Anyone watching the ABC’s homage to the Sydney Harbour Bridge last Sunday night would have been amazed at two moments of the program. Two moments that absolutely ruined the narrative and drive of the documentary. And it was clearly obvious that both of these moments had to do with Mark Scott’s ridiculous editorial policy about ‘balance’ or whatever right-wing commentators are calling it these days.

All of a sudden, directly after a comment by PJ Keating on Jack Lang, the NSW Premier at the time of the Bridge’s construction, there was Gerard Henderson of the Sydney Institute reminding us that some people didn’t like Jack Lang. What the hell was he doing on our screens? What the hell did he contribute to the story? It was pretty clear from many of the other historical clips and interviews that Jack Lang wasn’t universally loved.

WEE’ll tell you what he was doing there.

It’s this crap they call ‘editorial balance’. So kowtowed and scared is the ABC of the Coalition at the moment, they have to have a token ‘right-wing’ face in a documentary to demonstrate ‘balance’.

What a crock, and what a distasteful insert into an otherwise admirable documentary. “Oh no”, thought the gutless executives at the ABC, “they want to interview PJ Keating for the Harbour Bridge documentary. Shit, we better ask them to interview Henderson… for balance.”

That’s it. That’s the level of sophistication and independence that the ABC has after 10 years of being brow beaten by the paranoid army of Coalition foot soldiers (the former Senator Santo Santoro being among those who have led the charge – never had any trouble remembering the detail of ABC bias, by the way).

It’s a ridiculous look and will taint ABC documentaries if it continues. It was so obvious and blatant and sadly, is in the film forever. If this is what is has come to then they ABC can just forget making documentaries altogether. They will not be useful as interesting films, just reminders of the propaganda of the government of the day.

Let’s hope that we see the back of the Coalition at the next election and that a new government tries at least to restore some independence, good taste and common sense to the executives at the ABC. Oh, and a bit of funding wouldn’t hurt too.

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