{"id":72444,"date":"2022-05-09T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=72444"},"modified":"2022-05-08T17:40:03","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T07:40:03","slug":"rebuilding-australias-media-voice-in-the-south-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/rebuilding-australias-media-voice-in-the-south-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebuilding Australia\u2019s media voice in the South Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Australia\u2019s polity grapples with the need to remake and rebuild our media voice in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

One of the missing bits of our Pacific step-up<\/a> is the lack of much vision\u2014or understanding\u2014of Australia\u2019s role in the regional conversation.<\/p>\n

Domestic political battles and budget cuts have degraded the central role Australia played in islands journalism in the 20th century. Our media voice in the South Pacific is at its weakest since Robert Menzies launched the shortwave radio service in 1939.<\/p>\n

Now we must reimagine that role and empower that voice for the 21st century\u2014a new model of talking with<\/em>, not to<\/em>, the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

The policy failure that has so weakened our voice in the past decade had one deeply familiar element\u2014recurring Oz amnesia about our interests, influence and values in the islands.<\/p>\n

See the amnesia lament offered by a Canberra wise owl, Nick Warner, in his Financial Review<\/em> op-ed about \u2018Australia\u2019s long Pacific stupor\u2019<\/a>: \u2018For two generations, since the end of World War II, Australia has squandered the chance to build deep and enduring relations with our neighbours in the South Pacific. And now it\u2019s almost too late.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is a candid view from the heart of the Canberra system. You don\u2019t get much more plugged in and powerful than Warner, who served as our top diplomat in Papua New Guinea, led the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, and then headed the Department of Defence, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the Office of National Assessments.<\/p>\n

Warner\u2019s \u2018stupor\u2019 history frames his diagnosis of how China could clinch a security treaty with Solomon Islands:<\/p>\n

China is now seemingly entrenched in Solomons and will also be looking for other opportunities for a base elsewhere in the Pacific. But, for better or worse, Pacific politics seldom provide certainty. It\u2019s not too late for Australia to shore up its place in the South Pacific and to protect its strategic interests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The need to \u2018shore up our place\u2019 that Warner points to brings us back to a specific example of the stupor\/amnesia\u2014the degrading of our media voice in the islands and the role of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.<\/p>\n

In the South Pacific, Radio Australia<\/a> and the international television service, ABC Australia<\/a>, still do great work. But they have only a third of the budget they enjoyed a decade ago. Underline that stupor\/amnesia fact: spending on the ABC as our Indo-Pacific media voice has been cut by two-thirds.<\/p>\n

In 2014, the Abbott government hacked into the ABC by killing funding for international television, a sad, bad and dumb decision<\/a> that also decimated Radio Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Political payback<\/a> in Canberra produced a gang-that-couldn\u2019t-shoot-straight tragedy in the South Pacific<\/a>. The Abbott aim was to scratch the anti-Aunty itch, but he badly wounded a major instrument of Australian foreign policy. The damage was compounded when the ABC turned off shortwave in 2017; here again was a domestic focus that damaged our regional interests.<\/p>\n

For an account of all this, see ASPI\u2019s Hard news and free media as the sharp edge of Australia\u2019s soft power.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

In this long-running melodrama with elements of dark comedy, a valiant ABC is also a victim\u2014with foes instead seeing Aunty as villain. What a long run the drama has had: three generations of Murdochs have warred with Aunty, starting in the 1930s with Keith Murdoch\u2019s bitter fight against the creation of an independent ABC news service.<\/p>\n

A re-run of the domestic<\/a> battle devaluing<\/a> our international voice happened with Labor\u2019s election campaign launch last month of its Indo-Pacific broadcasting strategy<\/a>, promising the ABC an extra $8 million a year for international programs, plus a review of whether shortwave should be restored.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s idea is a good first step to restart Australia\u2019s conversation with the islands, Jemima Garrett<\/a> writes, but it \u2018seems to be simply pushing out more \u201cAustralian content\u201d and crowding the regional airwaves with \u201cAustralian voices\u201d. This is \u201csoft power\u201d in a crude form\u2014a one-way monologue when what is needed is a dialogue\u2014a 21st century conversation in which Australia and Australians talk \u201cwith\u201d and not \u201cto\u201d our Pacific neighbours.\u2019<\/p>\n

Preferring hard power to soft power, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called Labor\u2019s policy \u2018farcical\u2019<\/a>, saying that in the South Pacific, \u2018I sent in the AFP [Australian Federal Police]. The Labor Party wants to send in the ABC, when it comes to their Pacific solution.\u2019<\/p>\n

Australia, of course, needs it all\u2014the AFP and the Australian Defence Force, but also the ABC.<\/p>\n

In this argument, I declare my love of Aunty. I worked as a journalist for Radio Australia and the ABC (1975\u20132008) and had the huge privilege of spending much time as a correspondent in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. I did break the habit of a lifetime by putting the boot into Aunty when it switched off shortwave<\/a>. The ABC had damaged its international role, set by parliamentary charter, in favour of its domestic responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s soft-power thinking is work in the minor key compared to the recent effort of parliament\u2019s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.<\/p>\n

In the final sitting week before the start of the election campaign, the committee issued its report Strengthening Australia\u2019s relationships in the Pacific.<\/em><\/a> The media recommendations were the most ambitious to come out of Canberra in many a day:<\/p>\n

The Committee notes the media environment within the Pacific is becoming more contested, and recognises Australia has a national interest in maintaining a visible and active media and broadcasting presence there. The Committee recommends the Australian Government considers steps necessary to expand Australia\u2019s media footprint in the Pacific, including through:<\/p>\n

\u2013 expanding the provision of Australian public and commercial television and digital content across the Pacific, noting existing efforts by the PacificAus TV initiative and Pacific Australia;<\/p>\n

\u2013 reinvigorating Radio Australia, which is well regarded in the region, to boost its digital appeal; and<\/p>\n

\u2013 consider[ing] governance arrangements for an Australian International Media Corporation to formulate and oversee the strategic direction of Australia\u2019s international media presence in the Pacific.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I own up to the idea for the creation of an Australian international media corporation, contained in my submission to the inquiry<\/a>. The committee\u2019s findings and the idea of a new international body, to build on the ABC foundations, will be the next column in these musings on the Oz media voice in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s polity grapples with the need to remake and rebuild our media voice in the South Pacific. One of the missing bits of our Pacific step-up is the lack of much vision\u2014or understanding\u2014of Australia\u2019s role …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":72446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[880,333,730,526],"class_list":["post-72444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-abc","tag-journalism","tag-media","tag-soft-power"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRebuilding Australia\u2019s media voice in the South Pacific | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/rebuilding-australias-media-voice-in-the-south-pacific\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rebuilding Australia\u2019s media voice in the South Pacific | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australia\u2019s polity grapples with the need to remake and rebuild our media voice in the South Pacific. 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