My fellow blogger Graham Young totally misses the point in his “defence” of the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) Chairman, Professor David Flint.
To illustrate what the real issue is in this matter, I need to go back to an experience in my career as a Ministerial Advisor – 30 years ago.
At the time, I was Press Secretary to the Queensland Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Bill Knox. Among his ministerial responsibilities was liquor licensing.
Early in his term he was told by reliable sources that two part-time members of the Liquor Licensing Commission (a quasi judicial body not dissimilar to the ABA) were receiving “freebies” from sections of the liquor industry, and had been doing so for years.
In one case, the member received a week’s free accommodation each year at a hotel on the Gold Coast, while the second member had a carton or two of “tallies” delivered to his house every couple of weeks – free of charge of course.
There was no allegation that either benefit resulted is biased decisions, or any favours for the licensees involved. Indeed, an examination by Justice Department Officials of decisions by the Commission over a period of years actually showed that one or two decisions had gone against the licensees involved!
The Attorney-General called in the two commission members and interviewed them separately. They readily owned up to the benefits. He demanded their immediate resignations – which he received.
Within hours their appointments were formally ended.
As a young enthusiastic advisor, I wanted to tell the media the full story. It would show up the Attorney-General in a good light – but he would have none of it. Given that he was an industrious and effective publicist, that surprised me.
Looking back, he was probably right – both were in their 70’s, they had given otherwise long and good service under both Labor and Coalition State Governments, and there was no evidence of actual bias as a result of the favour they were given.
But here is the point that is relevant to the Flint issue.
Bill Knox served in the Parliament for 32 years – the only MP to serve during the whole of the non-Labor period (1957-1989). He was a Minister for 17 years and 7 months. Only four Ministers in the history of the state have served longer.
In the whole of that time, there was not the slightest hint of scandal or impropriety in his Ministerial service. There is a simple reason for that.
The standard he set in regard to the licensing commission members was consistent with that he followed in all the portfolios he held. Conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived, were rigorously avoided in the appointments he made – and especially those of a judicial or quasi judicial nature.
That annoyed some of his colleagues, but it made no difference. But it gave this state judges and other officials who served it with integrity. It is just a pity that his successors did not follow that example.
I note that the Prime Minister overnight argued that the ABA is not really a quasi-judicial authority, even though he made some criticism of Professor Flint’s letters.
If that is one of the arguments for the retention of Professor Flint, then it is a weak one. Just as the Queensland Liquor Licensing Commission was deemed to be a quasi judicial body, so must http://nationalforum.com.au/the_domain/archives/ambit_gambit/000258.html the ABA be. It holds public hearings, it takes evidence, barristers appear before it on behalf of clients, witnesses are examined and cross examined, its hearings are held in a court room like environment, and, importantly, it has wide powers to impose penalties.
The argument that the ABA is not a judicial or quasi judicial body is a poor one.
The argument – advanced by Graham – that there is no evidence any of Professor Flint’s decisions have favoured friends or associates is inadequate.
The Professor has answered the “perception” that he might have a bias by standing aside – after obvious encouragement from his fellow ABA Commission Members – from the ABA’s hearings into the ABC’s coverage of the Iraq War.
He is an active, partisan participant in the political process. As such, he surely forfeits the right to judge the integrity of the broadcast industry on issues relating to its fairness and impartiality, or integrity?
Professor Flint claims to believe in the nation’s traditions, its institutions, and its constitutional structure and history.
What a pity that belief does not extend to upholding these tenets in judging his own suitability to continue in the high office he holds, even if only for the few months that remain?
Sorry Graham, Professor Flint has publicly humiliated himself. Execution? Like the two hapless Liquor Licensing Commission Members he could depart in a much less dramatic, bloody, way…………..but he had better do so before the “firing squad” takes aim again, as it most surely will in the coming months.
The departing press statement could begin something like this – “In the interests of preserving the impartiality and integrity of the ABA, even though I believe my actions have not impinged on either, I accept the reality that the perception may be otherwise, and am therefore resigning as Chairman forthwith”.
One can only hope.

My fellow blogger Jeff Wall has now posted twice (here and here) calling on Professor David Flint to step down. While I think that David has made some mistakes, I am not sure that any of them are punishable by public humiliation and then execution. This whole affair is yet another demonstration of the shallowness of public debate in this country, and the ladies and gentlemen of the press bear much of the blame.
Conflicts of interest ought to be avoided wherever possible, and where they cannot be avoided they have to be dealt with transparently. This is a matter of process. The substance behind it is that when a fiduciary or professional duty exists the person to whom that duty is owed ought to be dealt with fairly by the person owing it. The professional or the fiduciary should not be in a position where they may actually be swayed in the exercise of their primary duty by conflicting interests they owe to other parties.
It follows that to have a conflict is one thing, but the real crime consists in allowing the conflict to improperly sway a decision. The fact in this case is that there is absolutely no evidence that, despite having his conflicts of interest, David Flint ever acted on them to the detriment of the people or bodies to whom he owed his professional duty.
In the original cash for comment case, not only was Flint ultimately not a party to the inquiry held by the ABA, but the person to whom he might have been partial – Jones – was punished. In this second cash for comment case Jones has escaped, but not through any intervention of Flint’s but because Jones has walked around the Broadcasting Act. What Jones has done is to change his role from that of contractor to owner, and different legislative rules apply to owners. It is actually in Flint’s favour that when government was amending the act in the wake of the “cash for comment” affair the ABA wanted it amended so as to prevent Jones from doing what he has just done. These amendments did not occur.
The fact that Flint’s conflicts of interest have not resulted in any benefit to Jones and that Jones has earned his $1.2 million cash for comment from Telstra by his own financial engineering has not stopped Media Watch from piling supposition on supposition to point the finger at Flint. This has been extended by John Laws with his allegation that Jones bullied the Prime Minister into reappointing Laws, because Jones said so.
Why do I see a failure in public discourse here? Well, take the last point first. Commentators who would normally not take a word that Laws says seriously suddenly accept it absolutely. Why? One can only conjecture, but maybe it is because that is what they want to believe (which ironically is the charge against the government in the case of WMDs).
There are any number of serious questions that journalists and others ought to be asking and writing opinion pieces and learned articles about which they are just not doing.
First there is the relationship between the critics of Flint, Jones and Prime Minister Howard. Kerry O’Brien gets an honourable mention here. He asked John Laws whether this wasn’t just a case of “sour grapes”. Laws answered honestly and said that it probably was. Why has no-one sought to interview David Marr, presenter of Media Watch and ask him the same question? Afterall, while Flint has been writing glowing letters about Jones he has been excoriating Marr and others in his writings and books like Twilight of the Elites. Isn’t there a reasonable apprehension of bias against Marr?
Beyond the gossip there are more substantial issues. It is said that the ABA is a judicial body, and therefore Flint should not be friendly with any of the people who he regulates. Is that really the case? We have a number of what used to be called QANGOs (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Government Organisations) which are regulator, judge and jury. For every conflict of interest that Flint has, you’ll probably find just as many at organizations like HREOC and ASIC. In fact HREOC (for which I have the greatest admiration) is an interesting case in point. For example its Bringing Them Home report was one of the most conflicted pieces of investigation by a semi-government body in years – it even came with its own propaganda video.
The whole question of whether these organizations and others, which mix judicial and other roles, are set up on an ethically sustainable basis should be investigated.
There are also other questions that ought to be asked about what exactly is required of someone in a judicial or quasi-judicial position. I have often wondered how Flint justifies his very public stance on issues whilst being chairman of a statutory authority; but then I have also wondered, just as frequently, how other activists like Justice Michael Kirby justify their positions.
Then there is the issue of the media as a whole and its conflicts. I’m probably whistling into a really strong headwind here because most of the commercial conflicts in the media occur at the proprietor level. Jones is one of the few who is both proprietor and “talent”, but his case ought to raise huge questions about what other deals Telstra is doing around the country, particularly given its business partnerships with both Packer and Murdoch! Why should broadcast media be singled out and made to be transparent about its cash for comment. Shouldn’t every story in News dealing with Telstra or Foxtel carry a warning? And isn’t the Government in a huge conflict of interest owning any commercial concerns like Telstra that it also regulates?
I could go on, but I’m sure you get my drift. My suspicion is that this spat is not about Flint’s friendships but about his positions on issues which have nothing to do with broadcast regulation; and it is about a couple of media presenters mustering peer group pressure to get back at people they feel have done them an injury; not to mention dislike of Jones. If no-one else will do the work, it looks like I might need to rustle up a few thoughtful opinion pieces from those with insight for On Line Opinion.

THE fact that Professor David Flint has an elevated view of his own importance, and integrity, has no doubt contributed to his determination to hang on to his position as Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority.
The Professor may not know this, but the longer he hangs on in the face of overwhelming evidence that his continued tenure is indefensible, then the greater risk he is to his principal defenders, notably the Federal Government, and the Prime Minister in particular.
I have listened very carefully to the criticism John Laws has made of the ABA Chairman over the last week. If the Federal Government’s media monitors and minders have not “got the message” from what Laws has been saying, and saying time and time again, then they doing their employers a considerable disservice.
John Laws has clearly decided he can attack Professor Flint without limit or discretion. He clearly knows, or believes, that there are more damaging revelations to come.
Indeed, he continues to drop hardly disguised hints that more will be revealed.
The closer any revelation is to the federal election, then the greater the damage will be to the political party Professor Flint belongs to and the Prime Minister he admires.
One can only come to the conclusion that not only does Professor Flint have an elevated view of his own importance and integrity, he lives in an unreal world, or possesses an extraordinary arrogance – or both.
Last week he was forced to stand aside from yet another ABA inquiry. One must seriously question what ABA inquiry he could responsibly sit on?
Professor Flint must go. He will not go voluntarily.
The Government has a duty to the broadcast industry – a powerful force in the community – that its regulator is beyond reproach.
It is time for the Government to do its duty.

The latest series of Big Brother premiered last night and I couldn’t resist putting those two words – “big” and “brother” – in this first paragraph because it will generate a lot of google searches; and because shared housing is one model that demonstrates the problems with the latest campaign to convince us we should trade tax cuts for better services.
This campaign has been running for a while, but it has been recently boosted by a coalition of groups calling itself, Services First. The coalition, which is about to shrink because it includes the soon to be abolished ATSIC, also includes a diverse range of groups including ACOSS and The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Judging from this morning’s Courier-Mail,one fellow traveler is Alan Fels. It also has received support from the ANU’s Survey of Social Attitudes (results of which are not on the web yet).There are two common arguments across most groups advocating this position. The first is that the tax cuts that are being given are so insignificant to taxpayers that they would be better spent on services. The second is that recent surveys suggest that taxpayers would prefer better services to tax cuts and therefore there is no constituency for lower tax. What they both add up to is that some of us believe that collectively we are in a better position to decide how each of us spends our money than we are individually.
This is where the share house model of taxation comes in. It’s not a perfect model, but it does illustrate the basic dilemma. Share accommodation is generally happiest when everyone feels that they are getting their fair share of services and everyone is pulling their own weight. So most share accommodation arrangements limit the expenses for which money is pooled to the bare minimum. When you start pooling money to buy groceries jointly, or tide Briony over because she just lost her job and can’t put in this week, the trouble starts. In any share house there tend to be the minimisers – like me – and the organizers – like Alan Fels – and as some of us like to win, we’ll advance the arguments that we need to so as to get our own way. So here are a few shots on behalf of us “minimisers”.
The higher tax/higher service argument partly relies on the rhetorical tactic of confusing relatives with absolutes. Last year’s average weekly tax cut of $4 may only be the value of a “hamburger and milkshake” to each of us as Senator Amanda Vanstone so eloquently put it, but that won’t change if it is pooled. The fact that there are around six million taxpayers means that the pool will be the equivalent of six million hamburgers and milkshakes, which exchanges into Australian dollars at around $2.5 billion, a very large number, but it will never be more than one hamburger and milk shake each, whatever the government decides to do with the money.
Ah, but won’t pooling make a difference? No it won’t. $2.5 billion (or even the $7 billion being mooted as the current likely budget surplus) won’t buy the government much more than a government sized hamburger and milkshake. It certainly won’t provide universal free health and education, fill every pothole in the country and ensure that Telstra turns up within a reasonable time to fix rural phone connections. Resources are limited. In fact, what you will undoubtedly find is that the proponents of these higher taxes will want the pooled funds spent on some specific project, one which they advocate, control and preferably administer. The problem with this is that it might buy the organisers three square meals a day for the rest of the year but it will leave many of the contributing taxpayers without even the smell of their hamburger.
Actually, it’s not really that simple as I am playing the same minimization card that the higher taxers are. The tax cuts are actually worth quite a bit more than a hamburger and milkshake. At $208 per year, or $416 per working couple, last year’s were quite substantial. This year’s at say $1,040 per couple (note how I artfully chose the largest available figure) could be even more substantial. I don’t know about you, but I might give up $10 per week to someone else, but I’d be decidedly less keen about $1,040, even though as a single I’m really only likely to get $520. And those sums of money can make a real difference to my quality of life. They’ll pay my gym fees, for example, which are probably the single largest monetary contribution to my health that I make in a year.
Another logical problem with this strategy is that if the amount of money this year is so small that it can painlessly be foregone, then the same small amount of money can easily be foregone next year and so on. Before you know it, inflation will have increased our salaries to a stage where we are all paying income tax at the highest marginal rate of tax – that is half of our income. Which leads to the constituency argument of the survey results.
Survey results like the ones being quoted do not actually show what they purport to show. For a start, it is often the case that people will say they would prefer to pay more tax, when what they mean is that the rest of us should pay more tax, but they would like to pay the same or less. The Survey of Social Attitudes avoids this by asking whether the individual would pay more tax to pay for better provision of particular services, but it does not avoid it entirely because at the heart of this reaction lies the question of size. How much more tax would you be prepared to pay? It also fails to properly explore the context. For example, if foregoing my $4 per week tax cut would only build one more hospital and shorten waiting lists by an average of one day, would I be prepared to forego it? It also ignores the alternatives – $200 for me to spend on school uniforms, versus a higher doctor subsidy from the government so he will bulk-bill me.
In any event, the debate is largely academic. The Services First Coalition proclaims itself “non party-political” and promises to “not endorse or otherwise support any parties or candidates…”. It “will suspend activities once a Federal Election is formally called.” Just as well, as both the major parties understand all too well that whatever they might say, Australians prefer to make their own decisions as to how their money is spent, rather than letting the government make them for them. To believe anything else is to risk being ejected from the big white house near Lake Burleigh Griffin.

Figuring Amanda, or Mandy as I will soon be told not to call her, is used to fine parliament house style dining I choose Cuisiny A La Classy, that well-known haunt for C list celebrities, for our meeting. I arrive early and thus ensure we get a table near the wine rack.
Twenty minutes and a prawn cocktail later Amanda barges through the door, a blinding vision of purple, orange, green, yellow, fuschia and tartan Versace. After jostling through some probably unemployed youngsters who can’t afford to be here anyway, the Senator plonks herself down on the seat opposite mine and demands we begin.
Wanting to assure her my dream job is to write puff pieces for a lowbrow Murdoch rag, I enquire as to the whereabouts of her husband on this lovely Spring day. “Tony has to do chores on the weekend or he doesn’t get any pocket money”, she answers. I nod approvingly at this extension of government policy into the marital relationship and receive a warm smile for my sycophancy.
I congratulate Amanda on becoming Minister for Immigration last year but make sure she knows I understand dealing with asylum seekers is surely no more fun than putting up with Centrelink clients. She winces and asks if there’s too much pepper on my Steak Dianne (note to self: remember to practice my sympathetic look before interviewing sick Fijian kiddie).
Attempting to overcome the awkwardness that follows my potentially career ruining faux pas, I suggest Amanda tells readers what direction Immigration is taking now she’s in charge.
“Well, look”, she booms before seguing into anecdotes about an aged veteran not receiving his full entitlement while bludgers receive more than their fair share, metaphorically dancing on Skase’s grave and her involvement in a drug bust where Freddy, her beloved puppy, got to be a police pooch for a day. Having done my research, or at least looked in the dictionary before I got to the restaurant, I make a joke about how that is appropriate since the Weimaraner is a gun dog.
Sensing it was a mistake for either of us to sit near the wine rack, I try to bring Amanda back to the topic by proposing she allows detention centre staff to wear shirts like hers, or at least a cheaper department store variety, so the inmates will be less grumpy and po-faced when they appear on television.
“Well, look, I don’t know about that”, Amanda replies before adding, “but I am thinking about trialling mutual obligation in the centres. You know, I can’t always find time to make homemade dog bikkies so I think detainees could do it in return for board and lodging”.
I offer mine, and Australia’s, endorsement for the idea and inform her that detainees will be just as enthusiastic because they know they’ll need some job skills for when they go back to wherever it is they’ve come from.
Though Amanda is confident her Asylum Seekers’ Pet Care Program will increase her reputation as the most caring and moderate member of the Howard Government, I sadly advise her that there are some people, just academics and serious journalists mostly, who don’t think she is caring and moderate at all. Sensing Amanda’s hurt, I wish the critics were there so I could ask them why they don’t think overpaid pensioners should have to return taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
Amanda decides to talk about the many differences in opinion between the conservatives and moderates in the Federal Liberal Party. I nod agreeably for the 20 minutes it takes her to try and think of something before she abandons the venture as a waste of time since it’s only pointy heads and washed-up hacks who think Liberals are all the same (note to self: get massage this afternoon because I have sore neck from nodding in agreement).
While Amanda is away at the sundae bar, her press secretary informs me that she has got a 3.00pm appointment with Woman’s Day, followed by a 4.00pm with The Women’s Weekly so we will have to wrap it up when she gets back.
With Mandy’s, oh sorry Ama…. no I am not allowed to say that either, Senator the Hon Amanda Vanstone’s return, I thank her for giving me her precious time and wish her the best.
“Pleasure”, she sharply retorts and then departs in a whirl of colour that should have alerted that bloke in the wheelchair she was headed his way.
This is an edited version of an article that appeared in The Chaser. Visit my website right here.