Monday, April 2, 2012

An ABC Poll

Dear Mr Scott,
I am conducting some independent research and could use your help. Could you please distribute the following poll among your staff. According to recent poll results current voting intentions are approximately 30% ALP, 50% Coalition, Greens 10% and the rest 10%. I am interested in seeing how closely ABC Staff reflect the community's wider voting pattern. If the results do not reflect the wider community, how does the ABC propose to meet its charter requirement that insists it "reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community"?
Update 17:15-List amended following comments
"Which of the following political parties do you intend to preference first in the next Federal Election:
1. NO CARBON TAX Climate Sceptics party
2. Australian Labor Party
3. Liberal Party
4. National Party
5. Australian Democrats
6. Australian Greens
7. One Nation
8. Advance Australia Party
9. Australian Commonwealth Party
10. Australian Family Alliance
11, Australian Men's Party
12. Australian Millionaires Party - satire
13. Australian Reform Party
14. Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
15. Communist Party of Australia
16. Democratic Socialist Party
17. Hope Party
18. LeftLink
19. Liberal Democratic Party
20. Nuclear Disarmament Party
21. People Power
22. People Power - new political party formed
23. Science Technology And Research (STAR) Party
24.Shooters Party
25. Socialist Alliance
26. Socialist Equality Party
27. Socialist Party Australia
28. Sustainability Party of Australia
29. United People Power Inc.
30. Unity Victoria
31. Other/Don't vote
(List based on http://australianpolitics.com/parties/list.shtml )

Regards
ABC NEWS WATCH

9 comments:

  1. You can see why it is generally a 2 (political)horse race- The Heap of Compost(ALPGreen)on the Left and The Pile Garbage (LNP) on the Right the rest are just Weeds and not one of them will put Australia ahead of their Political Agenda.One lives in hope gcross

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  2. G'day Marc,

    I am sorry that you did not list the aec registered (http://www.aec.gov.au/parties_and_representatives/party_registration/registered_parties/climate-sceptics.htm) NO CARBON TAX Climate Sceptics party (http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/

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  3. Given that Chris Uhlmann and many others are literally married to the ALP one would not have to greatly exercise one's imagination to guess at probable results.

    Of even more concern is the Penberthy factor- all the "private enterprise" journalists also compromised by their relationships with socialist party members.

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  4. Marc, are you suggesting that the ABC should revamp its workforce every time a new opinion poll comes out so as to ensure staff voting intentions remain in step with those of the wider community? What a ridiculous concept. And why only the ABC? Why not apply this bright idea to all public sector agencies?

    By the way, you took the 'cultural diversity' line from the ABC charter out of context. It relates to programs, not staff. And if it did relate to staff, shouldn't your little survey have asked more questions to gauge cultural diversity rather than simply focusing on voting intentions?

    Reginald Sampson

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  5. Reginald,
    Here's a challenge - name one ABC staff member who voted for the Coalition in the last Federal Election-just one.

    I am suggesting that if the ABC takes its charter seriously it needs to broadly reflect the cultural diversity of Australia, including its political diversity. None of its current senior political correspondents could be described as having views of the right, many have close connections with the ALP.
    In regard to broader ABC programming it is clear that the voting intentions of ABC staff are firmly biased to the far left. How these staff are able to select programs that reflect the diversity of Australian political opinion is beyond me.
    In general in Australia there is a 50-50 split between the right and the left. This somewhat simplifies the situation however ABC's workforce should broadly reflect this division. If it achieved a 30-70 split it would be a vast improvement on the current situation, which is probably more like 10-90 in favour of the left.

    Unfortunately I am unlikely to get a response from ABC about the survey so I guess we will never know.

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  6. Obviously I can't name an ABC staffer who voted for the Coalition in 2010, nor can I name one who voted for Labor - you see, we have this little thing called a secret ballot here in Australia. I'm sure you think you can name staffers who voted Labor, but without actual evidence - e.g. public admissions - you'd just be presuming.

    I'm interested in your claim that many current senior political correspondents have close connections with Labor. Can you expand on this please? And provide any evidence that these connections are reflective of current (or even past) political views that colour the correspondents' reports?

    I suspect you may point to Chris Uhlmann, married to a Labor MP, but aside from the fact that he isn't a current senior political correspondent, I think you'll have a hard time finding any evidence that he voted Labor in 2010 or that he holds leftist views that colour his work. In fact, if anything he is widely suspected to be right-of-centre, given (for example) his past comments on Insiders and elsewhere about climate change.

    I do love your outlandish claim of a 10-90 ABC workforce split in favour of the left - a claim made without any evidence at all.

    Reginald Sampson

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  7. "I do love your outlandish claim of a 10-90 ABC workforce split in favour of the left - a claim made without any evidence at all."

    Have you ever watched the ABC?

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  8. "Marc, are you suggesting that the ABC should revamp its workforce every time a new opinion poll comes out so as to ensure staff voting intentions remain in step with those of the wider community?"

    Marc was simply making the point that the ABC does not reflect the Australian community in any way, shape or form.

    If you defined diversity in any way whatsoever you'd still come up with an ABC that is hopelessly out of step with the country at large.

    ReplyDelete

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