Some days after Crikey first pointed out that, unlike his predecessor Donald McDonald, ABC chairman Justin Milne was signally absent from the debate around the ABC, he made a rather tepid foray into the controversy with an op-ed about how trusted the ABC was and how the commercial media had an agenda to undermine it. And last week, managing director Michelle Guthrie gave a speech also defending the national broadcaster. Guthrie emphasised the ABC’s efficiency and economic benefits.

Neither substantially addressed the real enemy in the current fight, the Turnbull government, which is persistently and successfully working to intimidate ABC journalists, editors, producers and management. Guthrie mentioned the Liberal Party’s now-official policy of privatisation, and the government’s competitive neutrality inquiry, but otherwise referred only generically to politicians and the ABC being used “as a punching bag by narrow political, commercial or ideological interests.” Milne didn’t mention the government at all, merely “fringe political interests, populists and commercial media.” And he certainly didn’t mention his friend Malcolm Turnbull.

But there’s nothing “fringe” about the Turnbull government’s attacks on the ABC, from multiple funding cuts to vexatious complaints to constant inquiries and reviews.

ABC MDs have a history of trying to justify or campaign on what they think the government of the day will be receptive to. Under the Howard government, Jonathan Shier emphasised regional content, and managed to secure the first increase in funding from that government for the ABC, for local radio. Mark Scott told the Rudd government the ABC could help with its “soft power” regional diplomacy ambitions, a lot less successfully (thankfully). Now Guthrie is talking about regional content again, and her response to the privatisation issue was to emphasise not merely how efficient the broadcaster is but how much economic value it provides.

Providing economic value is not the point of the ABC and is no defence against the demand for privatisation. It’s not even a point of the ABC. And the government couldn’t care less how efficient the ABC is. The IPA itself could go through the books and give the ABC a ringing endorsement and Liberals would still be convinced the ABC is a festering pit of lazy lefties sitting on their backsides all day.

When Donald McDonald took on his Liberal Party friends over the ABC’s Iraq War coverage, it wasn’t merely the act of a conservative and friend of John Howard, but that of a chair of a highly conservative board. Judith Sloan was deputy chair. Ron Brunton and Maurice Newman were board members. Michael Kroger had been a member until early 2003. Who is on the ABC board now? Mostly fairly anonymous professional directors; only former Seven executive Peter Lewis — author of one of the government’s reviews into the ABC — has substantial broadcasting experience. None are experienced participants in public debate — whatever you think of Sloan or Newman, they’ve never been backward in putting their views forward in the public space. Apart from Milne’s single weak intervention, there’s been nothing from the board.

Perhaps this is why the ABC’s response to the threat posed by the government has been similar to that of the banks trying to deal with scandal after scandal after scandal — soft-soap managerialist rhetoric and denialism about the real nature of the problem that satisfies no one. Certainly it does nothing to convince the government there is any cost to belting the ABC. That’s the only language politicians understand — and currently the government, from Malcolm Turnbull down, thinks it can intimidate the ABC, and individual journalists, with impunity. More — much more — is required both to defend the ABC and restore the independence of the national broadcaster in the face of a government determined to use any public policy lever it can to suppress criticism and dissent.

What do you think? Email comments and responses to boss@crikey.com.au.