More on the ABC Board

In Thursday's Australian Errol Simper had a piece about the ABC entitled "Too much excitement could be bad for Aunty", an oblique reference to Minister Coonan's promise of "exciting hanges" in the offing for the corporation.

Simper makes some apposite comments, such as:

"It may be that Coonan, fresh from trying to recycle the grotesque proposition that public broadcasting should accept advertising, would like the ABC to more closely resemble another statutory body, the old Australian Wheat Board (now known as AWB Ltd). AWB's credo seems to have been that the very least accountability is far too much."

And "The ABC is a publicly funded media organisation. Why board deliberations must be encased within exaggerated silence must forever be a mystery.What happens in the boardroom that would happen so much better in the absence of a staff-elected person? "