Australia, for example. That is what I would do. I would sell them off ajoint rate card. I would sell them as promotion in Asia by radio and television. They arenot opposite media; they are complementary media. They will all have you believe theyare opposite, but I do not own a television station or a radio station and I have beenselling advertising all my life.

Senator TROETH—Earlier, you endeavoured to illustrate that there should be nodistinction between sponsorship and advertising. Which basket are you putting yourproposed conglomerate in?

Mr Davis—I do not think I would describe it as a conglomerate. They are highlycomplementary.

Senator TROETH—Well, whatever the model is.

Mr Davis—I say they should have advertising and sell advertising as advertising.If they want to deal with some of it as sponsorship by saying, for example, ‘This programis sponsored by such and such,’ that is perfectly acceptable by what I am proposing.

Senator TROETH—But if you are then saying that it would not be a totallycommercial operation, you would have to set up a limit, I presume, for the amount ofadvertising that was on it.

Mr Davis—I would accept as much money as I could get, because I would spendthat money in promoting the service and promoting the quality of the product.

Senator TROETH—In that case, it could become a totally commercial operation.



Mr Davis—Well, is there anything wrong with that?

Senator TROETH—No, there isn’t. This is the proposition that I am asking youto define in that case.

Mr Davis—I think it should be run as a commercial operation. The advertisingshould be sold, but it should be within a charter of pushing the country’s political andeconomic aims, not simply for commercial advantage.

Senator HOGG—Following on from Senator Troeth, are you saying that theadvertising would be sold in Australia, in Asia or both?

Mr Davis—Both—in Asia too. I am endeavouring with that magazine to get thebulk of the revenue from Asia.

Senator HOGG—That was my next question. In which countries in Asia is thisparticular magazine circulated?

Mr Davis—To virtually all the Asian countries.

Senator WEST—Do you think there would be a problem with some advertising orsome types of advertising in Asia?

Mr Davis—Could you give me an example?

Senator WEST—I notice looking at your magazine you have Jacob’s Creek thegreat Australian chardonnay and you’ve got Johnnie Walker Black Label. I am wonderinghow that goes down in some of the Islamic countries.

Mr Davis—I think they drink it. That is my experience of that. I am a bit of abeliever in whatever you can sell you can advertise.

Senator HOGG—Do you advertise your magazine on ATV?

Mr Davis—We did for a while.

Senator HOGG—What was the response?

Mr Davis—People spoke to me and said that they had seen it on ATV. It is nowdone with a company calledBusiness Asia, which is our opposition.

Senator HOGG—So you did not necessarily find ATV advertising to be effective?

Mr Davis—I think you raise a very difficult question as to whether any



institutional type of advertising in that sense is effective. This is the sort of argument youget. It is very difficult.

Senator HOGG—I think it is important. It is going to be one of the linchpins onwhich any funding would depend for the survival—

Mr Davis—Television advertising is effective. With radio advertising it is difficultto see if it is so quickly effective; magazine advertising even more so. For example, if Igo on television tonight and say, ‘I’m Max Kellet and I have $500 for you if you comedown to buy a Holden tomorrow morning,’ I’ll see 15 people sit there the next day.

Senator HOGG—Yes, but that is within a national context or a localised context.Here we are talking about international markets and quite diverse markets at that. How doyou see that operating?

Mr Davis—I think you can sell advertising into those areas. Qantas can buyadvertising. Ansett can buy advertising. I think the University of Sydney can advertise. Ithink the University of Singapore can advertise. I think there are a whole heap of peoplewho can advertise. I think it can be sold. I really do.

Senator HOGG—To the extent it would become economically viable to fundATV and Radio Australia.

Mr Davis—No. Radio Australia is a little bit of a basket case in advertising terms.But put together with a market and sold together I think they can be viable. I do not havethe money to do it.

Senator WEST—Why is Radio Australia a basket case in advertising terms?

Mr Davis—I think it is because it has a very wide spread. I believe it should go tothe little Pacific islands and everything else. I am greatly in favour of that. But it isdifficult to see how many first-class trips around the world you can sell in some of thosecountries.

Senator WEST—Or in the small villages of India.

Mr Davis—In India I think there is a great advantage in advertising fromAustralia’s point of view. India is the great sleeper from Australia’s point of view.

Senator WEST—I’m thinking not in terms of the middle class in India but interms of some of the villages in developing countries that have no road or aircommunications.

Mr Davis—But they like us. You throw it out and it is gone. That is the issue. It



is gone. I think it has advantages. I think as Australians we have advantages by having outthere in the wider world our television and our radio.

Senator WEST—I don’t disagree with that.

Mr Davis—I think it has to have some energy and drive behind it and we can selladvertising sufficient to make it worth while. I do not think you are going to sell a fortuneadvertising on the radio. I am not here to say that. I am saying sell them off the same ratecard, get the commercial community involved and make a go of it. It is an alternative andI think there are people who would have the same view as I have. I just do not think itcan work under the ABC.

CHAIR —How could it work under SBS?

Mr Davis—It is separately organised.

CHAIR —SBS still gets most of its funding from the budget. It raises some moneyfrom sponsorship or—

Mr Davis—It could do much, much better.

CHAIR —It was specifically established as a broadcaster within Australia forethnic programming. But in order to assist it with its funding, it is allowed to havesponsorship and that is regulated in terms of how it can be programmed, which I thinkwas a point made by Senator Bourne. But at the moment we have a model which is—

Mr Davis—Why do we refer to sponsorship? Why don’t you have the courage tosay with SBS, ‘Let’s not muck about any more.’ The commercial stations have 13minutes. I could be corrected on that and, if I am wrong, I am wrong. But why can’t SBShave 10 minutes and they put them wherever they like?

CHAIR —That is probably not a matter for our committee. I am not trying tododge the issue. I understand the point you are making.

Mr Davis—That is what I do with ATV.

CHAIR —I suppose there is a longer term question anyway. SBS at the momentgets most of its funding from the budget, and that is not going to change. Well, whoknows? I suppose that is another question.

Mr Davis—It should change.

CHAIR —So what you are saying is that the model you are putting forwardinvolves SBS going essentially totally commercial as well, taking in ATV and RA?



Mr Davis—If you give me the opportunity, Senator, I will give you my answer.The quick answer to that is that SBS should go commercial and you should issue anothercommercial television network licence in Australia. There should be four commercialtelevision networks and SBS with a very strong commercial bias. There is plenty ofmoney out there in the marketplace. It is being given to the limited number of stations youhave now, but it should be spread. That is the exact fact—there should be anothercommercial television network. If you want to get new entrants into the industry, that isthe quickest way to do it.

Senator EGGLESTON—Can I just ask you about the advertising potential ofATV. We have heard from the Friends of the ABC that ATV had a lot of difficultyattracting advertising. You have mentioned airlines, but they are not going to fund thewhole ATV operation. From your experience in an advertising agency, what kinds ofpeople would you seek to advertise on ATV, and how realistic is it to expect strongadvertising support?

Mr Davis—I think we have had something like 200 companies in the last 18months advertise in that little magazine there. A large number of those people areadvertisers.

Senator EGGLESTON—I suppose that begs the question of whether theadvertising covers the cost. Are you satisfied at the level of advertising support for yourmagazine, or are you subsidising it from the other operations?

Mr Davis—I have lost a lot of money on it. I am subsidising it. For the last yearessentially it has been paid for by the advertising revenue. The proposal I put was that thecost of running ATV would be about $4½ million to $5½ million a year. My view wasthat they could get that money eventually out of advertising. I think the revenue is quitelarge out there and it comes from different people.

Take Baulderstone Hornibrook as an example. They are trying to build theirbusiness throughout Asia. Why wouldn’t John Holland advertise? Why wouldn’t they buy$50,000 worth of advertising if it was going throughout Asia? They are trying to sellbridges all over Asia. Why wouldn’t Telstra? Why wouldn’t the water companies? Whywouldn’t all these people?

You are not going to sell trips to Manly. You are going to sell essentiallyinstitutional advertisers. The market would build, as would the number of people watchingand the numbers which the advertising agencies go on. And it is the internationalagencies—the ones in Singapore and Hong Kong—that you have to sell. But I do notthink a single person for ATV has ever gone to speak to advertising agencies in HongKong or Singapore. I might be wrong, but that is where the money is, as well as Japan.

Senator FERRIS—It seems that you are suggesting that ATV, SBS and Radio



Australia become interactive broadcasters. In other words, instead of just promoting out,they will also bring in. All of them currently supply a service out from Australia. None ofthem supplies a service into Australia. Hundreds of thousands of people who visit South-East Asia every year—Australians on business or pleasure—do not get an interactiveservice in Asia about Australia.

Mr Davis—If I could take that question in a larger sense—and I do not say thisfor any other reason—I believe I was the first person to speak to the radio and televisionstations in Vietnam about the possibility of selling advertising on them. I visited nearlyevery major television station in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh. I also visited the televisionstation in Da Nang. On all those occasions, they were desperate for product. They wantedstuff to rebroadcast. There is plenty of opportunity for a commercial approach to this. Thebiggest single problem of the plethora of these channels all over the world now is product.You have got to keep product going. They go 24 hours a day and they take immensequantities of product. If SBS, Radio Australia and ATV were running that way, I thinkthey could make money that way, too, as well as selling advertising.

Senator HOGG—Should they then pay the ABC for the vast variety of productsthat they get out of the ABC?

Mr Davis—Yes, of course they should. They should pay a commercial price to theABC, having regard for the fact that they are an infant business being built up.

Senator FERRIS—It was put to us earlier that we should also try to source, forATV, product from the other commercial channels which currently supply on an ad hocbasis.

Mr Davis—Of course. What is wrong with buying a product from Channel 7 andputting it up on ATV? Or buying from 10?

Senator FERRIS—It is now done informally but it is not done in any structuredway.

Senator HOGG—It is done basically for free.

Mr Davis—I understand that. I know those people are commercially driven, butthey know you have only got a small audience and so they are not going to make a lot ofmoney out of it. They are giving it to you in the hope that if you get a larger audiencethey will get a few bob out of it later. That is the reason.

Take Vietnam, for example. I have had a number of meetings with the seniorpeople in Ho Chi Minh and they are desperate for Australian product. They want theEnglish product. There are significant opportunities for us to sell ATV and SBS typematerial.



Senator WEST—That is television. Have you looked at radio? The information wehave received—not from the ABC but from other sources and other witnesses—has beenthat what is happening in the market out there now is that you are almost paying to getaccess. With the inducements that are being used by other countries and other companiesfrom overseas operating in the area, they are basically paying people to run their program.

Mr Davis—I believe the French have been promoting their programs in that way.

Senator WEST—Not just the French.

Mr Davis—I mean to my knowledge. The rest is anecdotal as far as I amconcerned, from what you have just said. But I know that the French have been pushingprograms in that way. We have a great advantage in that sense. They see us as a highlyeducated and technologically advanced country which is sympathetic to them—much moreso than they see the French, who have exploited them.

Senator WEST—I just wonder, though, when it comes down to commercialrealities, if you are going to get something for nothing—something that actually comeswith some gifts. Are you going to take that or are you going to put out your hard-earnedcash?

Mr Davis—They are very good at taking the gifts but they are also verycommercial.

Senator WEST—They are very commercial; they will take it for nothing, as giftsrather than paying.

Mr Davis—They will take it for nothing but they also recognise that we have tomake a quid in the end. I think there is a market there and my experience of the market—and I do speak with some authority on the television situation in Vietnam because I spenta great deal of time and effort on it—is that we can sell our products and our programsthere. I also think we can eventually sell the radio program. But you will not get a lot ofmoney for them. It is all part of grist to the mill; it is all part of the activity.

CHAIR —At the moment Radio Australia is run by the ABC and funded as part ofthe ABC budget but as a single line item. ATV is in the processes of being sold but no-one is sure yet just what that process is going to produce.

Mr Davis—It is not being very open, the process of ATV being sold.

CHAIR —You may want to comment on that in a minute. I take it that you aresaying this service is important—having an international broadcasting service out of thiscountry, whether it is as it is at the moment or whether it is restructured, there isadvertising or sponsorship, it is merged with SBS or there is some other model. But if



what we have at the moment disappears or is all but gutted, say, back to a very smallservice, what is the likelihood of the commercial sector entering into this field? To datethere has not been any evidence of that. Is this country going to be worse off if we do notfind a solution and the services as they are at the moment disappear?

Mr Davis—We are not going to be worse off. Obviously our standard of living isnot going to fall as a result of—

CHAIR —I mean in trade terms, in message terms and so on.

Mr Davis—I would not come here and waste my time if I did not think there wassome sense in doing it. I have put an enormous amount of time and energy into thatmagazine. To just wilfully throw away Radio Australia and Australian Television, withoutconsidering it outside the square and looking at its commercial viability—and I think theyshould go together—is a waste.

Radio Australia will inevitability die in this period of economic stringency andcutting back. It is an indulgence. I believe there are people who like Radio Australia. Iknow that, through the Pacific islands, a lot of people follow it. I think there is a largefollowing in Indonesia. I do not think the sophisticated Chinese in Hong Kong turn onRadio Australia because they need to know what is happening here but there is a veryvaluable thing to be done with it. If you want to throw it away, throw it away. I cannotstop that.

CHAIR —It is not this committee that ultimately makes the decision.

Mr Davis—There are plenty of things that they waste money on that should gobefore Radio Australia and ATV. I can save them money—give me an hour.

Senator WEST—You could go down to the cabinet meeting today.

Senator HOGG—How is Radio Australia an indulgence, in your view?

Mr Davis—It is expensive. It is run in a Rolls Royce fashion.

Senator HOGG—Expensive in what sense? Per capita?

Mr Davis—I think $15 million or $16 million a year is expensive.

Senator HOGG—By international standards? By equivalent broadcastersinternationally?

Mr Davis—I said to you that I did not come here as an expert. I said to you that Icame here as a concerned Australian citizen. I do not know what it costs to run some of



the propaganda things run by Radio America and those sorts of things.

Senator HOGG—I will tell you now that it is relatively inexpensive comparedwith some of the other international broadcasters. That is the evidence that is before us.You are describing it as an indulgence.

Mr Davis—I think some of it is an indulgence; some of it is, in a sense, paternal.Some of it is a sense of ‘our burden’. Some of those elements are involved in ourspending money on Radio Australia. It is still worth while doing, even though we havesome of those views. I am saying that you should try to make them commercially viable. Ido not think that there is anything wrong with subsidising them, because I think they serveour economic and political aims.

Senator HOGG—I do find you a little bit hard to follow.

Mr Davis—I am sorry about that.

Senator HOGG—I will let you go; I think that is the easiest and safest thing todo.

Senator TROETH—Mr Davis, you do appreciate the seemingly opposedphilosophical objectives of any government which continues to subsidise a radio servicewith reasonably philosophical objectives and, at the same time, putting it out tocommercial advertising. I am using your words because I think that is what it is. Thegovernment could then be accused of running a business in that sense.

Mr Davis—The government runs a lot of businesses.

Senator TROETH—Well, hopefully, they are getting out of a lot of them.

Mr Davis—Philosophically, I do not think they should be in any. I am saying thatthe only solution to it, if you do not want to lose them, is to put them together and putthem out of the ambit of the ABC. The best place to put them is under the SBS. If theyare properly run and organised, maybe you could make them commercially viable andthen, if it is the appropriate thing to do, sell them off. I really think that there is money tobe made out of them.

CHAIR —Do you think that we should have an organisation like Austrade?

Mr Davis—No, I would close Austrade. Austrade, in my view, is incompetent.

CHAIR —I thought that is what you might say.

Mr Davis—My experience of Austrade offices when I have been overseas is that



they are all incompetent.

CHAIR —What about as a principle of a government having a service which isthere to assist industry?

Mr Davis—I think Austrade should be disbanded and that the foreign affairsdepartment should have a person in the embassies who helps on the commercial side. Theorganisation, as it is run, is appalling.

CHAIR —It is, but that is another issue. I asked that question in light of yourcomment.

Mr Davis—I am delighted that I have had the opportunity to tell you.

CHAIR —You are not the first person who has actually said it.

Mr Davis—I am glad from my own point of view. I have wanted to say that for along while.

CHAIR —As I said, you are not the first person to put that point of view. It doesrelate to the question that Senator Troeth asked about how far a government should getinvolved in either subsidising or funding activities which have both a trade and foreignrelations business spin-off.

Mr Davis—I think it is a perfectly legitimate function of government, and I thinkit is the responsibility of government. If George Bush does not sell cars when he goes toJapan, I think he is failing in his duty. If John Howard is not selling our engineeringcompanies and our educational system and everything else when he is in China, he isfailing in his responsibilities. It is perfectly legitimate. When I say that it is an indulgence,I do not think that $10 million or $20 million is wasted in comparison to the size of theAustralian budget which, I understand, is $106 billion.

CHAIR —Thank you, Mr Davis, for coming along and for your submission. Youhave certainly given us a different perspective on some of the issues that we are dealingwith. We appreciate your attendance here this morning.

Luncheon adjournment



[1.54 p.m.]

COHEN, Dr Hart Kenneth, Lecturer, Media, Faculty of Humanities, Research Centrein Intercommunal Studies, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, P.O. Box 10,Kingswood, New South Wales 2747

CHAIR —Welcome. The committee prefers that all evidence be given in publicbut, if at any stage you wish to give any part of your evidence in private, you may ask todo so and the committee would consider your request at that time. The committee hasbefore it a submission from you dated 25 March 1997. That submission has already beenmade public as a result of the earlier resolution of the committee. Before we go to anopening statement and questions, are there any alterations or additions you wish to maketo the written submission?

Dr Cohen—No, not at this stage.

CHAIR —I invite you to make some opening comments and then the committeewill ask questions.

Dr Cohen—First, perhaps I should recontextualise my written submission briefly.It was based on recently executed research on the local consumption of global televisionwhich has been a research interest of mine now for about four years. The research wasexecuted in Indonesia and included specific questions concerning the use and interest inAustralia’s international media services Radio Australia and Australia Television. Theresearch team included academics from the Department of Communication in UniversitasAirlangga in Surabaya, and the Department of Journalism at the Universitas SumateraUtara, in Medan, North Sumatra.

As I have stated already, I lecture at the University of Western Sydney and I havea collaborator in Western Australia—Brian Shoesmith from Edith Cowan University. Theresearch used the random sampling method for its quantitative data and focus groupdiscussions for its qualitative data. The reports which I provided to the committee werecompleted in the last two months, based on data collected in October and November of1996. It is therefore very current data, although it was not collected in anticipation of thisinquiry.

My submission to the committee selected out the material from my report relevantto the inquiry and, despite arriving at certain conclusions related to the data, analysis ofthe data is continuing, particularly of the qualitative research, which takes a long time toget through. I expect a continuing refinement and understanding of the meanings related tothe data collected.

For the purpose of this presentation, I would like to headline three points whichrepresent to me the most significant conclusions of the research in relationship to the



matters at hand. First, in relation to Australian interests in the region that are enhanced bythe presence of both these services, I wanted to emphasise the idea that these servicesserve different constituencies and different purposes. I am aware of arguments related topotential damage done to Australian interests in the region related to the potentialwithdrawal of these services, and they have ranged from diplomatic to trade interests,which have been brokered by both media services in the past.

Our Indonesian research confirms that view, and does so primarily through theappreciation expressed formally through our sampling and informally throughconversations with politicians and media professionals from the region. If I had to pinpointa common ground in much of this appreciation, it is the identification of not only adifferent source for news and news analysis but for an Australian voice and perspective onthe news. No network provides the coverage of this region like that provided by Australiancorrespondents—not the BBC and not CNN. Australian news services also showcaseAustralian expertise and technology. Knowledge industries and communicationstechnology are growing in the region and these are key areas for the identification ofAustralian expertise.

In a sense, the media scene in Asia has shifted quite a lot from the time that Istarted my research here and there is a great hunger for news, particularly news from anindependent source. I think that relates to local constraints on the local media experiencedin many of these national contexts. I think Australian media services provide theperception of independence.

My second point relates to the context in which Australian services are provided—the political future of the Asian region. I think this political future is unpredictable. Theservices that are provided there are for the people in Asia but in their Australianness theseservices also create indentifications with Australia. Although this is also an argumentrelating to the advancing of Australian interests, it must be placed in the context of thefuture of that region. For example, there is a strong sense that the current volatility beingexperienced across the Indonesian archipelago will not abate with the re-election ofSuharto.

The class, racial and ethnic cleavages in the country are worsened by perceptionsof command and political controls and too limited options for the choosing of politicalleaders. It is most certainly in Australia’s interests to retain a distinctive Australian mediapresence should these political instabilities in the region increase.

Thirdly, ending foreign language programming on Radio Australia, and endingshort-wave access, means the end of Radio Australia—I have no doubt about that. YetRadio Australia rates the highest with its foreign language programming in Indonesia. Ourresearch showed that Radio Australia’s service is most used in foreign languages. BahasaIndonesia programming rates at the top of popular programs when compared to its mainrivals in the region, the BBC or Voice of Malaysia. I might add that there is also demand



for Bahasa programming on ATV as well.

Most of the people we sampled access Radio Australia via short-wave. So, in termsof audience figures and the program preferences, it seems to me that both the services areholding their own in these media markets. But in the specific case of Radio Australia itwould be the case that ending its foreign language programming would probably end theviability of the service.

Senator BOURNE—I think we heard from somebody talking about Vietnam thatone of the things that was found to be useful in Vietnam was listening to Radio Australiaand hearing different points of view from different people all involved in government—completely opposing views in some cases—and still seeing that the country was quitestable. They saw this as encouraging for a slow but steady change to democracythroughout. They were talking particularly about Vietnam but also about Asia in general.Do you get that same feeling of the importance of a diversity of political views inAustralia as having any sort of an influence in Indonesia?

Dr Cohen—I quoted from a letter I wrote to theAustralianabout the sorts ofchoices, or at least the perception, offered via the media services in Indonesia. I thinkthere is a tendency to perhaps be too reductive in thinking about an audience as such thatmight have one tendency or another in the context of a place such as Indonesia, with bothits diversity and the different ways people group together around different kinds of mediaor different kinds of popular culture.

I thought a couple of comments from our focus group discussions really stood out,and I should emphasise that the conduct of a focus group in Indonesia is very differentfrom executing it in Australia. There are very different kinds of formalities that have to beobeyed. In a sense, the way in which people express themselves stood out more stronglyfor me because I knew that they were being extremely cautious about what they weregoing to tell us.

In some instances, they emphasised that the kinds of access to information througha service such as Australia Television or Radio Australia undeniably was a way of findingout about their own country that they could not find out via their local media services. Insome instances, what they found out offended them, and undeniably there is a strongidentification with the idea that foreign representation of their own country could beinsulting to individuals there.

But, within that same focus group, there were opposing opinions about thatperception. Others indicated that it would be a mistake to identify the characterisation ofIndonesia as a country or its government with its people. I guess I am emphasising here akind of sophistication on the part of individuals in being able to understand and makethose differentiations with respect to media representations.



They definitely felt they got alternative and potentially more comprehensiveaccounts of their own country but they did not entirely believe those accounts either. Theyhad the understanding that every media representation is in some way selling somethingand they could be sceptical to some degree of what that was.

Individuals also made particular points about times of crisis. I think that is adifferent kind of situation for people in that instance. There were expressions, for example,in relation to the events of 27 July, which surround the political issues regardingMegawati’s aspirations. In that instance, there was very explicit interest in what foreignreports were saying about those incidents. That had a different impact on the individualsin question.

Senator BOURNE—You mentioned in relation to that that they were pleased tosee a supplementation, I think you said, of a constrained local media. So the people inyour focus groups do see the local media as constrained. They realise that this ishappening. They are not dumb.

Dr Cohen—Yes. One should differentiate there between the electronic media—television and radio—and the print media and print in general. I think you can find withinIndonesia huge controversies being developed within their print media and then subsequentproblems of censorship and the like, whereas, with respect to local television and, indeed,local radio, very few controversies will arise because, simply, it is in a sense alreadycontrolled.

Senator BOURNE—Yes, it is fairly obvious when you have a look at it.

Senator EGGLESTON—I was interested in a comment you made on page 3, as itis, but I think it is really page 1 of your comments. You say:

Significantly our study showed that the interest and use of ATV and RA extended from politicalelites to middle-class Indonesians. This was confirmed by the demographics in our survey.

I suppose it is hard to do, but what evidence was there of, say, village people listening toRadio Australia or watching ATV? Can you give an indication of that, or is that notwithin the parameters of what you were doing?

Dr Cohen—It was not really. The demographics of our study in 1995 were entirelycircumscribed by the urban context of Surabaya. Our subsequent qualitative work was alsowithin the urban context of Surabaya. Our qualitative study in 1996 in Medan was also anurban study in the Medan region.

The only thing I can add, perhaps just in an anecdotal fashion, is that, when Iproposed the second study to our research partners in Medan and suggested that it shouldremain an urban study so that we would have at least a somewhat close comparative basis



for our earlier study in Surabaya, they indicated to me that the more interesting studywould be in the villages. The more interesting development of access to global mediaseemed to be happening in somewhat remote and rural areas in North Sumatra.

They indicated that—again, it is an anecdotal kind of indication—they were quitecertain that they would find unusual groupings of large numbers of people around globalmedia outside the urban centre. We have not pursued that study as yet, though it isprobably going to be my next study, if I can manage it.

Senator EGGLESTON—I suppose the other major finding you seem to have isthe one about the fact that people saw Radio Australia news and ATV as an alternative tocompare with the domestic service. You seem to emphasise also that there is quite a lot ofinterest in local language service rather than English.

Dr Cohen—Yes. This is based entirely on a statistical result. Our study wasconducted in a very credible way with regard to those statistical results, particularly inMedan where our research partners were extremely professional in their execution of it.That result showed that, in almost every instance, Radio Australia was second to the BBCin most listening category questions, but the one category in which it equalled the BBCwas in its Bahasa Indonesia service.

Senator EGGLESTON—Why did people prefer to listen to the BBC?

Dr Cohen—In English?

Senator EGGLESTON—In Indonesian or in general.

Dr Cohen—I cannot think of any reason that we found out. We didn’t pose thatquestion directly to individuals. With regard to the Bahasa service of Radio Australia,clearly it is as popular as the BBC. At least, that is what our statistics showed. Withregards to the interest in the BBC generally, I could not really answer that.

Senator EGGLESTON—What percentage of Indonesians do you think speakEnglish? I suppose in towns like Surabaya there would be quite a high percentage ofEnglish speakers.

Dr Cohen—We did ask that question to find out both the language of use at home,their usual language, and any second languages. English came up as the most frequentlyused second language and it is in the range of about 20 to 30 per cent of the people wesampled in both Surabaya and Medan. Surprisingly, it was larger in Medan than inSurabaya.

Senator EGGLESTON—Interesting.



Senator WEST—Concerning the age demographics, on page 7 of your report yousaid that there was an issue to be addressed and that was of attracting younger listeners.What evidence have you got about those sorts of demographics, the needs, the desires, thewants and wishes of the young people?

Dr Cohen—We certainly did not do a full sociological study in that regard, but inthe focus group discussions it was clear that there was a sense that there was a gap withrespect to at least the way in which people were talking about Radio Australia. That gapoften could be identified along age lines when we did the demographic break down of thepeople engaged in those discussions.

In many instances individuals would talk about their parents listening to RadioAustralia, but not themselves, but they were nonetheless curious about that as a fact oftheir lived existence, that this older generation—their parents or their uncles or aunts—hadthis connection to Australia via Radio Australia though they themselves had not reallybeen attracted to it or, for one reason or another, had not become regular listeners to theservice. The way I characterised that view was that there was a need for the service toreach the younger part of the population, to devise a strategy in that regard.

Within Indonesia, many young people live at home, they live with their parents,and there is a sense I get that there is a good foundation that they can build on in thatregard because there is a kind of constant communication going on there and there is lessof a sense of a generation gap in that way. The statements that people had made in thesefocus groups seemed to indicate a genuine interest in the fact that though they did notlisten to Radio Australia, their parents did.

Senator WEST—What sorts of ages are you looking at getting your peakaudiences and where does it really start to drop off?

Dr Cohen—This is related to the constraints in trying to do this kind of work. Wetended to talk mostly to people either between the ages of 15 and 30, or between the agesof 50 and upwards. It is that middle group, if you like, from about 35 to 45 that is quitedifficult to sample for one reason or another. We did have this kind of picture of a quiteyounger population who had particular media interests. A lot of them revolved aroundpopular cultural interests like music, in particular, and fashion, and this older populationthat was more interested in perhaps dramatic entertainment or news.

We found, curiously, at least a portion of our focus groups, young people,expressing quite an interest in news and current affairs and current affairs-type programs. Ishould say that in the preference for certain documentary programming, it would be morein the category of infotainment than it would be in the category of hard documentarymaterial that one might find in other contexts.

Senator WEST—You have not been able to go back over a period of years to see



if their tastes are changing?

Dr Cohen—I started this work in 1994 and produced my first report in 1995 and asecond report in 1996. The span has been three years. Two studies were in the same partof Indonesia, East Java, and then a new study in North Sumatra. There is the beginning ofa longitudinal perspective on this work to some degree. The substantial changes were inthe three years—at least from the first study to the last and there might be a regionalmediation to this. There was a greater sophistication on the part of people with respect tomedia services and a tremendous expansion in the media services themselves in the threeyears.

For example, I make the point that in the context of the Medan study, ATV andRadio Australia have substantially more competition than the study in relationship to theSurabaya work in 1995, where there were fewer English language services that they werecompeting against. Yet there was no apparent loss of audience share as far as I could tellin the construction of those figures. Even though there was increased competition, ATVshowed pretty much the same audience share that they did in the Surabaya study, aboutnine per cent. Radio Australia was similar.

Senator WEST—Their listeners are increasing at the same rate as the listeningpopulation? They are holding their market share?

Dr Cohen—I would say that there is a base level interest in Australian televisionand possibly Australia’s media services generally. That base level has not been affected bythe increased options that people are getting with the expansion of STAR Television inNorth Sumatra and other examples like that.

Senator WEST—Who are the competitors?

Dr Cohen—STAR Television, CNN, MTV Asia and, within STAR Television, youhave five different channels. In a sense, there are two that are probably the mostcompetitive. There is a ‘V’ channel, which is a music television station, and there is asports channel. Those are the chief competitors. In the data you will see that ATV usuallyranks within the top five of the English language services, of which there are about 15.

Senator WEST—Are the audience tending to be all English speakers? I amthinking in terms of the younger ones. They are presumably not using Radio Australia toassist with their English at school?

Dr Cohen—In terms of the attention to both services, there is some interest inusing them as a basis for improving their English, not really learning English. There is nota formal link to English teaching programs. But tuning in they saw as a way of improvingtheir language skills in English and that was considered to be quite a high priority formany young people in particular



We also discovered that many people who did not have English language skillswere still tuning into English language programming. I think one of the possibilities therewas simply that television is a medium where you can watch an awful lot without reallyneeding to have a language to understand what you are looking at. You can at least enjoyit or, in one way or another, participate in it without knowing the specific language inquestion.There were a lot of people who described themselves as non-English speakers,who were still using English language programs.

Senator WEST—On the television and the radio?

Dr Cohen—That was primarily television .

Senator WEST—What about the radio? Is there a preference for the locallanguage broadcasts?

Dr Cohen—Yes, certainly in a choice between Indonesian and English, thepreference would be for Indonesian radio or, in the case of Radio Australia, for Indonesianprogramming on Radio Australia. That was the point that I made earlier: it is really theforeign language programming that seems to be the most popular.

There was interestingly, in the focus groups, specific mention of Australian radioprograms related to Australian history and they were able to name certain programs byname—programs related to settlement, history of settlement and that kind of interest. Ithink it is by way of connecting to perhaps other family members who would have beenfostering or encouraging that interest through that programming. I found it curious thatthey would be able to mention it by name, which is actually quite rare in focus groupswhen you are trying to get people to relate their experiences of media.

CHAIR —Your submission is very detailed, particularly the statistics which youprovide, and we are grateful to be getting the benefit of the work you have done. All theway through your submission you compare audiences for the various internationalbroadcasters. Do you believe we should look at the international broadcasters ascompetitors, or should we take a more global approach? For instance, it has been said tous that the BBC World Service primarily focuses on European news or American news,while we give a regional focus. How do you think we should, as a nation, look at the roleof these broadcasters in relation to other international broadcasters?

Dr Cohen—I was surprised to see the two reports reproduced. I thought theymight be of interest to the committee, but I did not think they would actually bereproduced in full. There is probably not a lot that can be understood entirely on the basisof the data there.

It demonstrates also that my primary interest was in global television, not so muchin Australia Television or Radio Australia, although it became an important dimension of



the work. In that regard, I think your question is really important from the point of viewof the research orientation that I have taken and how it has all come back to this particularfocus.

The critical difference with a service like Australia Television and Radio Australiais that it is a regional service. That difference is important in two ways. First, there is noreal equivalent in the area. On the kind of web of correspondence on the ground insupport of, particularly, the ABC and its related services like ATV and RA, it is uniqueand it is extremely impressive from the point of view of thinking of the quality of thereportage that is now possible at present.

If you look at Australia Television news, which many people are able to do inAustralia, the quality is really extraordinary, as is the attention paid to detail. Every aspectof its production is professional. It stands out in relation to specifically news orientatedorganisations like CNN and maybe the BBC World Service as well. In a sense, theimportant difference there is that, in defining themselves as a regional service, theAustralian services are unique.

It is important in the second instance from the point of view of comparison tounderstand that those differences are huge, from the point of view of the organisationsthemselves—the capital that is available to organisations like CNN and NBC, and theamount of time that they have been in the region as global newscasters.

In my interests, I was not so much wanting to create a comparison in any sense ofequality between these services, but rather to create a sense of what the region was madeup of with regards to the crisscrossing of media services and where Australia Televisionand, to some extent, Radio Australia fit within that web. On both counts, the specificregional focus is crucially important for understanding the value of those services.

From the comparative perspective, I do not think one can expect, for example,Australia Television to be seen in competition with a global network like CNN as a directcompetitor, but rather as another service in a kind of complementary relationship to manyother services in the region.

CHAIR —Which I suppose is not unlike the situation with domestic broadcasting,at least in terms of the attitude that is supposed to be adopted of the need for publicbroadcasting, even though at times people will always look at ratings of the commercialnetworks.

Dr Cohen—Sure. I never intended those ratings to be seen in that comparativelight. In communication theory, there are two kinds of competition: there iscomplementary competition and symmetrical competition. Symmetrical would be the kindwhere you would pit two together and there would be a kind of equality in theirrelationship. A complementary competition is one in which there is a clear difference in



their relationships. Those have to be taken into account.

CHAIR —Following on from that, at the top of page 5 of your submission you say:

. . . I cansubmit that the gap created by the disappearance of either of these services would bequickly filled by the other English-language broadcasters.

Then further down you say:

There has already been considerable expression of concern from the region should the educationalprogrammes of both ATV and Radio Australia no longer be available.

There are similar comments on page 7 where you refer to the specific strong interest ineducational style programming. Are you able to elaborate on your statement in relation tothe gap if either or both of these services disappeared or were substantially reduced,particularly if Radio Australia were taken back to an English-language only service onsatellite? How would the gap be filled or who would fill it?

Dr Cohen—I reread this last night and realised this could be taken quite wrongly.In fact, the gap will remain. The gap will be that there will be no Australian voice in theregion. So it is wrong to say the gap will be filled. It will be filled in the sense that other,non-Australian broadcasting networks are expanding rapidly. My reference for thatstatement is Errol Hodge’s work which has been done on the ground and is related tolooking at policy statements by these organisations and seeing their plans for expansionquite clearly.

What will happen is that, in effect, the gap will be filled by non-Australianbroadcasting. It will come in and simply take over the markets that Australianbroadcasting currently holds. With respect to Radio Australia, that market is from the post-war period until now; with respect to ATV, it is much more recent, although it is a marketthat has rapidly grown from only six or seven years ago.

With respect to the value of educational style programming, this came out of ourfocus group research where there was a kind of repetitive interest and advantage stated byindividuals using the programs of Australia Television and, probably more so, RadioAustralia as a means of self-education. Again, I felt this was more informal than formal,in the sense that it might not have been billed as an educational program, but it waseducational nonetheless.

With respect to a lot of the entertainment programming, frankly, many people didnot really care for ATV entertainment programming. But the ones that they did care forturned out to be of the type they could use for some form of educational purpose. I alsofound it interesting that there was a distinct and frequently stated interest in Aboriginalculture and that they wished there would be more Aboriginal cultural programming onATV so that they could, in a sense, become more aware of Aboriginal culture in this



country.

CHAIR —Another comment you made was the failure to attract a youngeraudience. One could postulate that that might reflect a sort of traditional attitude to theABC, except in more recent times with Triple J. I raise this because there has been adebate in this country about the role of specific broadcasters for young people. There wascertainly a public debate about whether or not that service should be closed, but it appearsto have survived. Is there a market or a need there, and do you have a proposal as to howRadio Australia and ATV, if they do survive, could try and attract a younger audience?

Dr Cohen—I could not really make the recommendation myself, but I know whatthe target area would be. It would obviously be programming of a particular kind. If youlook at the competition in that regard, it has been there for much longer and is moresophisticated in its approach to youth programming. I am thinking of MTV Asia inparticular and, to some extent, Star Television’s V channel.

It is a challenge, if you like, to programmers to think through what sort ofprograms can both compete viably and perhaps be different enough to be attractive to thataudience. But I certainly do not have the expertise to be able to make a recommendationon that score. I can just note that there is a weakness there with respect to theprogramming, at least with respect to ATV.

With Radio Australia it is kind of curious, because the way in which these servicesare used is quite different. People tend to channel surf with television. They might hit onan Australian television program and stay with it, but not necessarily go back to it thenext day or the next week. Whereas, with radio, people have quite firm ideas about whatthey want to listen to and they commit to that in a more regular way. So there are peoplewho could name favourite Radio Australia programs, but not television programs.

CHAIR —The reason I found your comment in the submission interesting is that Ido not think we have had any reference to that elsewhere. If one of the objectives that isbeing put is that we are promoting educational services and an image of a country, ortrying to attract tourism, or whatever, then the younger generations are more likely to bethe participants in the long run.

Senator HOGG—Has your study enabled you to measure the economic benefit toAustralia of Radio Australia and Australia Television in any way?

Dr Cohen—Not really.

Senator HOGG—It is a fairly broad question, but I should imagine that the sheerpresence and impact of the broadcaster must have some commercial benefit for Australiancompanies.



Dr Cohen—I mentioned in my first page in the introduction to the report that ourentry into the Surabaya region was in a way brokered in part by the Western Australiantrade mission that is on the ground in Surabaya. In a sense, our relationships that wereformed subsequent to our arrival there were very much an extension of that trade presenceand the sense of an already established connectedness to Australia in the realm of trade. Imade the point, too, that Australia Television regularly showcases Australian products,from education through to food products and the like. So there is definitely an organicrelationship between a media presence in a country like Australia and the potentialeconomic benefits.

Senator HOGG—Something, though, that is clearly identifiably Australian, asdistinct from something that comes out of America or something that comes out of acommercial network which is nondescript in terms of nationality or country?

Dr Cohen—Yes, I think that is correct. I suppose it depends on how youcharacterise what you consider to be economic—

Senator HOGG—The reason I raise that is because what is pretty much foremostin the minds of most people today is: what is the benefit in it, what is the return? Ifpeople cannot place their finger on a benefit and a return, then they say it has no valuewhatsoever and therefore it must go. That is my feeling in this case, that people cannotsee an economic value and say, ‘This returns one billion, two billion or three billion to thecountry.’ Therefore, because we cannot measure it, it is of no value. It might have anintrinsic value in terms of cultural or other matters, but at the end of the day, who caresabout that? That is not going to pay the bills.

Dr Cohen—Certainly, culture has an industrial edge to it. One talks about thecultural industries. Maybe one could track some of the specific ways in which AustraliaTelevision has showcased Australian universities and track the relationship that that hashad in increasing the enrolment to universities by Asian students.

Senator HOGG—But this has not been done.

Dr Cohen—It may have been done but I am not aware of it.

Senator HOGG—It is certainly not a benefit that has come out of your study.

Dr Cohen—No, not from my study, I was not tracking that information at all, butit would seem to me that the information is trackable and it could be a way ofdetermining, to some extent, some of the specifics of the economic benefits that you arereferring to.

CHAIR —As there are no further questions from members of the committee, thankyou, Dr Cohen, for coming along and for putting in your written submission and,



particularly, for giving us the background information on your survey work. Thecommittee has found it very useful.[2.36 p.m.]

ZEHNDER, Mr Kevin, Associate member and volunteer, Australian Expert ServiceOverseas Program, 10 Geils Court, Deakin West, Canberra, Australian CapitalTerritory

CHAIR —Welcome. The committee prefers that all the evidence be given inpublic, but if at any stage you wish to give part of your evidence in private, you may askto do so and the committee will consider it.

Mr Zehnder —It is not requested.

CHAIR —The committee has before it your submission dated 19 March 1997which has been made public by a previous decision of the committee. Are there anyalterations or additions you wish to make?

Mr Zehnder —Not as far as I am aware.

CHAIR —I now invite you to make an opening statement and we will follow thatwith questions from the committee.

Mr Zehnder —As stated in the submission, AESOP is a non-governmentorganisation providing volunteers to assist businesses mainly in the Asia-Pacific region. Ihave had the opportunity of taking part in four assignments in various parts of the Pacificin the last four years as a volunteer. While I appreciate that the chief function of RadioAustralia is to provide news and information to our Asia-Pacific neighbours, it also servesa very important part in keeping volunteers up to date with current events in Australiawhile on a posting overseas.

Most of the participating countries served by AESOP have local radio stationswhich naturally broadcast the language of the local people. In many cases, we, asvolunteers, have only a limited knowledge of the local languages and are unlikely tobecome fluent in them due to the shortness of our assignments, which can last from fourweeks to six months. Any reduction in this broadcast service would be a great loss andsadly missed by all of us who, in our own small way, are trying to promote Australia toour Asia-Pacific neighbours.

Senator WEST—You have volunteers in the Asian area. You have placed,according to your submission, well over 1,000 volunteers in the Pacific Islands and SouthEast Asia for periods of up to six months. Just how important to them is Radio Australia,especially in some of the more unstable areas where there is potential for conflict or thereis, in fact, conflict?



Mr Zehnder —Apart from a brief assignment in New Britain, I cannot answer thatquestion from experience. I know that a lot of the local people do listen to RadioAustralia, especially bearing in mind that a lot of them, apart from volunteers like myself,are expatriates. Most of the radio stations in the areas that I have been to broadcast inonly their own language, and they rely on information coming from Radio Australia tokeep them up to date with what is going on.

Senator WEST—How important is Radio Australia for the expatriates?

Mr Zehnder —The numbers that I have spoken to all remark on the fact that theyare glad it is there; let me put it that way.

Senator WEST—You have not had volunteers going into areas where there isinstability or potential conflict?

Mr Zehnder —There was an assignment where three or four volunteers were sentto Rwanda recently, but that is the only real conflict area that I know of.

Senator WEST—You did not have any in Fiji when the coups took place?

Mr Zehnder —I cannot answer that, but there could well have been. There are anumber of assignments taken on in Fiji. I have actually just completed an assignment inFiji with an Indian family who were living directly opposite where the parliamentarianswere incarcerated—which was quite hairy, so I am told.

Senator WEST—Were they Radio Australia listeners?

Mr Zehnder —Yes.

Senator WEST—Did they give you any feedback on the value of Radio Australia?

Mr Zehnder —Not really, no.

Senator WEST—If Radio Australia were not there, what would be the impactupon your volunteers?

Mr Zehnder —Lack of information about Australia. Admittedly, most of theseareas can pick up the Voice of America and BBC World Service programs.

Senator WEST—Comparing the news bulletins, in particular, and the informationthat is provided by them, are they as good as those on Radio Australia, in particular, or onAustralia TV? Do they concentrate on the South Pacific or the Asian area?

Mr Zehnder —Yes. The BBC World Service and Voice of America specifically



tend to give details of news in their own countries—in the same way that Radio Australiadoes, for that matter. But, if you are an Australian, it is not that you are worried, but youprefer to hear news of what is going on in your own home country, if I can put it thatway.

Senator WEST—What is the significance of the English language teachingprograms on Radio Australia to your volunteers and to some of the programs that yourvolunteers might be running?

Mr Zehnder —While my wife and I were in the Republic of Kiribati on the islandof Tarawa, a couple who were working at the Tarawa Technical Institute teaching Englishwere making very great use of Radio Australia for their language teaching.

Senator WEST—So, if Radio Australia were not there, you would have to belooking at alternative methods?

Mr Zehnder —That is correct, yes.

Senator WEST—How important is English to the region?

Mr Zehnder —It is a big help if you have to teach someone how to work acomputer, as far as I am concerned. To try to teach somebody to use a computer throughan interpreter would be almost impossible.

Senator WEST—So English is a bit of a universal language in the area?

Mr Zehnder —It is, yes; it is fractured occasionally, but it does work.

Senator BOURNE—In the case of natural disasters such as hurricanes, wherewould AESOP members turn if they were, say, in Kiribati?

Mr Zehnder —There is an Australian High Commission in Kiribati.

Senator BOURNE—I wondered whether, if they were in an outlying areasomewhere, they could not get directly on to it. Short wave is still effective, and theywould go to that, would they?

Mr Zehnder —Yes, it is. They do use short wave. For instance, in the Republic ofKiribati, there are 13 islands which are inhabited, and their only means of communicationother than boat or plane is short-wave radio.

Senator BOURNE—If there were some sort of natural disaster in the Asia-Pacificregion, I presume that Radio Australia would carry it.



Mr Zehnder —Yes.

Senator BOURNE—Would it necessarily be carried by Deutsche Welle or Voiceof America? Do you have experience of those?

Mr Zehnder —I really do not think that it would be.

Senator BOURNE—I don’t, either!

Mr Zehnder —Kiribati is a little dot in the middle of the Pacific, miles and milesfrom anywhere. We spent three months there, and Radio Australia became essential at thatpoint.

Senator BOURNE—Yes. I have to admit that, when I started going overseas toSouth-East Asia, I bought a short-wave radio and carried it everywhere.

Mr Zehnder —It is most important.

CHAIR —As there are no further questions from the committee, Mr Zehnder, Ithank you for your submission and for coming along to answer our questions.

Short adjournment



[3.15 p.m.]

CAMPBELL, Mr Archibald Duncan, 20/300 Riley Street, Surry Hills, New SouthWales 2010

CHAIR —Welcome. The committee prefers that all evidence be given in publicbut, if at any stage you wish to give any part of your evidence in private, you may ask todo so and we will consider the request at that time. The committee has before it asubmission from you which is a letter dated 12 March 1997. That has already been madepublic by previous decision of the committee. Before we proceed to opening statementsand questions, are there any alterations or additions you would like to make to yourwritten submission at this stage?

Mr Campbell —No.

CHAIR —I now invite you to make some opening comments.

Mr Campbell —As I tried to clarify in my letter, I am not expert in this field and Ido not regard myself as being one. I have not researched the field particularly nor have Iread the Foreign Affairs and Trade submission because I did not want to place myself in aposition of arguing for or against points there.

CHAIR —We have not read the submission either because they have not put one inyet.

Mr Campbell —I was under the impression that a point of view had been put. I amstarting simply from the basis of the accumulated experience that any number of peoplewhose career was in Foreign Affairs and later Foreign Affairs and Trade might have had.Mine was nearly 40 years and finished officially about three years ago.

I was encouraged to say something to you simply because, having writtensomething in theAustralianon the subject, as I do occasionally, a number of oldcolleagues said to me, ‘Yes, keep saying that. We think you’re right.’ Subsequently, anSBS program invited me to take the argument a little further and then surprised me bysaying more or less publicly that I seemed to be the only voice who was being somewhatcritical or questioning of the future role of Radio Australia. I am here because I wasinvited to be here. I am not sure that I would have pressed my point of view had that notbeen the case but I thank you for the invitation.

Without having followed it in great detail, much of the material in the defence ofRadio Australia that I have read on the public record seems to me to be more descriptivethan anything else. It is rather anecdotal and obviously it involves a degree of specialpleading. It is more an account of what Radio Australia has done and what RadioAustralia might do in the future. But I would not regard a lot of it as being particularly analytical.



By attempting to offer some very general analysis, I hasten to add that I am notdoing this from any economic rationalist point of view—I think, quite the contrary. Ibelieve there are a few other broad perspectives on the service itself, on the informationcontent and perhaps on some potential alternatives that it might be interesting to offer.

The Radio Australia function vis-a-vis the target countries of the regions it serveswas initially, in my view, deliberately intrusive. Yet nowadays the explanation that I hearseems to be a much more gentle and benign one than that. I think one has to ask thequestion: at what point did it ever cease to be intrusive simply because the hot war, inwhich it grew up, and the Cold War period, in which it then was so active, passed? Atwhat point after that did the function actually change? At what point did it become, as itwere, permissible to indulge in a largely propaganda performance?

I do not think, as I have heard argued, that simply to go on competing with theother countries that provide this sort of service into our close-in regions actually justifiesthe continuation of the role in itself. By and large, those countries are former imperial andcolonial powers and I think the question is invited: is this a function which modern dayAustralia, with the aims it has for itself in this part of the world, really wants to maintain?Is it a function which is really redolent of a degree of cultural superiority?

If we are really seeking a contemporary economic relationship with the area,particularly with Asia, if we want it to be on an equal footing which is implicit whentalking of level playing fields, if we are prepared to accept real differences in politicalsystems between ourselves and many of the countries in the region, if we are prepared toacknowledge, as I think we have to increasingly, that free market economies are not freeinformation societies—and perhaps are not going to be so for a long, long time and themarketplace does not extend to free ideas—then we have to ask ourselves, ‘By what rightand with what purpose are we really trying to influence other people in other countries?’

I would put the question this way: who is it who says that we will count less inAsia if we stop trying to make converts? Some of the silences that one hears, as it were,in the region, I think are interesting. I do not think Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia,for instance, will speak out against Radio Australia, for one very simple reason, which isthat I believe he would like to retain it there as a political football to kick around. It willcome up again in the future, as it has in the past. That is the broad function.

What about the information we wish to provide and the spin we wish to impart toevents? Our audiences are, by and large, in Third World countries, although thatdescription in relation to some of the target countries is of decreasing relevance. It isworth remembering that it was only a few years ago that UNESCO was highly critical ofwhat was regarded as world news. World news was seen as a near monopoly of theindustrialised world. It was not seen as some objective body of information, either in itsselection or in its presentation. So, again, I would ask what it is that makes Australian-made world news any different?



You can argue that there is something of a non-democratic presumption in aservice such as Radio Australia seeking to offer its version of events, its selection, itsexclusion of topics and its interpretation. To suggest a very simplistic but, I think, notmisleading system of evaluation of what it is that we achieve in inserting our version ofnews into some of the regional countries, if the news we are projecting is not contentiousand if it is not subject to resistance on the part of the regional governments concerned, itis fair enough to assume that it will be available anyway.

In those circumstances, and even assuming that our projecting it did, in fact, touchon some Australian national interest, on a scale of a plus, a minus or a zero, I think therating of what we are achieving for an uncontentious projection would be a very generouszero. Where the news content, the information content, is actually resisted or resented bythe regional government concerned—not the people, but the regional governmentconcerned—the rating has obviously got to be a minus. It needs to be borne in mind thatwe are not backing regional people against their governments. What we are doing isconstantly trying to enlist the support and the cooperation of those governments. So Ithink, on that, as I say, simplistic but not altogether misleading rating system, if you lookat what it is we are trying to achieve in inserting our news, you would have to come to azero to minus assessment—somewhere in between.

Looked at instead from an Australian viewpoint as to the news, how does thatnews seem to us? I think this is where, in the opinion piece I wrote, you enter neither thefish nor fowl area. How does the professional journalist engaged in the news function inparticular keep big brother out of the operation, not to mention when you enter into theopinion area as distinct from the news area?

When it comes to selecting good news or bad news about Australia, the test shouldbe objectivity, which in any event is a matter of judgment, or whether there should besome particular objective employed. Given that so much of the argument for retainingRadio Australia is to the effect that to discontinue Radio Australia will take Australia outof the regional race, I believe it is pardonable to question whether Radio Australia everhad the objective of keeping us in the race.

You could very readily argue that on some news days we would have done betterwithout Radio Australia’s contribution. The Radio Australia news, examined day after day,has projected a number of negatives about our economic and social situations andperformance—not necessarily in an untruthful way but without guidance as to nationalbenefit or with some misguidance.

Why, you have to ask, have we in Radio Australia constantly headlinedunemployment levels, industrial disputes, discouraging economic statistics, as if there is nocriterion for Radio Australia headlines other than that for the domestic media? If ourpolitical leadership knows what a good set of figures are for domestic consumption andthat yield some advantage, it can be assumed that they ought also to be capable of being



found for external consumption. The name of the game is not distortion of news butselection. I believe that by and large Radio Australia did not play it—presumably forreasons of high minded journalism.

The other side of the news concerns the damage that can be done to our nationalinterest when Radio Australia, by presenting a regional issue, has earned us the animosityof regional governments. Basically, that can be justified only vis-a-vis a regime to whichwe are already hostile, and such targets are in fact too limited to warrant mounting anoperation simply on that account.

The other situation that occurs is when the private media earn us the dislike andresentment of one or more regional governments, and this is a situation in which, whetherit is at fault or not, Radio Australia tends to be lumped into their sights, anyway, becauseit is simply seen as part of the Australian media. There is too great a tendency, in myview, for Radio Australia—sometimes through no fault of its own—to be just anotherbrake on our diplomacy and another source of resistance to the sort of progress we mightbe seeking to achieve.

There ought to be available—I believe there are available—criteria for theprojection abroad of a reliable and useful image of Australia. There are four things that weneed to be seeking to promote—our values, our views, our goods and our services. Oneway or another, we are in the market to sell and promote each of those. I think the mosteffective way of doing so is by providing a visual platform for the recognition and therecommendation of things that are Australian. I think nothing works as well oreffectively—and certainly nowadays it is possible—as a visual backdrop of what Australiais, what it looks like, what our values are, and that you seek to gain recognition that way.

The actual track record, I think, shows that it has been the private sector, by andlarge, that globally has made the miles for Australia in obtaining recognition for us. Ithink it points also to the decreasing and disappearing effectiveness of international radio.I am not touching the Australia Television issue at this stage; I do not propose to evenseek to address that.

For instance, in the United States, I remember when I was there in the early tomid-1960s, we bashed our heads against the wall trying to find a way of making ourcountry a visible, desirable, known place, something other than an abstract geographicconcept. In the end, I believe more was achieved to create a conscious awareness ofAustralia in the United States by the serialisation ofThe Thorn Birdsthan by any othersingle factor. Of course, the irony was that it was not even filmed in Australia, but itlooked Australian enough, if you did not check on which side of the road they weredriving. But it was that visual entry over the television into the American living room thatmade all the difference.

Radio Australia’s adherents, especially in the Pacific, have, I think, said some



particularly interesting things since Mansfield. Even PNG Prime Minister Chan, I believe,spoke up with some largesse—I think he was talking of something like $1 million—insupport of the information function provided by a news and information service to theisolated Pacific mini-states.

CHAIR —I am not sure he has the same view now!

Mr Campbell —Or the same largesse. But I think this is an issue—because it wasnot only PNG—that might deserve some separate consideration. I think possibly a simpleEnglish and French language information service focused particularly on intraregionalmatters could usefully be supplied by elements of Radio Australia, but under the purviewof the clients, perhaps as a service controlled by the South Pacific Forum, and with somemodest funding contributed by regional countries as well as Australia. No doubt a smallrump activity of Radio Australia, with some of their personnel, could continue as an aidfunction with some regional audience control and contribution. In other words, I thinkthere is a case for looking at the future of Radio Australia vis-a-vis the Pacific veryseparately from the future of Radio Australia vis-a-vis its other target areas.

As for the Asian target area, the challenge is to attach ourselves to and to penetratethe visual channels to which audiences in Asian countries are already tuned. I think theemphasis must shift from trying to be the messenger to the content and the purpose of themessage.

I think we must rethink entirely the cost effectiveness of activities such as RadioAustralia’s. In this appraisal, the fact that something has been done previously should havea completely neutral value loading. The question that arises or should arise is: do we needto make a net payment at all, or can we in fact receive payment for the sort of informationactivity that we want to promote?

By that I mean that the best way of selling our message about Australia is over thedomestic channels of the countries we are interested in and by actually marketing to themappealing material made in Australia. This can include a variety of things. I think,particularly, it can include soapies, because that is the sort of serial, regular exposurewhich can show up our standards of living, our products, our services, our communitymix, our multiculturalism, our politics, the various freedoms we have in our media.

I will stay away from the issue of insourcing or outsourcing of the ABC, but I dothink that some expert Radio Australia resources could now be transferred to ABCproduction capacity and dedicated to producing material with sales potential in our region.This might usefully be backed up by some federal bonus payments to Australian TVproduction facilities—ABC or otherwise—and to those who succeed in placing materialjudged beneficial to our sales and our standing in the target countries which are ofrelevance to us from the foreign trade, defence, cultural and Asian policy points of view.



CHAIR —Thank you. Could you elaborate on your experience of 40 years andyour career as a diplomat.

Mr Campbell —I began in 1957 in Indonesia. I subsequently served back inCanberra, working on South-East Asia. I then went to Washington in the early 1960s,working exclusively on South-East Asian issues. I came back and out of what was thenthe Department of External Affairs into the Department of Defence for a couple of years,still working on South-East Asia. I then went to Pakistan for a couple of years, and theninto Malaysia, by which time I was Deputy High Commissioner from 1969 to 1971.

I was in Canberra again for a couple of years and then went to our Mission to theUnited Nations in New York. I returned to Canberra to run our multilateral UN division. Ithen went to Vienna, principally in a UN job with the European office in Vienna and withthe International Atomic Energy Agency from 1980 to 1984. I was deputy secretary of thedepartment from 1985 to 1988 and then, finally, ambassador in Rome and, briefly, inAlbania from 1988 to 1993.

CHAIR —You stated in your letter that you had observed some aspects of RadioAustralia’s performance over your 40 years experience. You said:

At a recent peer gathering in Canberra I found considerable support volunteered for the views I hadaired in the press.

Can you elaborate any further on that, or were they in the nature of private discussions?Who are we talking about when you say your peers?

Mr Campbell —It was literally peers and, more so, it was a memorial gathering fora very senior former officer who had died; about 50 of us were present. We spent a gooddeal of time talking after the formal proceedings were over. I was surprised to find howmany of my former colleagues had been looking at the debate on Radio Australia and had,in fact, read the piece I had written in the newspaper and simply said that they agreed. Ihad not realised that there were so many queries in people’s minds about the utility of thefunction.

CHAIR —The difficulty here is that I think you were quite correct in your earlierstatement that you are probably the only one, or maybe one of two, who has appearedbefore the committee to date to put a view which does not strongly support thecontinuation of Radio Australia and/or ATV in essentially its current form.

It is obviously difficult to test the anecdotal evidence you have just given aboutcomments from your associates. I am not in any way challenging that. I am not disputingwhat you are saying, but I am certainly challenging it in the respect that we have had,both before this committee and also through submissions to this committee and publicly, alot of comment from people involved in the Foreign Affairs field who are strongly



supportive—for instance, former minister Gareth Evans; current minister AlexanderDowner; former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser; all the premiers; ambassadors such asSusan Boyd from Vietnam; Kevan Gosper from the Olympic committee; Michael Mann ofcourse who is the CEO of ATV and a former diplomat, and indeed the DFAT submissionto the Mansfield inquiry itself. Whilst it did raise some issues about audience reach, it wasin the nature of strongly supporting this service and its role in a foreign relations and tradesense.

Unfortunately, as I said earlier, the department has not presented a submission tothis inquiry, and their representatives declined to answer questions when they appeared.And there is more, as you would know—which leaves me wondering who is right andwho is wrong. Indeed, I think out of all the submissions we have received, over 800, thereare only two or three that in any way criticise or question the role of RA and ATV. I donot know whether you would like to respond.

I might also say that, whilst this again is anecdotal and you will have to take myword for it—and I am sure Senator West will back me up—Senator West and I were at agathering not so long ago in Canberra, one of those little diplomatic gatherings, andpeople from the department who shall remain unnamed were strongly supportive of therole of RA and were seriously concerned about what is likely to happen. But of coursethey cannot state that given their current position as public servants. Would you care torespond to what I have just put?

Mr Campbell —It is difficult. When it is time to review and possibly dislodge along-established function there is always going to be a discomfort about doing so. I thinkthat is particularly the case now with so much constant emphasis on the priority to begiven to the Asian region in particular and our whole foreign and trade policy areas. Thereis a misgiving that if we subtract something we will be losing; that simply this is not thetime; that the signal will be misinterpreted or misread. My attempted point is that I do notbelieve that is necessarily so. I think that the building of a modern, equal, contemporaryrelationship with some of these countries could indeed be a good deal more soundly basedif we were to subtract this interventionist activity which, as I say, I do believe comescomplete with an element of cultural superiority attached to it.

CHAIR —I read your article in theAustralianwhen it was published, and I havere-read it of course for today. I was interested in the ideas you put forward because theywere somewhat contrary to what we had been reading from other commentators. I supposeone of the purposes of this inquiry is to endeavour to look at issues as to the roles of RAand ATV, how effective they were in the foreign relations and trade sense—since they arethe terms of reference—and to at least provide an opportunity for a debate to occur.

To a large extent that may have been circumvented, because Mr Mansfield in hisreport made a recommendation which was based upon financial constraints and hespecifically said that he had not looked at these issues. It would appear to be the case that



the government is going full steam ahead to make a decision on funding, without havinghad an opportunity to do what we are doing here.

Do you believe that it is good diplomacy, irrespective of what your views might beabout RA and ATV, to shut down or effectively shut down a service, to nobble it, withoutconducting a proper investigation of what might replace it or what might be the futureapproach, such as the issues you raise in your article about the private sector covering thegaps?

Mr Campbell —I do not know that it is a question of diplomacy at all. Whether itis good administration or good politics is another issue.

CHAIR —Certainly there have been reactions from the region, both fromAustralian expatriates and from leaders of other countries. They may be genuine; they maynot. But there has been a fairly significant reaction to the proposed decision.

Mr Campbell —I do not believe that it should be a significant element of thepurpose of Radio Australia at all to be providing a service to Australians abroad, for onething. If that is an element, then it is a coincidental issue. I do feel that probably thedebate itself has been nobbled by the telegraphing of the punch. In other words, I suspectthat if the debate had been able to be conducted on an open-ended basis, there might wellhave been more people weighing in on my side of things. I simply have the feeling that,since the news does look fairly serious for Radio Australia, that in itself has been arestraining influence on people coming forward with further arguments.

As to the relevance and the efficacy of the role, there are two touchstones I wouldextract. If it does not exist, I think an analysis of what has been in the Radio Australianews about Australia over a significant period would be well worth looking at, because Irefuse to accept that the role is simply to broadcast a nice round objective view of what isgoing on in Australia, day after day, warts and all. I do not believe it is. The warts get outon their own anyway. If you are going to have that sort of function, then at least it shouldbe attempting to be creative and lubricating and helpful.

Secondly, if what we are about—as we seem to be increasingly in our diplomacy—is markets, selling our goods, selling our services, opening ourselves to investment andmaking way for possible Australian investment overseas, then I believe nothing is moreimportant than a visual image. In other words, and leaving aside the technicalities, themedium itself is increasingly irrelevant to the job to be done.

CHAIR —You mentioned the issue of broadcasting to Australians abroad. Youwould be aware that that is actually a charter obligation of the ABC, pursuant to an act ofparliament. Whilst one can debate that, it is a requirement for the ABC to provide thatservice.



Senator TROETH—Mr Campbell, you said in your article that short-wave radiotechnology has been overtaken. Can I ask you what technologies, in your view, haveovertaken it?

Mr Campbell —It is simply that television is increasingly the path of the future,for the great majority of information. I cannot be statistical and hard about this, but itwould be surprising to know the number of small towns, villages, and so forth, scatteredthroughout Asia where there is at least one television set. It is a focal point of attention,interest and receipt of information and influence.

Senator TROETH—That would tie in with your view of visual promotion.

Mr Campbell —Precisely.

Senator TROETH—I was also interested in your view about the sorts of viewsthat are put forward through Radio Australia, as compared with the feelings of localpeople about their own governments. This morning we had an impassioned view putforward that we should be having a Burmese language broadcast in an attempt to providea different viewpoint from that put forward by the SLORC government. Do you think thatis a suitable objective for Radio Australia?

Mr Campbell —I can see where the passion comes from. It is entirelyunderstandable. Burma is probably that one exception I had in mind in what I was tryingto say to you earlier this afternoon about our not being in a position of hostility to theretention of office of many other governments in our region. That one must surely be anexception. But what really is our mission? We are providing information to support, toencourage in effect a political resistance to continue to resist. If they do, and if they are soencouraged and the shooting starts, what do you do about it then? Where is the completemission there?

It seems to me that if you are going to encourage and sustain in that sort of waythere has to be something more to it than simply getting these people informed andencouraged and steamed up. I do not like the thought, frankly, that you can so sustain amovement, no matter how understandable and praiseworthy it is, no matter howsympathetic we may feel towards it, if in the end that is as far as your support goes. Andlet’s not kid ourselves—even if we were to contemplate some other form of follow-upsupport, we would be almost alone in the region.

Senator TROETH—What is your view of the number of other listening orviewing avenues that are available to that present group which is Radio Australia’ssupposed target audience? If Radio Australia was stopped tomorrow, would the people towhom it presently broadcasts have other listening posts?

Mr Campbell —That is the sort of technical information I cannot supply. But,



assuming they are English language broadcasts we are talking about, I would be astoundedif they could not turn to the BBC or VOA to start with, just to name two.

Senator TROETH—Do you consider that the broadcasts from those other avenuesare sufficiently different or foreign in nature from the Australian broadcasts that theywould present a problem for those listening to them?

Mr Campbell —I do not believe so. I am overseas for a couple of months of theyear in a foreign language country and I listen daily to the BBC, simply as a form offairly thorough international news coverage.

Senator TROETH—Good, thank you.

Senator WEST—You say that the species of information activity to which RadioAustralia belongs is ‘on the brink of extinction’ and that ‘the audience figures alone showthat’. Would you like to explain what evidence you might have that it is on the brink ofextinction, and what audience figures you are talking about?

Mr Campbell —I cannot offer you expert audience figures. As to the species ofinformation, I simply mean short-wave, intrusive, international broadcasting. I believe thatour diplomacy and our political position in Asia would be more advantaged were we towithdraw from what I regard as a wartime colonial and early post-colonial exercise.

Senator WEST—Why do you think that short wave is on the decline?

Mr Campbell —Simply because it is less effective as a medium than any form ofvisual communication—in other words, television.

Senator WEST—We have been given evidence from people who are expert in thefield that in fact the number of short-wave radio stations is increasing, and increasingsignificantly. Do you have any comments to make about that?

Mr Campbell —No.

Senator WEST—This is a feeling you have—as opposed to their expertise in thearea.

Mr Campbell —Yes; I would not put it any higher than that.

Senator WEST—You say also that the radio short-wave technology has beenovertaken. Overtaken by what, may I ask?

Mr Campbell —Again, it is the same situation. Look at the beginning of RadioAustralia and similar broadcasting activities. Even post World War II and into the Cold



War period, there was no technology comparable to international television now whichcould not be, or was not, jammed. It was the only technology more or less at the outsetand, at the height of the entire use of short-wave international broadcasting, it was withoutcompetition. I think that a number of countries found that the jamming simply becameirrelevant as the competition with television arose.

Senator WEST—You unfortunately were not here for the previous witness, but hewas certainly giving evidence from his research on empirical data, from several differentareas within the Indonesian archipelago, that the audience share of Radio Australia hadremained constant over a couple of years. What technology do you think has overtakenshort-wave radio in providing access to people who live in remote areas with no electricityand in countries that do not allow satellite dishes to receive information?

Mr Campbell —I cannot say that I can advance an argument there.

Senator WEST—I now turn to your article in the paper, where you write:

The best means of gaining a regional audience for Australian topics must be to place ourmaterial in the channels of the foreign countries themselves or through commercially operatedinternational TV. That way its credibility is inherent, it is free of suspicion of being propaganda, andwe can actually be paid to pass our message.

How can you guarantee the editorial independence of the material that goes in, when youare providing this material to other people to telecast or broadcast?

Mr Campbell —It depends entirely on the material. With the example I gave ofthings like soapies, I do not think that editorial integrity is necessarily a major issue at all,because the ideal cultural and information projection that we make from this point onought to be outside the news and policy area.

Senator WEST—In relation to Australian news and current affairs and ouropinions on what is happening in the world and the freedom of our press to report varyingopinions upon a subject, do you not think that material should be allowed to be placed forother countries to consume?

Mr Campbell —No, it is not that. It is a question of whether, if Radio Australiaceases, you think that such information will not be broadcast or available in, say, Asiancountries by any other means. I do not believe that is the case at all.

Senator WEST—You believe that somebody else will come in and pick up aRadio Australia type of independent journalistic coverage of foreign affairs, current affairsand news bulletins from Australia’s perspective, do you?

Mr Campbell —If our perspective impinges strongly enough on the so-called targetarea, then it is very likely to be reflected without our having to rely on an instrument such



as Radio Australia.

Senator WEST—Using what technology, and how, and by whom?

Mr Campbell —The print media, domestic radio in the countries concerned, andtelevision. The news happens, surely, and the news is circulated.

Senator WEST—The news happens; but, in a lot of these countries, we are talkingabout countries with less than freedom of exchange of information. We are talking aboutcountries where it is the government who decides what information appears in the media,a la Singapore, where the two members of the opposition are not even able to make astatement that is in any way contrary to what the present government wants. It has beenlike that for some time. They have been hit with defamation actions and are now livingoutside of Singapore, in Malaysia. Are you telling me that any of the Singaporeannewspapers would print an article from an Australian journalist that actually said that thiswas what was happening?

Mr Campbell —No, I am not. There are two issues there. Most people inSingapore would find that, one way or another, they had access to another version ofevents. Just as important, I make the less than popular argument that it is not necessarilyour God-given right, role or responsibility to differ from the sovereign policy of thegovernment concerned.

Senator WEST—So you have no problems: you think that, in fact, we should notbe protesting about SLORC’s activities in Burma, nor protesting or even talking aboutindividuals in the government of Singapore suing the two opposition members of thatgovernment for defamation, when there are 100-plus members? Those two are not exactlygoing to overturn the government tomorrow. Do you think that we should acquiesce, notcomplain and not even talk in the region about what our neighbours are doing—when weshow all of our activities here and have freedom of the press, and the press can come andreport and criticise and have differing opinions?

Mr Campbell —I happen to believe that the fundamental point of philosophy in ademocracy is that we have the right to be wrong, and so do they.

Senator WEST—And do we not have the right to say that we think they arewrong?

Mr Campbell —We do have the right to say we think they are wrong. We willcertainly do so here. We will make public statements. We will, if we think it is relevant,address ourselves in those terms to the foreign government concerned. We will, if wethink it is relevant, address ourselves in those terms in United Nations bodies and inhuman rights committees and so forth, on whatever the issue may be. But that is verydifferent from saying that we have the right to address ourselves directly to the other



electorate.

Senator WEST—You are saying that you do not think that people in Indonesia,Burma or wherever have the right to know other points of view apart from those of theirown governments, are you?

Mr Campbell —I think it is a very difficult call as to whether we have the right tointrude a point of view to that electorate against the wishes of its government, as it were.

Senator BOURNE—But we are not forcing anyone to listen to this. They do noteven have to turn on their radio if they do not want to. It is a matter of whether we shouldhave that information available on the airwaves or not. It seems to me that if everybodyelse has their information available on the airwaves, especially the governments concerned,that diversity of point of view is something that should be available, even if it is notlistened to.

Mr Campbell —Then, in the end, you have to go back and weigh up what is in thegreater Australian national interest—and let us take Singapore in particular: to get to thatelectorate, because we think we have a God-given right to do so, which I happen tochallenge, or to rile that government. I do not think you will find many governments inCanberra of whatever persuasion who will say, ‘Really, the national interest comes downon riling the Singapore government.’

Senator BOURNE—I do not think anybody would say that—

Mr Campbell —But that is the alternative.

Senator BOURNE—The point is that all the other governments in the region alsoput out their short-wave broadcasts. They are putting out their point of view to all theother countries in the region. They are putting out their point of view to all the otherpeoples in the region. Their points of view are available.

You do not have to listen to them either, and when I am in Asia I do not; I listento Radio Australia. Occasionally, I put on BBC World Service if Radio Australia is notplaying something in English, but I do not have to do that, and neither do the peopleliving in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea have to do that. They do not have to listento Radio Thailand or Indonesia or what have you. They do not have to listen to RadioAustralia. Why should we voluntarily take our point of view off the air—voluntarilyremove diversity and choice from the marketplace?

CHAIR —I would say that the palapa satellite is an Indonesian satellite.

Senator BOURNE—ATV aside—and it is very lucky that they are there, but atleast the choice is there—it is very difficult to stop short wave.



Mr Campbell —The choice is theirs, but there are those instances where you needto weigh up whether providing them with that choice is worth it in terms of the reactionof the government that we have to deal with.

Senator BOURNE—I have not found too many reactions to Radio Australia’sstories. Everyone’s stories from me which, as you can guess, are not the most sympatheticof SLORC or even of the Indonesian government in some instances, while they might nothave been comfortable with them they have been run very sensitively. They have talked toDFAT over the years about how they are doing this sort of thing. While it is notpropaganda, they do not hold back; they show all points of view. They try very hard tomake it truthful. They would get very stroppy with me if I was telling falsehoods. Theyare putting a point of view that I just think ought to be available. I am sorry; I am nottrying to browbeat you. I am just putting my own point of view.

Mr Campbell —Not at all, because I am trying to force a rather radical viewpointbecause I think it deserves a look.

Senator BOURNE—I think your viewpoint will be carried in the cabinet nomatter what anybody else says, to tell you the truth.

CHAIR —What about the fact that every other country in the region, I think withthe possible exception of Burma, is broadcasting internationally? Okay, the service maynot be as extensive, but it is increasing not decreasing. The whole communicationsindustry is heading into a sort of global framework. People today argue that the levelplaying field is really a myth, that we are the only ones playing on the level playing fieldwhile everyone else is playing on a different ground.

Why should we get out of this area of international broadcasting and leave it toeveryone else to send their message out? It seems to me to be at least an argument forisolationism, particularly combined with a proposal to only broadcast in English andFrench, which may send signals of a return to paternalism and colonialism that we aretrying to avoid.

Mr Campbell —I make that suggestion only in relation to the Pacific.

CHAIR —I appreciate that, but I think they are trying to get away from that insome areas.

Mr Campbell —If anything, it would have an anti-colonial overtone. I couldequally respond: why join the tower of Babel? If the airwaves are going to be so full nowof the region doing this to itself—and let us bear in mind that it is a region that still doesnot regard us as being fully and entirely a member so that our contribution is not alwaysreceived on the same basis as their own contributions are received by each other—



CHAIR —This is not a question of joining; this is a question of withdrawing. Itwould be different if we were not already there.

Mr Campbell —The alternative is not to withdraw. The alternative that I favour isto continue in a different way.

CHAIR —I appreciate that you made that point in your article. We have to windup fairly quickly because we are running over time with this witness.

Senator HOGG—Just on that last point, how would you do it and at what costand to whom?

Mr Campbell —The starting point that I would see would be, as I tried to propose,looking at whether existing resources in Radio Australia, with all the expertise they haveon regional countries—what is acceptable and what is not, the social and cultural moresand so forth—could be employed in an advisory way to assist with the production ofspecial TV programs, which could be sold to regional countries for broadcasting on theirown channels. In other words, I would think—

Senator HOGG—What if the regional companies did not want to buy them? Thatis the assumption. I read into your article that you are going to put it throughcommercially operated international TV—

Mr Campbell —Or domestic.

Senator HOGG—Or domestic; it does not matter. But one would have to pay toget one’s point of view onto those rather than be paid for your point of view, one wouldsuspect. People are not falling over themselves to necessarily take our esoteric point ofview on board and play it across their airwaves.

Mr Campbell —Again, I cannot give you the specific information because I amobviously not an expert witness, but I believe some Australian programs have already beensold. We have not given them away. I do not believe it should be beyond the wit andcapacity of Australian production to devise programs which would be attractive enough tosell.

Senator HOGG—So what sorts of funds would you see being involved?

Mr Campbell —You could end up with something which for some purposes wasrevenue neutral.

CHAIR —As there are no further questions, thank you, Mr Campbell, for appearingbefore the committee. I think you have certainly provoked some spirited discussion. As Isaid earlier, your views have been somewhat different from many of the other



submissions, but we do appreciate your putting your point of view and giving us somefood for thought and for answering the committee’s questions. Thank you very much.

Mr Campbell —Thank you. I have appreciated the opportunity.

CHAIR —We will include your article in theAustralianas part of yoursubmission.



[4.14 p.m.]

CLARKE, Ms Cecelia, Deputy President, Australian Institute of International Affairs,124 Kent Street, Sydney, New South Wales

CUSSINET, Dr Philippe Jean Pierre, New South Wales President, AustralianInstitute of International Affairs, 124 Kent Street, Sydney, New South Wales

CHAIR —Welcome. The committee prefers that all evidence be given in public butif at any stage you wish to give any evidence in private you may ask to do so and we willconsider the request. The committee has before it a submission from you dated 5 March1997. That submission has been made public in accordance with a previous decision of thecommittee. Are there any alterations or additions you would like to make to the writtensubmission before we proceed to some opening comments and questions?

Dr Cussinet—No.

CHAIR —I invite you to make some opening comments.

Dr Cussinet—Thank you very much. I realise it is late in the day and senatorsmust be tired, but I thank you kindly for providing the Australian Institute of InternationalAffairs with the opportunity to present its case in support of Radio Australia and AustraliaTelevision.

I am sure some of you are aware of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.We are Australia’s longest serving independent organisation dealing with Australia’srelations with the world. The institute provides fora for the expression of diverse views onall aspects of international affairs and through our charter we are apolitical and non-partisan. We have over 1,000 members and have had eminent Australians as presidents,such as Sir Garfield Barwick and Sir Herman Black. The Prime Minister, the Hon. JohnHoward, was a long-time member of the New South Wales branch in Sydney, as were theHon. Neville Wran and Sir John Carrick.

In the early days of the foreign affairs department, in fact, the institute offered asource for Australian diplomats. The institute publishes theAustralian Journal ofInternational Affairsquarterly as well asAustralia in World Affairsfive times a year, andpresents the prestigious Roy Milne lecture. The New South Wales branch has a very activespeaker program and we were very proud recently to host the address by Mrs HillaryClinton, the US first lady, at the Opera House.

Recently, the institute agreed on a co-production program with Australia TV namedAsia Focus, and we had the Hon. Alexander Downer as our inaugural speaker. I am proudto say that we have just secured, for this Sunday, Professor David Suzuki as a secondspeaker for the program.Asia Focusis a monthly half-hour program which interviews



prominent international personalities and seeks their views on the region.

There is no doubt that both Radio Australia and Australia Television are anextremely potent foreign policy tool for Australia, so much so that state leaders such asSir Julius Chan have extended their support for the program. Through my dealings withAustralia Television I have learnt to appreciate its contribution and, although I have nodirect involvement with Radio Australia, feedback from visitors to Australia from theregion is that Radio Australia is also invaluable. Australia Television reaches some 20million people in Asia including key decision makers in the region such as PresidentSuharto from Indonesia who, I am told, has publicly praised Australia Television and is akeen listener.

Both enterprises, Australia Television and Radio Australia, play a major part inprojecting Australia in the region. These services constitute Australia’s most effectivepromotion, I believe, establishing Australia as a democratic first power in the Pacific andAsian region. Through Radio Australia and Australia Television, Australia is providingquality information at a very economical price. It can be received from any short-waveradio, in the case of Radio Australia, making it accessible to all, including those ineconomic hardship. Also it allows countries with restricted freedom of information to hearthe outside world, and I think many people, both expatriates and locals in PNG, would bevery happy that we have these services available at this stage, only to mention onecountry. Covering vast territories and populations from South Pacific islands to India andChina, this must be the most cost-effective Australian diplomatic service in the region.

Both these services play a pivotal role in assisting government and commercialenterprises to monitor activities in the region. Government departments, major financialinstitutions and such like, major corporations, rely on these services to gain information onwhich to base major decisions.

My position at the institute is an honorary one. I am actually a businessman. I amthe chief executive of the largest division of the English Electric Company in Australia.As such, I clearly understand the need for commercial realism in any decision. I am awarethat Australia Television costs somewhere in the vicinity of $6 million. Six million dollarsper annum to access 20 million people who shape our region—A and B demographics, asAustralia Television refers to them—is an extremely modest cost. This should becompared to the cost of other forms of diplomatic promotion to perceive the excellentvalue that we gain from Australia Television.

I am advised that, in the case of Australia Television, it could actually generate aprofit if it were allowed greater external sourcing. What more could be sought but a veryvaluable service to the country that actually generates a profit. And I guess, as I heard thechairman mention with the previous speaker, what message would be sent to the region ifthe service was discontinued, which is perhaps the corollary of that.



These services could be sold off to become commercial enterprises, as I think hasbeen mooted, and Radio Australia and Australia Television may actually generate a profit.But can we be sure that it will be sold into hands as responsible as those who now guideit? Certainly, in the case of Australia Television, I know that former ambassador MichaelMann, who is here today, and his staff are doing an extraordinary job under the overallguidance of the ABC.

Ms Clarke—I would like to speak in support of Radio Australia from a businessperspective. I will give you two examples. From 1986 to 1990 I was a senior economistwith the Westpac Banking Corporation and travelled to some 22 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. From my perspective during those tours, Radio Australia often featured asa starting point during business discussions. I cannot say that I would have brought thebank X dollars of money but it was certainly very helpful, from my perspective, to hearpeople in many of the countries say they listen to Radio Australia and what did I think ofsuch and such, and I was able to tell them. That was from the business perspective.

If I were an expat in the countries that I travelled to, I know from speaking tothose expats that they also valued the input of Radio Australia. When I travelled there Ialways travelled with my short-wave radio and I received a certain degree of comfortknowing that I could pick up the Australian news and that I would be informed. I couldhave, as an alternative, listened to CNN or the BBC but, with respect to those augustorganisations, they are not Australian and it is Radio Australia and Australia TV whichidentify us as a community, that says who we are.

Coming back to the degree of comfort, I am not sure if you are aware that duringthe recent disturbances in Papua New Guinea I listened to the local radio station. The localradio station gave no information for, I would say, 12 to 18 hours of what was going onin Port Moresby. If I were an expat in Port Moresby, I would have turned on RadioAustralia and I would have been comforted by what I heard. At least I would have knownwhat was going on. That is all I have to say.

Dr Cussinet—Can I just say in conclusion that we urge the Senate committee, inits budget consideration, to recognise the benefits of maintaining Radio Australia andAustralian Television in responsible hands.

CHAIR —Thank you. I should just state that we, unfortunately, are not determiningthe budget allocation—that is occurring somewhere else in this country right at themoment, by the government and the cabinet. Questions from members of the committee.

Senator EGGLESTON—The central point of what the last speaker was sayingseemed to be that in some ways the news broadcasts of Radio Australia and otherprograms were politically damaging to Australia in the sense that negative information wasbroadcast about such matters as unemployment and industrial disputes. One can think ofprograms which have been sent out on ATV such as the H.G. Nelson programs and the



recentFour Cornersprogram about Justice Yeldham, and I have anecdotally been told bypeople who have been in South-East Asia that they have heard programs broadcast onradio about lesbianism in Australia and so on which are offensive to Asian people inparticular because those matters are not culturally acceptable. I just wonder whether youwould like to comment on that, whether you agree that Radio Australia has in factsometimes been damaging to Australia; whether or not there is a case for some sort ofmore sophisticated and sensitive control of programming and whether that comment thatthe previous speaker made is reasonable, that a different format of providing informationto South-East Asia would be more effective. For example, Ms Clarke talked abouttravelling around South-East Asia and finding that people spoke favourably of theimpressions gained, but other mediums might be more effective in terms of the remarks ofthe previous witness, which you heard.

Dr Cussinet—I guess it shows that we are a very free democracy, and that islaudable in my mind. If we start—and this is a private opinion—to strongly control themessages that we put out, then are we not relegating Radio Australia and AustraliaTelevision to a position similar to that of other radio and television stations that werespoken of by the previous speaker? So I think what we are providing is a free voice. Ithink, as I said, that is laudable.

As far as another vehicle that can be used perhaps to convey the message better,there is always the written medium, but as Cecelia Clarke was arguing, the benefit ofRadio Australia in the case of PNG recently shows that it is live, immediate, and in thecase of Australia Television, it provides an image. I did not mention this during myintroductory speech, but to provide to 20 million people a full-time image for $6 million isvery economical. So I think that only shows that we are a free democracy and is in praiseof Australia.

Senator EGGLESTON—You are not really answering the question I asked you,which is whether or not you, representing the Institute of International Affairs, felt thatthere had been damage done to the perceptions of Australia in our relations with South-East Asia by some of the content of some of the broadcasts.

Dr Cussinet—I actually cannot comment really on that, as I do not watchAustralia Television here, as it is meant to be broadcast overseas, and actually cannot beviewed here, nor have I done surveys to monitor the feelings of people. So I really cannotcomment. Maybe Cecelia has a point to make.

Ms Clarke—I have no anecdotal or hard evidence to tell me that what people haveheard has been damaging.

CHAIR —Ms Clarke, you made the comment that when you were travelling aroundand you met people, often a conversation starter was a reference to Radio Australia. Fromthat, I take it that you see RA, and presumably ATV, as part of a promotional sort of



image, in the same way as one might run a campaign, or one country may have a lot ofservices in other countries which are designed to spark interest or to promote interest inAustralia.

We know that in Europe and in the United States, in addition to our embassies, wehave a lot of other facilities, whether they be consulates or trade offices and there are farmore personnel on the ground with Austrade, the Tourist Commission and a whole rangeof activities that are there to promote Australia. How does that compare with whatpresence we have in the Asian and Pacific regions? I would assume that it is a lot less,and so at least RA can make up some of the gap there in terms of promoting the country,which may be done by other means in Western countries.

Dr Cussinet—I hope I will be able to answer that question.

CHAIR —It is more of a statement, but I am asking you to comment on whetherthat is a factor.

Dr Cussinet—I made the point in my introductory comments that I felt that, for $6million, covering 20 million people was good value. I am not sure what the cost is—andwe have a few former ambassadors behind me who could probably comment—of certainmissions, but I think it would be far in excess of that. Although they obviously fulfil avaluable role, tools of that potency that only cost $6 million in the case of AustraliaTelevision, and which could be offset if further advertising support were allowed by theABC, I think are a very economical way of complementing, for example, missions such asAustrade, which is mainly to do with trade for smaller companies, and diplomaticmissions.

Senator WEST—You talked in your opening statement about it being important ina number of countries that have censorship—I think that is too strong a word to use—ofthe media and the importance of them hearing about the outside world and of hearingfrom the outside world. Can you give me some more details on that point? How importantis it for those countries and for other countries to hear about the outside world and to hearAustralia’s point of view on issues?

Dr Cussinet—Again, as I said in my introductory speech, I feel that it placesAustralia as a democratic First World power in the Pacific and the Asian region. Again, Ithink it does that for a very low cost.

Ms Clarke—It provides another perspective on the way the world works. Just aspeople who are in other countries can hear the Voice of America or the BBC, it is anotherperspective if we can make our point of view known. As someone said—I think it wasyou, Senator Bourne—people do not have to turn on the radio. It is a voluntary thing, butfrom my experience people who have turned on the radio have commented to me that theyhave found it useful information. What they do with that information, they have not told



me.

Dr Cussinet—Can I just add that I found it interesting that Sir Julius Chan, forexample, who does not always want the world to know everything, highly praisedAustralia Television.

Senator WEST—Do you think they prefer to hear what ATV and what RadioAustralia have got to say about their neighbours rather than themselves—that they place agreater priority—

Dr Cussinet—I do not know. A few state leaders have commented—I thinkPresident Suharto and Dr Mahathir—that they listen to Australia Television avidly, and SirJulius Chan has offered financial support for Radio Australia. So we are getting topsupport from the region.

Senator WEST—You do not think, as the last witness seemed to, that it isintrusive and that it is a sign of white superiority and supremacy? You do not see thatthere is a perception of that out there in the region?

Dr Cussinet—I really do not understand the white supremacy thing. Perhaps itshows some strong ego—I am not sure what the term is for a state—that shows a desirefor the state to promote its strength in the region, and I think that is good. I really do notsee that it has any racial connotations in any way.

Senator WEST—Or colonial connotations?

Dr Cussinet—I personally do not see that at all. I think what it is showing is thatAustralia wants to be a First World power and wants to establish its presence in theregion. But I really do not see any racial or colonial connotations. There are obviouslycolonial implications with our history, but apart from that I do not think there is anythingimplied or conveyed through maintenance of both those services.

Senator WEST—Ms Clarke, you have worked in the region. Have you ever hadthat opinion conveyed to you?

Ms Clarke—No, I have not.

Senator WEST—It is not a perception that the region has of us because of whatwe send out on RA?

Ms Clarke—If it is a perception, it has not been conveyed to me. What I perceiveis something that says, ‘We are not Austria, and we are not to be confused with it.’

Senator WEST—Yes!



Ms Clarke—That is very helpful from my point of view.

Senator WEST—Yes, it is very true. You have been there. You have a preferencefor listening to RA and watching ATV. Can you offer some thoughts about thecomparison between Radio Australia and ATV and, say, Deutsche Welle, RadioNetherland, Voice of America, and the BBC World Service?

Ms Clarke—No, I cannot comment, not in a constructive way.

Senator WEST—Did you listen to them?

Ms Clarke—I used to listen to CNN and I used to listen occasionally to Voice ofAmerica, but that was American news and so was CNN, it was not Australian news, andthat was what I was after.

Senator WEST—Okay.

Senator HOGG—Have you done an analysis of the economic benefits of RadioAustralia and ATV to the Australian economy? Do you have any figures such as that atyour disposal?

Dr Cussinet—No, I have argued strongly in my introductory speech and inanswering the questions as to the economic value. Unfortunately, building a model orshowing the actual return on investment, as one would in a corporation, is very difficult.All we can do is try and assess the inherent value of covering 20 million people and the20, 30 or 50 states that we are able to communicate to for that cost which, I emphasiseagain, I am assured could be lowered considerably with more advertising and other typesof support, such as corporate endorsements and things like that. I have studied economicsand run a large business, and I think it would be almost impossible to assess the economicvalue of that.

Senator HOGG—Would there be an economic value, though, in your view?

Dr Cussinet—In my view there is very strong economic value. One very goodexample which Cecelia Clarke gave is that when she was chief economist with Westpacshe made major investment decisions for major corporations in the region based verymuch on information that she had from those services. I am not saying the decisions weresolely based on that, but that was a component. So if you look at the value of variousbanks and mining and industrial companies, if that can help them make their decisionsmore accurately, then that alone would be an economic cost. I do not think it would take alot to defray $6 million.

CHAIR —That would suggest that any winding back or closing of the servicescould have a negative effect in terms of future investment potential, or whatever, if only



because of reaction.

Dr Cussinet—I sincerely think it would have a deleterious effect to shut it down.The first very negative effect would be the impact on the region. For such a modest cost,it is somewhat damaging to our image for what is really a very marginal cost which, as Ihave argued many times, can be defrayed. That would be the first thing. And then there isthe fact that the economic benefit is great. Although somebody would have to sit downand build a model, and use the example of decision making for companies and diplomaticmissions having easier access to information et cetera, I am sure it would find you wouldsurpass the $6 million very rapidly.

CHAIR —We have got a lot of comments, which are in the submission from theABC and which have also been made publicly and made directly to this committee, fromleaders or ministers of other countries expressing their concern at the potential closure ofRA, praising its service and stating that some of them listen to it, such as PresidentSuharto, and Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen from Cambodia—in fact, all of the factionsfrom Cambodia. Why would they do that? What is it that is in their interests to want tomaintain Radio Australia—or should we take all that cynically?

Dr Cussinet—Personally, I do not see any cynicism. Somebody—I do not knowwhether it was Senator Hogg or you, Mr Chairman—made the comment that perhaps theylike to hear about their neighbours. But, certainly, to get such support from leaders who donot always want all the information to be made available, for them to be wanting access tosuch information, proves the strength of it. I do not see any cynicism. They like to be keptinformed of what is happening. The most cynical view I could have is that they want tohear about us and they want to hear about their neighbours.

CHAIR —I asked that question because we had evidence earlier from MrCampbell—I am not sure if you were here and heard his evidence—

Dr Cussinet—I was here for the second half of it.

CHAIR —He puts the contrary view, that this is seen as paternalistic or intrusive.If that analysis were correct, one would expect that many of them would be rubbing theirhands if the service were to close and they would probably not be making any comment atall. He used Dr Mahathir as an example. It just seems to me that there is an interestingdichotomy here as to what the real reaction is of those countries.

Dr Cussinet—I am sure that, as with everything, if it closed it would be forgottenrapidly. But perhaps we should look at the value from Australia’s point of view, ratherthan from the viewpoint of our neighbouring states. They see a value, whatever their MOis. Our values are as we have discussed. Certainly, from our point of view, I see it as avery valuable foreign policy tool. What the agendas of the various state leaders are I amnot sure, but they are certainly all extremely supportive, as you have argued. They have all



written and praised it, and some have offered to share the costs.

CHAIR —It seems that there is a variety of different reasons as to why they mayall want it. As there are no further questions, thank you for coming along and for puttingin your written submission and answering questions.

Dr Cussinet—Thank you for the opportunity.

Committee adjourned at 4.41 p.m.


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