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What skills do you need to work at the ABC?

RADIO is actually (Fran) Kelly's second career. She came late to journalism, at 29, and cheerily admits to having had no training, apart from volunteering at the community radio station Triple R. "What I am really am (sic) is an activist," she says . . . Some listeners have suggested that Kelly, who is gay, has recently pursued a subtle on-air agenda with same-sex marriage. "It's an issue and we talk about it," she says, "but I don't have an agenda . . . The lack of candour from politicians on this . . . frustrates her. "So often I hear pollies give the same stock response or a response that I don't think reflects their real thoughts. It's soul-destroying because I know these people personally, I know they have convictions, and I think it'd be better for the country if they spoke to those convictions."

The ABC's longest serving chairman, Dick Boyer, June 1945:

IT is our hope that national broadcasting may stand solid and serene in the middle of our national life, running no campaign, seeking to persuade no opinion, but presenting the issues freely and fearlessly for the calm judgment of our people.

No evidence big government is bad. Ross Gittins in the SMH yesterday:

ECONOMISTS' and business people's support for smaller government stems from their entrenched belief that big government causes economies to malfunction. One small problem: after decades of searching they can't find evidence to support such a link.

No evidence? CIA World Factbook 2011:

NORTH Korea, one of the world's most centrally directed and least open economies, faces chronic economic problems. Industrial capital stock is nearly beyond repair as a result of years of underinvestment, shortages of spare parts and poor maintenance. Large-scale military spending draws off resources needed for investment and civilian consumption. Industrial and power output have stagnated for years at a fraction of pre-1990 levels. Frequent weather-related crop failures aggravated chronic food shortages caused by ongoing systemic problems, including a lack of arable land, collective farming practices, poor soil quality, insufficient fertilisation and persistent shortages of tractors and fuel.

Still no evidence? CIA World Factbook 2011:

BURMA, a resource-rich country, suffers from pervasive government controls, inefficient economic policies, corruption and rural poverty. Despite Burma's emergence as a natural gas exporter, socioeconomic conditions have deteriorated under the regime's mismanagement, leaving most of the public in poverty, while military leaders and their business friends exploit the country's ample natural resources.

Yet more no evidence. CIA World Factbook 2011:

THE government of Laos, one of the few remaining one-party communist states, began decentralising control and encouraging private enterprise in 1986. The results, starting from an extremely low base, were striking; growth averaged 6 per cent per year from 1988 to 2008.

Gittins again:

THERE'S no correlation between size of government and rate of economic growth.

Robert Barro, Determinants of Economic Growth, MIT Press, 1997:

FOR a given starting level of real per capita GDP, the growth rate is enhanced by higher initial schooling and life expectancy, lower fertility, lower government consumption, better maintenance of the rule of law, lower inflation and improvements in the terms of trade.

Gittins again:

WE'VE also neglected investment in physical infrastructure.

Department of Broadband website:

THE NBN will become the single largest infrastructure investment made by an Australian government.


# reads: 166

Original piece is http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/what-skills-do-you-need-to-work-at-the-abc-only-a-burning-activist-streak-it-seems/story-fn72xczz-1226299722242


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