Peter's article is taken from the Autumn 2026 ABC Friends Bulletin

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Part 1: The cultural necessity of the ABC

It is one of the most enduring lines in British comedy. In the Monty Python movie, Life of Brian, a band of would-be revolutionaries angrily catalogue their hatred of Roman rule. Their leader Reg (played by John Cleese) poses a rhetorical question: what, exactly, have the Romans ever done for us?

Awkwardly, his followers respond: Roads? Sanitation? Education? Peace? One by one, the benefits pile up, until the original certainty looks faintly ridiculous.

The question is worth borrowing when debates flare—as they always do—about the value of the ABC. What does Aunty actually do for us? Why should it exist at all in an age of endless content, commercial competition and social media abundance?

Like the Romans in Monty Python’s sketch, the ABC’s contribution is often so embedded in national life that it becomes invisible, noticed only when it is threatened, diminished, or politicised. Start with the most obvious function: news. The ABC remains one of the few institutions in Australia whose core business is producing journalism independent of both commercial and political interests. That independence is not an affectation. It is the product of a statutory charter, editorial standards, and a funding model that—at least in theory—exists precisely so that journalism does not have to chase advertisers, sponsors, clicks, or partisan approval.

This matters because so much of what democracy requires from journalism is not commercially attractive. Long-form investigations into government failures, forensic scrutiny of policy, coverage of courts, public administration, science, foreign affairs and social policy—these are expensive, slow, and often unpopular. They do not lend themselves to virality or profit. Yet they are the raw material of informed citizenship.

Commercial media, facing the collapse of advertising revenue and relentless cost pressures, has retreated from many of these areas. Newsrooms have shrunk. Specialist beats have disappeared. Regional bureaus have closed. This is not a moral failure so much as a structural one. Markets are good at producing content that people already want; they are far less reliable at producing information citizens need.

The ABC exists to fill that gap. Programs like Four Corners, 7.30, Insiders, Background Briefing and Foreign Correspondent are not just television or radio shows. They are civic forums. They create shared reference points for national debate. They put power under sustained scrutiny. They ask questions that would be difficult to justify on a commercial balance sheet, but are indispensable to democratic accountability.

The same is true beyond metropolitan Australia. In regional and remote communities, the ABC is often not one news outlet among many, but the only one left standing. Local radio stations provide reporting that no commercial network can replicate at scale: council meetings, local courts, regional industries, community crises. And as anybody stuck in north Queensland’s floods or Victoria’s bushfires knows, during times of crisis, the ABC’s emergency broadcasting is not a nice extra—it is a crucial public safety service.

Culturally, too, the ABC performs a function that cannot be reduced to ratings. It supports Australian storytelling, music, comedy, drama and ideas in a media environment otherwise dominated by global platforms and imported content. It gives space to minority voices, Indigenous perspectives, and regional experiences that would struggle to survive in a purely commercial ecosystem.

Part 2: Potential pitfalls facing the ABC

None of this is to say the ABC is perfect. Like any large institution, it makes mistakes. It should be criticised, challenged and held accountable. And like the governments it keeps track of, that scrutiny is needed to keep the ABC on its toes. But critique is not the same as erosion. Persistent political attacks, funding cuts, and culture-war skirmishes have a cumulative effect. They narrow ambition. They encourage caution. They risk turning editorial independence into a theoretical principle rather than a lived reality.

There is a reason these pressures matter. Trust. At a time when confidence in media is fragile, the ABC consistently ranks as the most trusted media brand in the country. That trust is not accidental. It is the product of editorial standards, transparency, and a long institutional memory of serving the public rather than shareholders or parties.

Trust, in democratic terms, is not about agreement. It is about legitimacy. Citizens may argue with what they hear on the ABC, but they largely accept that it is produced in good faith, according to rules that prioritise accuracy over outrage and evidence over ideology.

Which brings us back to the counterfactual. What would Australia look like without the ABC?

It would be a country dependent on commercial incentives to shape public debate. A country where regional news deserts spread further and faster. A country where investigative journalism became rarer, more fragile, and more easily intimidated. A country where global platforms filled the vacuum—not with our own public-interest reporting, but with algorithmically optimised attention traps.

In such a nation, democratic discussion would not disappear. But it would become thinner, noisier, more polarised, and less informed. The cost would not be immediately visible on a budget line. It would be paid over time, in reduced accountability, weaker civic culture, and a public less able to see itself reflected honestly and critically.

So, what has the ABC ever done for us?

Like the Romans’ roads and aqueducts, much of what it provides only becomes obvious when it is gone. The ABC is not simply a broadcaster. It is part of the country’s democratic infrastructure— quietly holding things together, until we forget why it mattered in the first place.

Prof Peter Greste,
Professor of Journalism at Macquarie University
and Executive Director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom