The funding of the public broadcaster ABC has been savagely cut in recent years, and its previous position of independence has thus been undermined. As mentioned above, in June 2020 there were another round of savage funding cuts.
It is a similar scenario for the Special Broadcast Service, although it is able to derive 20 per cent of its revenue from advertising. However, with both public broadcasters, the selection procedure for their boards is not independent from government (see Josephi, 2011). The process of selection of board members has also been shown to be one of stacking these boards with political allies by successive governments.
Many see defamation law as another means used by the rich and powerful to deter criticisms. The law is indeed designed to protect people’s reputations from unfair attack, but it can also be used to protect powerful people from unwanted scrutiny (Josephi, 2011). A new nationally harmonised defamation law, including with a bolstered public interest defence, has recently been introduced.
