LET'S GET SERIOUS ABOUT TALKING TO THE NEIGHBOURS

 A BETTER  SERVICE MAY NEVER  BE TRANSMITTED    

                 

The Indonesian government's TVRI channel is supposed to have negotiated an MOU   with the ABC  to swap programmes.  A great idea - benefits all. That’s the initial reaction.

However, if there's no catering for the two nations' grossly different values the scheme could collapse through fear, distrust, inertia  and censorship.

On TV screens in Indonesia puffy clouds escape weather forecasts by floating onto re-runs of classics Westerns where the women wear flouncy dresses with a mild hint of decolletage.

Into this minor gap drop the clouds ignoring the science of meteorology.  If the plot’s character darts around the kitchen or stable to reload the Winchester the clever cumulus follows jerkily.

When the bored censors take a break the skies clear and the lady can display her charms while shooting the black hat baddies.

All this nonsense is supposed to ensure the nation’s imagined modesty standards are upheld, though in Javanese villages public breastfeeding is hardly noteworthy.  But the bosoms on the screen are white - quelle horreur.

Meanwhile, the kids with smartphones (is there any other type of child?) use VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to watch what they like from anywhere on the globe, porn, violence, hate speech - the lot.

Indonesian free-to-air TV got underway in 1962.   In 1976 it launched one of the world’s first domestic satellites operated by what was then called ‘a developing country.’

With a dozen transponders, signals reached every nook of the archipelago while Australian watchers were confined to terrestrial transmitters.

The president was then the autocrat general Soeharto and his decision to saturate the nation with telecasts was a political strategy.   It was based on Roman poet Juvenal's aphorism of give ‘em bread and circuses and they’ll never revolt.

Only one station was allowed - TVRI.  It showed what it was told and that didn't include recent history. Apart from short-wave radio broadcasts (the most popular and informative came from Australia) Indonesians were raised on one truth - Soeharto's.

A popular joke at the time told viewers not to fret if they missed the news one evening because the same bulletin had already been shown a day earlier and would reappear the next.

Like TV in North Korea, broadcasts praised the dear leader and his latest ribbon-cutting at the site of a new dam that might never be built.  Docos usually featured village potters and weavers.

Indonesians aren’t great readers - no surprise as books were also limited and censored - so eyeballing screens became part of the culture with sets ablaze in government offices.

It wasn't till the 1990s that commercial competition was allowed;  Jakarta allocated the licenses and ensured free-to-air didn't mean free expression.

There are now 15 major telecasters plus 671 licensed subscription services that bring a score of foreign programming to the Republic including ABC Australia.  The idea is to promote the Oz outlook, lifestyles and values - and also sport.

Pearls & Irritations has been in the front row of complainants about the paucity of the service, and it seems the ABC has taken note. Last month it signed an MOU with TVRI claiming:

“Both broadcasters will collaborate across content exchange in news and current affairs, sports, music, culture, lifestyle and general interest stories.

“The MOU also supports the sharing of key learnings from each broadcaster’s audience research and feedback, in addition to technical information assistance and capacity building under international development activities.”

Fine words, but meaning what?  Indonesian news in nightly ABC bulletins?  Oz docos on Indonesian screens?  

Although TVRI has this century gained some independence the image of a propaganda service showing worthy but boring material remains.

Unsurprisingly the latest stats show the channel is watched by only 1.4 per cent of the audience, so if a marriage with the ABC does occur there’ll be few onlookers.

Why the scepticism?  An MOU carries little weight in Indonesia and any agreement will have to be ratified at ministerial level.

The sort of campaigns growing in Australia against foreign media could well sprout in Indonesia if a xenophobe gets traction in the upcoming new ministry: bikinis, gays, free-thinkers, agnostics getting screen time? Armageddon approaches.

When the MOU was announced the ABC invited media inquiries.  We sent these on 29 May:

What approvals have to be given before this arrangement starts?

What ABC programmes are of most interest to TVRI?

What TVRI shows might appear on ABC TV in Australia?

Do you have a start date?

Does TVRI have the right to edit out any material from ABC programmes it uses?  As you probably know, TVRI often smudges overseas film scenes that censors think show too much flesh.

Are you aware that TVRI used to be the RI Government's PR factory and consequently suffered a credibility problem?  It currently has only 1.4 per cent of the national audience.

Any other factors in the MOU that might affect viewers' right to the full programme as originally made?

On 4 June came a textbook reply in splendid corporate guff. With 163 words it answers no questions but gargles lines about being consistent “with the ABC’s charter remit with regards to international broadcasting.”

It would insult readers' intelligence to provide more waffle but students of the black arts of the deliberately abstruse can find the full copy here.

The response suggests the plan is superficial, has been poorly considered and will have to be endorsed at ministerial level in Indonesia. That’s going to be tricky.

Unless there's huge enthusiasm from TVRI and ideological determination by the ABC to make the agreement work, it's unlikely that Australian viewers will be better informed about their vast and important neighbour - and vice versa.

That’s sad.  And bad.

##

 

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 7 June 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/a-better-service-may-be-transmitted/

GET UP STUFFS UP

 Being Murdoched - and no restitution

        

Till now GetUp hasn’t needed disciples rah-rahing the activist group’s crusades. Endorsements come when targets mouth off.  If GetUp is getting so far up their nostrils they start to snort loudly, then the NGO’s efforts must be effective.  Or so the reasoning runs. Though not this time.

To environmental justice, human rights and other worthy issues, GetUp has added public broadcasting.  It’s trying to arouse anger against the impact of News Corp’s never-ending siege of the national broadcaster through the just-released video Murdoch & Morrison v. The ABC.

The 26-minute programme is billed as ‘an explosive new documentary revealing the conservative campaign to gut, discredit and ultimately abolish our iconic public broadcaster  ... (It) exposes the work of the Murdoch media, the Institute of Public Affairs and their allies in the Morrison Government to abolish the ABC’.

That promo should rally all who uphold John Reith’s broadcasting principles; presumably that includes GetUp’s reputed one-million members.  Not so. Three days after going on-line the YouTube page had recorded only 9,000 views.

If that audience included conservative politicians and News Corp’s directors they’d have clicked away before the credits, realising nothing to fear. There are useful backgrounds and sober observations by former ABC senior executive Michael Ward and Macquarie Uni’s Professor Ed Davis; however no damaging disclosures which might lead viewers to cancel subs to Murdoch’s mags and rags.

MM v ABC does three things wrong:  It preaches to the choir which knows the sermons by heart.  It neither exposes anything new as promised, nor examines the criticisms, and it’s poorly constructed.

GetUp trumpeted ‘no TV station is going to air it. And Scott Morrison and the Murdoch Press will do everything in their power to discredit it over the coming days.’

The more pedestrian reason for rejection is that it’s not good enough.  Maybe the discrediting is coming, though so far it seems the PM and News Corp have more important things to do.

Much space is taken stressing the ABC’s value in emergencies.  Correct, though overdone since smartphones have outsmarted transistor radios.  During the current conflagration north of Perth, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services website continually updated warnings and tracked the inferno.

A strong case for investigating alleged political influence on the ABC is the cancellation of its ABC Life website after a carpet bombing by News Corp.  

According to the site’s former deputy editor Osman Faruqi, the ‘idea was that Life’s team of digital journalists would work with already existing ABC programs to help their stories travel further.

‘The second goal was to help the ABC connect with audiences that had little affiliation with the broadcaster. ABC Life’s key performance indicators were explicit: develop a relationship with these Australians by producing content relevant to their lives, and bring them into the broader ABC fold.’

Faruqi features in MM v ABC saying he was packaged by Andrew Bolt as ‘a green Muslim leftist’ even before ABC Life was launched in 2018.  News Corp’s search engines must have flagged a non-Anglo to vilify.  Mum Mehreen is a Greens senator and on the rabid rights’ hate list. 

Faruqi said ABC Life had exceeded expectations.  His case would have been strengthened with data and supportive internal reports.  Why no questioning of management and its decision to kill?

Those hoping for a punchy doco with certainties delivered by respected thought-leaders on public broadcasting’s importance to democracy will be weeping at the lost chance.

Where are the views of scholars who’ve studied the British original, the catastrophe in NZ when the national telecaster went semi-commercial, the situation in Canada and the struggling PBS and NPR in the US?

At times MM v ABC looks more like a home movie. Six minutes are wasted with members clapping the ABC and staff frolicking as Bananas in Pyjamas.

Cute stuff, but confronting a machine as ruthless and formidable as News Corp needs loading heavy artillery with tungsten-tipped facts. 

Unaddressed questions could have included: What’s an adequate service? Should the budget be indexed?  The formula ABC good, News Corp bad is too simplistic for serious debate.  ABC defenders anxious about issues like overstocked and overpaid management worry they’ll give ammo to opponents, but need to be clear-eyed to stay authentic.

Why weren’t the ABC’s stalkers questioned about their reasoning?  Even though they can’t walk straight, ideologues need the odd plywood prop of truth and lackey band of logic to stay upright.

The PM’s Trumpism: ‘there are no further cuts (to the ABC budget) because there no cuts’ should have been forensically examined.  Last year the mainstream media reported $84 million and 250 jobs slashed.

Likewise former IPA director James Paterson’s bubble that ‘the case for privatising the ABC is getting stronger every year.’  British philosopher Bertrand Russell said it well: ‘The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.’

Bolt’s fatuous assertion that the ‘toxic’ ABC is ‘a menace to our democracy’ should have been challenged face-to-face.  Why does he dread diversity and quality? 

We’re aware he’s feeding the trolls, but if he quivers at being confronted by the likes of Paul Barry he should be lampooned.   The gap left by the late John Clarke and Bryan Dawe has still to be filled.

One sector crippled by a lack of funds and ignored is the overseas service ABC Australia.  Originally a showcase of our values, talents and culture, it’s now stuffed with AFL (not played west of WA), repeat promos and state news.  Only marginally better than a test pattern. 

Reluctantly kept on life support because transmission is compulsory under the ABC charter, it ranks below other international services.   That’s so shameful even the Dirty Digger in a New York apartment should be squirming at how his birthplace presents itself to the world.

MM v ABC was a fine ambition, poorly executed.  The job should have been given to a tough producer who knows how and where to hit heavyweights.  It’s worth watching to hear Ward, Davis and Faruqi, but otherwise sad to say this time GetUp has stuffed up.

First published in Pearls and Irritations, 8 Feb 2020:
Murdoch & Morrison v. The ABC - GetUp fails a commendable mission - Pearls and IrritationsPearls and Irritations (johnmenadue.com)

 

 

THE ABC OF FOREIGN COVERAGE

                            Reporting from afar with mining models

The Australian Associated Press closure in June will shut Australians out of much domestic journalism. Courts, councils and commissions whose workings underpin democracy will often go unreported.  Margaret Simons commented in The Guardian:  ‘We are lurching down a slippery slope. At its bottom will be a nation that doesn’t know itself’.

How about knowing the people next door?  AAP closed its Jakarta bureau in 2017.  The few remaining Australian newsrooms are shrinking and struggling, their bosses scratching to save.

One try is to rebadge Australian journos as ‘Southeast Asia Correspondent’ which is how The Australian’s Amanda Hodge is titled.   From a wee office in the region’s largest city she’s supposed to cover the doings of 655 million people spread across eleven disparate nations.  Don’t ask what she does in her spare time.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald Indonesia correspondent Jewel Topsfield was replaced in 2018 by James Massola. He now has SEAC on his lanyard tag.

The Australian Financial Review shuttered its Jakarta bureau in 2009 but reopened last year.  This wasn’t the result of Nine insiders discovering a need.  That came from an outsider anxious about the dearth of Asian news.
 Millionaire philanthropist Judith Neilson’s Institute for Journalism and Ideas has given AFR the cash to do its duty. Although stationed in Jakarta Emma Connors is another SEAC.

Anne Barker is labeled the ABC’s Indonesia Correspondent but gets by-lined as SEAC when it suits, this year covering the Malaysian political crisis from Jakarta.

Meanwhile in Melbourne the ABC has an Asia Pacific Newsroom filing stories about Indonesia (and other states in the region) reportedly using more than 40 reporters and producers.

Some, like Erwin Renaldi a Muslim Indonesian (his words) and Melbourne Uni masters graduate, are native speakers.  They read and watch from afar, pick up leads, make calls and file copy without having to leave Southbank Boulevard.  There are substantial savings on translators and office rent overseas.

This media model is a bit like Rio Tinto’s Pilbara mine ops where driverless trucks are steered by mice palmed by screen jockeys in Perth 1,200 km to the south.

The other dollar-saver is Fly In – Fly Out reporting, another pinch from the mining industry.  FIFO is the marriage-fracturing system that avoids remote housing expenses by keeping partners apart. 

FIFO, aka ‘parachute journalism’, means dropping a hack into a foreign spot to file and flee.  

The latest example is The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan giving us his insights after a short stay in the Big Durian ‘as part of a delegation of editors with the Australia Indonesia Institute’.

This sounds like a benign NGO but it’s an Australian Government agency run through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.   

 Travelling under that rubric helped score ‘several exchanges’ with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi.  The former Ambassador to the Netherlands is the source for much of the Australian’s commentary.

Apparently Marsudi is ‘reliable, steady, personable, across everything.’ Unfortunately Indonesia’s first woman FM is also a dot-and-comma controller demanding questions in writing before any interview with local-based scribblers.

We’re not told if her visitor had to labour under similar restrictions. It’s immaterial because the bland comments he captured are thick in her local press columns:

‘We appreciate Australia’s support for ASEAN’s concept of the Indo-Pacific’ may comfort diplomats but leaves others unmoved. Likewise: ‘We see IA-CEPA (the Indonesia Australia Closer Economic Partnership Agreement ratified this year) as strategic co-operation. 

‘We want it to build strategic trust between the two nations. We understand that we need each other. Australia realises that you are part of Asia.’  

That fine sentiment is sadly shattered by Lowy Institute surveys showing stratospheric levels of ignorance and distrust.  This unnerving discovery seems to be moving Australian and Indonesian authorities not one meaningful whit.

Indonesians outnumber us ten to one, so staying friends is a practical necessity along with a moral responsibility. Fortunately advocates for a caliphate are currently hibernating.  

Most locals see us as a rich, white European outpost, referencing kangaroos and bushfires above free trade deals.  Strong nationalists – and there are plenty - remember our role in the 1999 East Timorese referendum which damaged the ‘Unitary State’.

Film festivals and cultural exchanges are fine and worthy, but we’ve built a Trump-style ‘beautiful wall’ of visa restrictions unlikely to be bashed down despite personal pleas from President Joko Widodo. 

Sheridan’s FIFO analysis has 12 mentions of ‘strategic’.  They include his claim that the two countries ‘co-operate on a host of issues, not least development in the South Pacific’.  

Independent analysts believe Indonesia’s wooing of nation states far outside the Republic is to neuter groups backing Melanesian demands for independence in West Papua.  

The province remains closed to Western journalists keen to probe allegations of human rights abuses by the army, despite Widodo claiming all is open.  (This writer’s application made a year ago still moulds in someone’s in-tray.)

Sheridan’s other confidante was a ‘senior Indonesian.’  About 20 million over-65s fit that category including my mother-in-law.  A fine lady, though I wouldn’t pad my stories with her opinions.

There are some useful observations on Indonesia’s reliance on Chinese imports and Indonesia’s labour costs, but the Australian’s findings lack the substance keyboarded by his colleague Amanda Hodge.

However nothing comes within a bull’s roar of veteran Kiwi journalist John McBeth.  Formerly with the prestigious Far Eastern Economic Review he now writes for the Asia Times, lives in Indonesia and doesn’t need government guides to open gates.  His commentaries are rich with insights denied others and deserve syndicating.  

If FIFO analyses and remote reporting are the new way of telling Australians about the world’s third largest democracy then we’ll stay clueless.  The compensation is that we’re getting better informed about the US electoral system delivered effortlessly in English-language packages, warm, fresh and ready to swallow.

Sorry FM Marsudi, you’re wrong.  We’re not part of Asia.  We live in the Anglosphere.

##

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 10 March 2020:https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-reporting-from-afar-using-mining-models/

THE ABC OF INDIFFERENT TV

Normal service will not be resumed                       

If you’re a French, Russian, Japanese, Singaporean, American, British, German or a Middle East citizen in Indonesia, then lucky you.  Most nights you can turn on your TV and be proud that your homeland is broadcasting professionally and showcasing its culture.

Missing from the list is the big nation next door.

Once Australia looked out to the world.  Now it looks in. 

Last year its overseas TV channel formerly known as Australia Plus, and before that Australia Network, switched its name to ABC Australia. This was the fifth change in 25 years, bemusing viewers and corroding the brand.

The ABC is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, an independent government-funded public service modeled on the British BBC.

In a just-released report titled A Missed Opportunity for Projecting Australia’s Soft Power the Lowy Institute claims ‘international broadcasting is one of the most effective forms of public diplomacy, if managed properly.’

So why does Australia bother to telecast to the Asia-Pacific? Why not yield the space to the Chinese keen on using the media to expand their influence?

Unfortunately for ABC management focusing on domestic audiences, the Corporation’s charter requires it to broadcast overseas

Then there’s the moral reason: Australia once proclaimed a responsibility to assist other nations to learn more about the country, its people and values. 

Till recently Australia took these ideals seriously. The service seemed adequately funded and curated for the markets.  No longer.  Programs are just relayed with no concern about time differences.

If Jakartans and others want to watch Australian current affairs when current they need to dash home early.  The flagship 7.30 Report is telecast in Australia in that peak post-dinner timeslot.

 In Indonesia it should be re-titled the 3.30 Report. Unfortunately that’s traffic jam time when expats are picking up the kids from school or heading to meetings to catch public servants before they head for the exits.

Australia is retreating from the region when its academics, business leaders, journalists, NGOs and politicians on all sides consistently urge better education, improved communications and closer contact to build enduring relationships. 

These voices have become louder as the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement gets closer to ratification.  The IA-CEPA is a free trade agreement signed off in 2019 and now waiting for a tick by the Indonesian Parliament.

Australia’s media presentations to the Asia Pacific were once different.  

Thousands developed their English skills through Radio Australia shortwave, particularly during the 1960s and 70s.  Many elderly Indonesians recall relying on the service during the Soeharto New Order dictatorship to open their world. RA was a trusted source at a time when facts were scarce.

This gave Australia great kudos.

Australia Television International began transmission in 1993.  Nine years later it became ABC Asia Pacific. In 2006 the then Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced another name - Australia Network, with funding from Foreign Affairs and Trade plus advertising.

The claims were extravagant: It would reach ten million homes and 200,000 hotel rooms in 41 countries; maybe one million sets of eyeballs a month.

Downer said the ABC would offer ‘high quality programs about Australia and its engagement with the region.’   He included a homely metaphor:  ‘A key requirement of the service is to provide a credible and independent voice through programs that present a 'window' on Australia and Australian perspectives of the world.’

By then Indonesians and other Southeast Asians had new windows to peer though. BBC World, France24, Al Jazeera, NHK (Japan), Deutsche Welle and other international telecasters were offering vistas grand using serious money.

The French Government is reported to spend US$117 million a year on France 24 while Russia’s RT channel is believed to have an annual budget of US$300 million.   Now China is expanding its overseas reach with China Central Television (CCTV).

The Voice of America budget is US$218 million, all from government funds. It broadcasts and telecasts in more than 40 languages, including Indonesian.

When the Australia Network was turned off, the then Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said it ‘had failed to deliver a cost-effective vehicle’ but no facts to back the claim. The then ABC managing director Mark Scott said the decision:

…runs counter to the approach adopted by the vast majority of G20 countries. Countries around the world are expanding their international broadcasting services as key instruments of public diplomacy.

It sends a strange message to the region that the government does not want to use the most powerful communication tools available to talk to our regional neighbours about Australia.

Because the ABC Charter forces it to be an international broadcaster the gap had to be filled. The result was Australia Plus with a $20 million budget for three years partly bolstered by ads.  Few materialized.

In Indonesia three pay-to-use cable services carry the rebadged ABC Australia. They get it free, but the consumers don’t, meaning Australian taxpayers are subsidizing overseas commercial distributors.

The ABC says its programs are ‘available to three million people in Indonesia’ meaning that’s the number who pay for access to cable networks each offering 50 or more channels.

ABC Australia programs are almost all in English. Those from Nat Geo are subtitled in Indonesian.  Likewise the History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery, BBC Earth and many others, including crime and food channels.

The Lowy Institute claims: ‘Australia is explicitly competing for global and regional influence, yet Australia’s international broadcasting has been weakened through a combination of government inconsistency and neglect, ideology-driven decisions, budget cuts and apparent ABC management indifference.’

The report suggests the Australian Government fund international public broadcasting and does the job properly.   Based on reforms to date Indonesian and ex-pats will have a long wait. 

Better use the remote and click onto an overseas service which treats the world’s fourth largest nation seriously.

(First published in Indonesian Expat, 26 February 2020)

MUCH IGNORED, GREATLY IMPORTANT

 Ignoring the Doings Next Door

On a recent edition of ABC TV’s free-for-all Summer Drum, participants sounded off about possible Democrat nominees for the 2020 US Presidential election.

Social commentator Jane Caro sprayed the screen with alternatives.  The Australian columnist Greg Sheridan, who comes across as reasonable on the telly, and community advocate Aisha Novakovich tossed in their suggestions.

Host Adam Spencer assumed viewers knew all names and understood the American selection process, so didn’t intervene with descriptors. Nor did the talent interject: ‘Hey, this is asinine. We’ve got swags of homegrown issues to air.’

Weird political jostlings 16,000 kilometers away may make for jolly banter but that’s all.

Critical, and closer in time and space, is the 17 April Indonesian Presidential election.  How many of us know the contenders, their policies and how these will affect the neighborhood?

The ABC and other media are doing little to erase the ignorance.  News from the US comes pre-packaged it’s just download and upload, ideal for near-empty newsrooms.  No translations required, no cultural and religious practices to explain. 

Washington’s drab suits and gender imbalance looks much like Canberra. Particulars differ, but many issues are familiar and we’ve even adjusted to mispronunciations.

Not so next door in the world’s third largest democracy and most populous Islamic nation – though technically secular.

If there’s a further lurch to the right in Indonesian politics we may knock Bali off our holiday list for fear the morality police might start ‘sweeping’ hotels for the unwed in the same bed.  We’ll also worry that tsunami warning systems still won’t work.

Till recently most observers were predicting current President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo will win a second five-year term, the maximum constitutionally allowed. 

Apart from Widodo sitting easily with the electorate, his rival, Prabowo Subianto made tactical blunders.  Foremost was supporting an actress who big-noted she’d been beaten up by Widodo thugs.

Police later revealed her bruises came from cosmetic surgery, which brightened the nation’s cheeks with much mockery. 

Subianto stood in 2004 but lost by 6.3 per cent (133 million voted) largely because young social activists backed Widodo.  They feared the former general would unravel reforms made since dictator Soeharto was ousted in 1998, throttle the Anti-Corruption Commission and curb the press, currently the freest in Asia.

Subianto, 67, is a mega-rich businessman with a string of resource companies, and well-entrenched in the oligarchy. He was once married to Soeharto’s daughter Titiek; his economist dad Sumitro was in Soeharto’s ministry.

Subianto served in East Timor and West Papua, attracting allegations of human rights abuses, still unsettled. He misjudged the mood for political change, was discharged for ‘misinterpreting orders’ and took refuge in Jordan.

On his return he tried to recover lost glories, courting other parties before starting Gerindra (Great Indonesia Movement Party.)  He has a stable of Portuguese Lusitano horses once bred for war. Subianto shouts his speeches and is reputed to have an explosive temper.

Jokowi, ten years younger, is a polar opposite, a mild-mannered village-bred Javanese and soft public speaker hooked on high-powered motorbikes.  He started showing  gravitas only recently.

A furniture-maker from a regional town he became the local mayor with a Mr Clean reputation, then got elected Governor of Jakarta

From this platform he sprang into the Presidency becoming famous for his blusukan (informal walkabouts).  These are now rare following domestic terrorism attacks against police and churches.

His term has concentrated on reviving and expanding the nation’s moribund infrastructure that’s long crippled the economy, using huge loans from China. New ports, airports, toll-roads and rail lines are being built with astonishing speed.

Socially the nation has turned conservative.  The jilbab (headscarf) once banned in the public service is now widely worn, worrying the ten per cent (26 million) of the non-Muslim population.  Jokowi has done little to calm their fears.

Nor has he paid much attention to foreign policy, leaving that to the bureaucrats.  Ultra nationalist Subianto could start promoting Indonesia as a military power.  He’s already talking up overseas threats gleaned from American sci-fi.

Last year Widodo’s party boss, founding President Soekarno’s daughter Megawati, ordered him to accept senior Islamic cleric Ma’ruf Amin, 75, as running mate. 

Like Subianto, Widodo isn’t known for excess piety.  First Lady Iriana and daughter Kahiyang Ayu seldom wear jilbab.

Amin’s presence is supposed to neutralise slurs that Widodo isn’t a ‘proper’ Muslim, but the coupling looks awkward.

Amin has railed against homosexuality, pluralism and non-mainstream Islamic sects. He backed huge 2016 protests against former Jakarta governor and ethnic Chinese Christian Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama, now in jail for blasphemy. 

During the trial Widodo abandoned his former colleague, dismaying human-rights activists who thought he was on their side.

Subianto has recruited Jakarta vice-Governor Sandiaga Uno, 49, as his sidekick. The slim US-educated personable businessman would make a better fit partnered with Widodo.

In a country where images matter more than policies, Uno comes across as cool Metro Man, suave in casual gear. Amin’s look is Retirement Village, comfy in traditional Islamic garb.

If Subianto wins, Uno may try to stop him castrating democracy, the knife used for 32 years by Soeharto; that could be like John Kelly managing Donald Trump. 

It will be the reverse with Widodo, keeping Amin out of sight so the nation looks progressive, modern and upholding the rule of law, not a de-facto theocracy scaring investors.

Either way the contest will ebb and flow, moved by cultural and religious forces foreign to most Australians.

If we bone up our politicians might learn to avoid foot-in-mouth infections, like PM Scott Morrison jeopardising a free trade agreement by suggesting our embassy move to Jerusalem.

Whether this deal, hugely important to primary producers, will be salvaged this side of the election is doubtful.  Neither candidate wants to be seen as pro-Australia and therefore anti Palestine.

Now that’s a topic worthy of Summer Drum.

First published in Pearls and Irritations, 7 January 2019.  See:http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-ignoring-the-doings-next-door/

AUSTRALIA PLUS IS MINUS MERIT

INDONESIA COUNCIL OPEN CONFERENCE

Flinders University 3 – 4 July 2017

Australia Plus doesn’t add**                                                            Duncan Graham*

ABSTRACT

Despite a rapid rise in the use of smartphone apps an estimated 80 per cent of Indonesians still rely on television for news.[i]  This presents Australia with an opportunity to develop its Australia Plus channel to boost the presenting nation’s image and deliver accurate information about the country – as it once did with Radio Australia and Australia Television International.  In those days Australia believed that broadcasting into the Asia-Pacific region was important to sow ideas, counter falsehoods, develop friendships and influence opinions. 

 The chances of maintaining these principles are being lost as the underfunded Australia Plus service is showing poorly selected content often inappropriate for the market, particularly when measured against other international offerings. This paper examines how successive governments have quietly abandoned the idea that Australia has a responsibility to showcase its achievements and values – and why reviving this objective could help improve relationships with our nearest Asian neighbour.

·        Disclaimer: The author was employed by ABC TV and later Channel Nine as a current affairs reporter, producer and presenter. He also helped pioneer public broadcasting in WA and was founder-manager of Radio 6NR.  All long ago so relevant only for industry experience.

*Duncan Graham CV                                                                                                                                 Education: M Phil (UWA), Grad Dip Cultural Communication (Riverina), BA (Curtin)                              Currently employed: Freelance writer for English language media in Indonesia 2002 – present.  Currently in Malang, East Java  Australian citizen                                                                                                              Awards: (All in Australia): Walkley Award for Journalism; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Media Award (Twice);  Equal Opportunity Commission Media Prize (Twice); Daily News Centenary Prize; Perth Press Club Award; MBE Health Award; WA Week Book Award (now the Premier’s Prize) for non-fiction.Published books: The People Next Door (UWA Press), Being Whitefella (ed) (FAC Press), Dying Inside (A & U). Doing Business Next Door (Wordstars).  Book project: The Tyranny of Proximity.

** This paper builds on a commentary published by New Mandala on 22 July 2016 as How Australia Plus became Australia Minus, See: http://www.newmandala.org/through-a-window-darkly/

Australia Plus doesn’t add

It’s common to start addresses with acknowledgements, so a big thank you to Monash University, the Government of Victoria,  food supplement manufacturer Swisse Wellness owned by a Hong Kong based company, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

These organisations are largely responsible for me and maybe a few other expats and some Indonesian Australiaphiles maintaining our enthusiasm for Bananas in Pyjamas, the WotWots and the AFL.  More seriously if the ABC and the three ‘foundation partners’ hadn’t bonded Australia might have an even more threadbare media presence overseas.[ii]

Radio and TV were once considered a vital part of the nation’s presentation of itself to the world and therefore the financial responsibility of the state.  But in 2014 the government suddenly gave the ABC 90-days notice that it would break its AUD 223 million deal to run the Australia Network.  Eighty staff – some in Asian news rooms – lost their jobs.

Why did the government do that?  As usual the answer is budget constraints, but the more realistic interpretation is politics, paybacks and placating Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.

The ABC announced it this way:

The Australia Network has gone off the air after the Federal Government withdrew funding for the broadcaster earlier this year.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade cut Australia's international television service, which had broadcast content to 46 countries in the Asia and Pacific region including Solomon Islands, India, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, in the May budget.

The ABC was one year into a ten-year contract to provide the service, which had a potential audience of 144 million people. [iii]

From the rubble has grown Australia Plus. Image polishers have called it:

…an opportunity for Australian businesses and a case study in corporate entrepreneurship … an endeavour that should be applauded. It is a positive step for the broadcaster, for public institutions in general and for Australian business.[iv]

So far few corporates have clapped because their logos have yet to appear on Indonesian screens.  If they thought it a ‘positive step’ they’d already be up several rungs.

First some background.

Our presentations to the Asia Pacific used to be different. For decades Australian governments believed that broadcasting and telecasting into the region was an important responsibility, sowing ideas, informing and influencing. 

Radio Australia started in 1939 using shortwave, mainly to counter Japanese propaganda.  After the war it became a ‘soft power diplomacy tool’ in the jargon of foreign affairs.[v] Other terms commonly found in the literature include ‘globally connected’ and ‘promotion of Australian values’.

Millions learned about Australia through RA; many tuned in to world news because local stations were censored.  RA was a trusted source in a region where facts were often scarce.[vi]

 Thousands developed their English skills huddled over crackling sets, particularly during the 1950s and 60s.  Technology forced changes. Satellites eclipsed land-based transmitters[vii].  Rebrands became necessary but the vision remained and the mission expanded.[viii]

In 2006 Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced that ABC Asia Pacific (formerly Australia Television International) would become Australia Network, with funding from Foreign Affairs and Trade plus advertising.

It would reach 10 million homes and 200,000 hotel rooms in 41 countries; maybe one million viewers a month.

Downer said the ABC would run the network offering “high quality programmes about Australia and its engagement with the region.” Also promised were “extensive news and current affairs programmes, Australian-produced education, drama, entertainment and lifestyle programmes.”  Note the order of priorities.

The Minister included a homely metaphor with his Reithian principles:  ‘A key requirement of the service is to provide a credible and independent voice through programmes that present a 'window' on Australia and Australian perspectives of the world.’ [ix]

Australia Network CEO Ian Carroll added: ‘Our news and current affairs programmes provide more than the headlines – it is quality world class journalism offering a different view from the London and US-centric networks’.[x]

By then there were other windows to peer though. BBC World, France24, Al Jazeera, NHK (Japan), Deutsche Welle and other international telecasters were offering vistas grand using serious money.

The French Government is reported to spend AUD$ 117 million a year on France 24 while Russia’s RT channel is believed to have an annual budget of US$ 300 million. [xi]   Now China is expanding its overseas reach with China Central Television (CCTV). [xii]

The Voice of America budget is US$ 218 million, all from government funds. It broadcasts and telecasts in more than 40 languages, including Indonesian.

In 2011 the Labor Government called tenders to run Australia Network. The two main hopefuls were the ABC and Sky TV which had long campaigned to get the job.  When it seemed Rupert Murdoch’s company – no friend of Labor - would get the contract the tender process was scrapped and the job given to the ABC.

It was a short victory. When the Liberal-National Coalition won government revenge was rapid - Australia Network was turned off. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the network “had failed to deliver a cost-effective vehicle’ [xiii] but gave no facts to back the claim. The then ABC managing director Mark Scott said the decision;

…runs counter to the approach adopted by the vast majority of G20 countries. Countries around the world are expanding their international broadcasting services as key instruments of public diplomacy.

It sends a strange message to the region that the government does not want to use the most powerful communication tools available to it to talk to our regional neighbours about Australia.[xiv]

Killing the network may have satisfied a political ideology but a legal reality had to be faced: The ABC Charter requires it to be an international broadcaster so the gap had to be filled. Click onto Australia Plus.

The new service is believed to cost AUD $20 million a year with three ‘foundation partners’ – in the coy language of one report – ‘signing-on to advertising deals worth in the low single digit million dollar range’.[xv]  Presumably this means something between one and three million a year, [xvi] so still a minority contribution.

For this the ‘partners’ get the chance to exclusively back an ‘audience category’.  So, for example, in the Explore + Experience category sponsored by the Victorian State Government ‘stories about events, places, travel, arts, culture and music around Australia’ are featured.[xvii]

Absent from the sponsors are the 360 Australian businesses which launched a mighty assault on the Indonesian market in 2015 and again this year with 120 delegates.[xviii]

If they are not using the opportunities presented they either don’t know Australia Plus exists – which would be a failure of marketing - or they’ve researched its reach and decided it’s of no value.

Australia’s overseas TV is supposed to project a robust Western democracy, a creative explorer of art and technology and a leader in education, then Australia Plus is a turn off. 

As Australian leaders recite the mantra that Indonesia is our most important foreign relationship [xix] it might be logical to assume we’d be offering our best and brightest programmes selected specifically for the archipelago.

If only.  It seems no-one cares. Programmes are moved around or changed without notice. [xx]  Many, like the ad business rip-apart Gruen have us chuckling and Indonesians bamboozled. This is fill-a-space scheduling which treats viewers with no respect.

According to the ABC ‘the service is delivered as a single stream across all territories.  Programmes do not have separate versions for individual territories’. [xxi] So one size fits all in the 43 countries that get Australia Plus. This negates the ABC’s claim that:

…the ABC places the audience at the centre of everything it does. Through its international services the ABC has the content and infrastructure to enable it to connect with a range of international audiences in English and their own language, presenting Australian perspectives and values to the world.[xxii]

In Indonesia three pay-to-use cable services carry Australia Plus. [xxiii] They get it free.  The ABC says it’s ‘available to three million people in Indonesia’ meaning that’s the number who pay for access to networks each offering 50 or more channels.[xxiv]

Australia Plus TV is almost all in English, though some Indonesian subtitling is starting to appear, though not advertised as such. [xxv] NatGeo programmes are Indonesian subtitled.  Likewise the History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery, BBC Earth and many others.

However there are other Australia Plus sites with stories in Indonesian, including Facebook which scored 365,000 visits last year. [xxvi]  Sounds good? Motivational speaker Mario Teguh, who used to perform on Metro TV, gets 20 million visits.

Apart from Singapore we are the closest Western nation to Indonesia with the ability to present a different perspective in the media jungle of Southeast Asia. Australia Plus says its mission is ‘to provide a television and digital service that informs, entertains and inspires our audience with an uniquely Australian perspective.” [xxvii] Note the new order of priorities.

Indonesians and others in the region can enjoy a 24-hour service with Play School and Little Ted’s Big Adventure on a loop for much of the morning plus a few English lessons.

ABC News Breakfast starts at 3 am in Jakarta. World News at 8 pm seems to be the only programme created for the channel, not just lifted and dumped, like a Bondi Rescue wave.

At 5.30 pm Java time 7.30 is shown. Q & A runs a day late; there are old editions of Australia Story and the brilliant Jenny Brockie SBS series Insight. Weeklies like Insiders and The Drum get a guernsey. Four Corners does sometimes, though late.[xxviii] 

At the height of the North Korea missile crisis in mid-April[xxix] viewers got to see the news at 1 pm and again nine hours later.  In between were back-to-back AFL games. The fearful went elsewhere to know whether Armageddon was nigh.  They turn to the trusted brands – the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg – when they could be choosing Australia Plus.

Home and Away fans get five episodes back-to-back, relieved by monochrome Kafkaesque-style promotions for Monash University [xxx] that would puzzle and probably frighten prospective students. [xxxi] It’s voiced by actor David Wenham, not well known in Indonesia.[xxxii]

Swisse also favours the obscure with former Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting talking about perfection in making bats and balls, though not the promoter’s products. Indonesian viewers are not used to subtle in advertising and expect to be heavily whacked with brand names.[xxxiii]  They certainly know little about hitting sixes, LBWs and Mr Ponting.

Dr Ken Harvey, Adjunct Associate Professor in Monash University's Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine has raised alerts about the ‘partnership’:

Swisse have an unenviable reputation for marketing their products, both in Australia and internationally. Their sales success reflects the large amount of money they spend on marketing hype and celebrity endorsement, not on science. 

… Swisse have had over 20 upheld complaints over the last few years for misusing scientific claims such as ‘clinically proven’ and ‘clinically tested’. Their advertising claims have also been the subject of a number of satirical segments on the ABC Checkout programme.’[xxxiv] 

There have been criticisms from other quarters, [xxxv] some so strong and mocking it’s a wonder the company hasn’t walked away. The ABC response implied complainants didn’t understand the law, should be better informed and that all editorial decisions were made independently by ABC staff alone. [xxxvi] 

Apart from being ideologically hostile to advertisements on the ABC, commentators feared the brand may be damaged by links with a company that’s attracted concerns from reputable Australian and overseas scientists. [xxxvii]

The Victorian Government’s ads focus on produce and exports from the Garden State.  They are informative but mainly sell tourism, foods and claims for port efficiency.

What’s the target audience for this curious mix? Asians play soccer, not rules. Australia Plus broadcasts six games a week during the Toyota AFL Premiership season, all matches in the Toyota AFL Finals Series and a ‘weekly highlights programme across 28 weeks’.[xxxviii]

Splendid for Victorian, South Australian and Western Australian fans in Asia – but are footy-crazed expats the prime market for Australia Plus? There is an AFL team in the Republic called the Indonesia Garudas but they say they are struggling with no oval and no money to buy boots and balls. [xxxix]  Nonetheless they plan to send a team to Melbourne this year.

Where are the other sports which SBS does well, the docos, programmes featuring the ‘uniquely Australia perspective’ on the region’?  They’re still in Australia.

Conclusion

Indonesian viewers comparing Australia Plus with other nations’ offerings might conclude that we’re a poor country offering an inconsistent fare and indifferent to audience needs.  There’s little that’s made for the market.  The dramas are little understood.[xl]

This situation may not concern the Government but it appears to worry the ABC. In March this year it made an untitled submission to the Foreign Policy White Paper.  The document noted the expansion of the BBC World Service and other TV networks into overseas telecasting while reminding DFAT of some original principles:

Australia requires a strategy for engagement which enhances mutual understanding and respect and which encourages an exchange of ideas. Establishing strong cultural and social links with international populations will facilitate stronger economic ties and more productive collaboration.

A strong, vibrant and trusted public and international broadcasting capability will be critical to Australia’s ability to engage economically, politically and culturally with the Asia-Pacific and beyond.[xli]

Perhaps this late conscience-pricker might someday get a reaction.  However, so far none of this seems to stir the major parties. They enjoy ABC and SBS excellence at home and offer heart-warming statements about Australia being respected in the region.

Meanwhile their neighbours get Australia Minus and are expected to believe that we really are serious about improving and sustaining relationships – as we so regularly proclaim.

Unfortunately Indonesians don’t like us according to a recent survey of attitudes. To the question: Which country has the closest relationship with President Joko Widodo’s government? respondents put Saudi Arabia first (47 per cent), followed by China (38), and the US (6). Only two per cent said Australia.[xlii]  Clearly we have problems.

Australia Plus could be a splendid showcase in Indonesia and the 42 other nations where it’s available, spreading Australian news, culture, values and opinions, equal to its international competitors. We have the skills and talent.  What we lack is political will.

---

Notes

[i] http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut_country.html   But who are the viewers?  ‘We should understand that 60 percent of Indonesian viewers are either elementary school graduates, or have not graduated. Those people are the ones watching TV.’ Ishadi Soetope Kartosapoetro, the chairman of ATVSI (Indonesian TV Broadcasting Association) quoted by AMCHAM – http://www.amcham.or.id/politics/5381-indonesia-s-tv-industry-a-sinking-ship

[ii] The official statement in the ABC Annual Report reads: Australia Plus is produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and presented with the support of our Foundation Partners.

[iii] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-28/australia-network-goes-off-the-air/5774808

[iv] http://thediplomat.com/2016/08/australia-plus-abc-international-means-business/   However ABC International CEO Lynley Marshall put it more bluntly: ‘DFAT cancelled the contract two years into a ten-year agreement, leaving the ABC with a significant challenge in meeting its ongoing charter commitment to international broadcasting’  https://www.abcfriends.org.au/index.php/2016/09/19/swiss-advertising-response-from-abc-international/

[v] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/radio-australia-soft-power-tool-eroded-neglect

[vi] For an analysis of the service’s importance in the Pacific see researcher Nic Maclellan’s The Gutting of Radio Australia: http://insidestory.org.au/the-gutting-of-radio-australia

[vii] The one in Darwin was felled by Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

[viii] This year veteran journalist Graeme Dobell took his concerns about the ABC’s ‘dumb decision’ to close the South Pacific short wave services to the Senate Communications Committee.  See: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/abc-gets-wrong-south-pacific-service/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20The%20Strategist&utm_content=Weekly%20The%20Strategist+CID_bc46d88f018103445b9873c69105b487&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=The%20ABC%20gets%20it%20wrong%20on%20its%20South%20Pacific%20service

[ix] http://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2006/fa076_06.html

[x] http://png.embassy.gov.au/pmsb/AustNetwork1.html 

[xi] https://www.rt.com/op-edge/318181-rt-budget-down-msm/

[xii] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-central-television-launches-global-television-network-propaganda-xi-jinping-a7503216.html

[xiii] https://www.crikey.com.au/2014/05/14/abcs-foreign-bureaux-in-danger-after-australia-network-budget-axing/

[xiv] In late 2015 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited Jakarta and smoothed the path for a delegation of 360 traders led by then Trade Minister Andrew Robb.  Another group, about a third of the size, went to Indonesia in early 2017 fronted by Trade Minister Steven Ciobo.

[xv] Lewis Hirst of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry writing in The Diplomat: http://thediplomat.com/2016/08/australia-plus-abc-international-means-business/

[xvi] The ABC won’t reveal the figures or length of contracts claiming ‘commercial in confidence’

[xvii]  The Australia Plus sponsors’ guidelines curiously claim ‘the Victorian State government (is) one of the prime tourist destinations in Australia  ...’ Presumably it means landscapes and events rather than the politicians and public servants.  See: http://www.australiaplus.com/international/sponsors/

[xviii] http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/02/28/oz-minister-to-bring-major-trade-mission-to-indonesia.html

[xix] This is now a standard chant in Australian politics, and like all over-used phrases has become a cliché and lost its meaning.  See: http://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2016/jb_mr_161025.aspx?w=tb1CaGpkPX%2FlS0K%2Bg9ZKEg%3D%3D

[xx] A couple of examples:  At the end of 7.30 on 17 April presenter Leigh Sales threw to a programme of tributes to the late satirist John Clarke.  However viewers in Indonesia instead got an episode of Gruen first telecast in September 2015.  Unsurprisingly the topical gags were out of date.  On 23 May Q & A didn’t appear though advertised on screen and in the Internet TV Guide.

[xxi] Personal correspondence with ‘an ABC spokesman’.

[xxii] ABC Submission to Foreign Policy White Paper

[xxiii] First Media, Indovision and Telkomvision.

[xxiv] The ABC conducted audience research using Skype interviews in six Indonesian cities. Participants were recruited through the Australia Plus Facebook site. The research confirmed ‘strong audience interest in connecting with Australian stories and opportunities … (and) also highlighted shortcomings in market-specific user interface design.’  Changes were made in May 2016. http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ABCAnnualReport2016.pdf

[xxv] ‘An ABC spokesman’ said that ‘due to budgetary constraints not all programmes can be subtitled.’  In fact I’ve caught only one with BI subtitles – an edition of Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery first telecast in Australia on 15 Feb – on Australia Plus on 16 May.  The Dreamhouse has also been captioned.

[xxvi] Personal correspondence with ‘an ABC spokesman’.

[xxvii] http://tv.australiaplus.com/about

[xxviii] ‘The ABC spokesman’ says the Four Corners delay is because ‘there may be third-party footage present which needs to be cleared …’

[xxix] Saturday 15 April 2017  http://tv.australiaplus.com/tvguide

[xxx] The latest available figures show 26,201 (37 per cent of all students) came from overseas. Of these 929 (below 3.6 per cent) were from Indonesia. The major sources are China and Malaysia.  https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/676304/pocket-statistics-2016.pdf

[xxxi] The Question the Answers campaign is on the Internet as a Vimeo video. Vimeo is banned in Indonesia.

[xxxii] If Indonesians did know of Wenham they might not be too enthusiastic as he featured in the TV film Answered by Fire as an Australian policeman.  The film was a fictional account of Australia’s role in the 1999 East Timor referendum, an event which severely damaged relationships between Indonesia and Australia.

[xxxiii] Some commercials are immediately repeated in case the viewer didn’t notice the first time around. The blunt force approach like that used by Harvey Norman ads in Australia is popular in RI.

[xxxiv]  Personal communication.  Dr Harvey stressed that ‘my views regarding Swisse and their partnership with ABC International are obviously my own and do not reflect those of Monash University.’

[xxxv] See https://mumbrella.com.au/checkout-producer-slams-abc-partnership-vitamin-brand-swisse-390341 and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0WHvFI2I20

[xxxvi] ‘I suspect many members of the public do not realise this history, nor do they understand ABC International has always carried advertising on its platforms,’ Lynley Marshall, CEO ABC International.  Full text: https://www.abcfriends.org.au/index.php/2016/09/19/swiss-advertising-response-from-abc-international/

[xxxvii] The ABC submission to the Foreign Policy White Paper includes this statement:

Reputation - The ABC is one of the most recognised and trusted brands in Australia and the region. As Australia’s primary public broadcaster with a Charter that requires editorial independence, the ABC’s core strengths are its enduring credibility and integrity.

[xxxviii] http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-02-26/australia-plus-to-broadcast-matches-in-asiapacific

[xxxix] http://mailchi.mp/5af06c3a2c89/r5bmni7sfe-1710033?e=5c07e9110a

[xl] In the early 1980s the TV soapie Return to Eden was a huge hit in Indonesia with lead actress Rebecca Gilling mobbed when she visited Jakarta in 1987.

[xli] http://dfat.gov.au/whitepaper/submissions/documents/170314-663-Australian-Broadcasting-Corporation

[xlii]  The survey was conducted in March this year.  http://perthusasia.edu.au/getattachment/Our-Work/America-s-Role-in-the-Indo-Pacific/PU-20-ARIP-BOOK-WEB.pdf.aspx?lang=en-AU