All good things come to an end and in my case I am rapidly coming to the end of one of the selfless tasks at which I slave away in the interests of the Australian people. I refer to my work as a member of the grandly named Nomination Panel for recommending appointments to the boards of directors of the ABC and the SBS. We are a bit like the silent service, as the mainstream media takes almost no interest in our work, despite the fact that the boards of the ABC and the SBS can influence these two important cultural institutions which, in turn, shape our society as a whole. You would think that any journalist worth his salt would be circling over our work like a vulture, trying to find out who had applied, who we had nominated, why we accepted some candidates and rejected others and what sort of influence the lucky few might have on our publicly funded broadcasters. But no, the press is too busy regurgitating ministerial press releases and self-serving bromides from PR firms and think-tanks. So here, as an exclusive to The Speccie, is the inside story of the lonely journey of a member of the Nomination Panel. First, it is a labour of love; we receive a modest allowance which means we are paid less than Senator Di Natale’s domestic servants, which is less than you would earn at Mc Donald’s or 7-Eleven. Secondly, it has been a unique experience to work in a job that is entirely useless. Having worked in the law and politics, I thought I knew everything about working through empty rituals with no result, but it was a mere apprenticeship for the big league of utter irrelevance. The process starts with the government allegedly advertising the vacancies; but the use of the daily press for this purpose is meagre and derisory, because worthwhile people might find out about the vacancies if they were advertised properly. The government then embarks on a search for other publications so obscure that advertisements in any of these distinguished journals are guaranteed not to be seen by any likely candidate. How many potential directors of the ABC, for example, are there likely to be lurking among the devoted readership of the Bharat Times or the Koori Mail? Then, after ploughing through pages of applications from candidates and interviewing the few who might behave like real company directors, we actually make recommendations to the government. But they are only recommendations: the government can and does appoint people whom we have not recommended and who have not even applied. This bizarre process was set up by Stephen Conroy, the hapless minister for communications under Rudd and Gillard, allegedly to stop governments appointing political hacks. So now, the political hacks do not have to apply, but can still be appointed when the government rejects our recommendations. So, after all the rigmarole of the panel process, at enormous cost, the executive government does what it could and should do from the very beginning – make the appointments and defend them. The government says it is looking for savings; well, here is a good and painless one: abolish the nominations panel. It is a complete waste of time and money. And I assure you that my term on the panel has not resulted in the slightest improvement in either of the boards or the institutions they are supposed to be running. Indeed, both the ABC and the SBS are getting worse and are now propaganda machines for their own ideology. Just look at the SBS, which is now running a racism week, which of course proceeds on the offensive assumption that we are all racists, an article of faith for the Left intelligentsia. It is apparently now the mission of the SBS to ram this down our throats, at public expense, and the ABC is no better.

The criticism of Tony Abbott’s recent policy suggestions has been a monumental over-reaction. It is amazing to see the assumption on which this criticism is based. Abbott is a former PM with a lot to contribute and we should welcome his ideas, based as they are on experience and a finer appreciation of public needs and concerns than his critics in the party and the mainstream media seem to have. But no, his critics cannot accept his ideas and argue for or against them on their merits; they have to abuse him. Thinking they can diminish Abbott, they simply diminish themselves. Sometimes I think the Liberal Party is as bad as the cultural fascists on the Left in trying to stifle debate simply because they do not like the views of an opponent. And even if you want to look at the whole thing as an exercise in raw politics, his critics in the party might care to reflect that when they removed Abbott as PM, they unleased the very destabilisation of which they now complain. Finally, it is laughably absurd for Malcolm Turnbull to suggest that his disastrous poll numbers were caused, not by himself or his party’s lacklustre performance, which are the real reasons, but by a mysterious hypnotic spell that Abbott has cast over the nation, by force of which he can apparently control how people will vote. If so, why not tap his vote-winning talents by appointing him to the cabinet?

Mr Turnbull needs help, so here is my contribution. The infamous section 18C should be repealed, but with the power of the multicultural lobby, Senate obstruction and the pompous tone already adopted by Fairfax Media, the fight will be very messy.

But there is an easy solution which will keep the PM out of trouble: simply give anyone on the receiving end of a complaint the right to a jury trial in the Federal Court. It is the best and only way of assessing community sentiment, which section 18 C was supposed to reflect. Wasn’t it?