Writing in the Sydney Daily Telegraph (24 July 2007) conservative columnist Piers Akerman claims 'it is an open secret that the Friends of the ABC is little more than a front organisation for the ALP and the trade union movement."

Friends of the ABC National Spokesperson Professor Alan Knight responded “Friends of the ABC is a broad church.  Amongst its members are supporters of both major political parties and none.  What unites us is our interest to protect the ABC against governments of any political persuasion that seek to undermine it.”

Akerman’s article conveniently failed to mention our campaign to defend the ABC when the Hawke Labor government was in office.  Nor did he accuse the Friends of being a Liberal Party front when former Liberal premier Sir Rupert Hamer was the President of Friends of the ABC in Victoria.  Sir Rupert and the Friends of the ABC campaigned against efforts of the Hawke Labor Government to cut the ABC’s funds and restrict its activities. After major cuts to the ABC’s funds had been announced by the present Coalition Government, Sir Rupert addressed a Melbourne Town Hall public protest meeting at which people spilled out onto the streets, and contributed to ‘Save our ABC’ (a book on the case for maintaining the ABC which was published at the time).

Akerman also neglected to mention the following:

• In October 1985 the President of the Friends of the ABC in New South Wales, Walter Bass, wrote in our organisations newsletter “The Corporation is under fire from a Labor administration which is proving to be a greater threat to the ABC’s independence than the Fraser government ever was”.
• In the Spring 1989 issue of the newsletter Walter Bass wrote “The second of the ABC’s foes – by far the more sinister – is the politician…….Both Hawke and Peacock make no secret of their dislike of the ABC ….. Hawke was not exactly enamoured by Four Corners programs scrutinising the business activities of Sir Peter Abeles and Alan Bond, with whom Hawke is on good terms.”
• Friends of the ABC loudly criticised a proposal by Labor’s Gareth Evans, when he was Communications Minister, that the ABC be funded by advertising.
• We joined with Senator Alston and the Coalition in condemning the back door sponsoship deals done by the ABC under David Hill during a Labor administration.  After leaving the ABC Hill stood for election as a Labor candidate.
  
• In 2001, as the then National Spokesperson for the Friends of the ABC, I wrote to Senator Alston, Minister for Communications in the Coalition government, criticising statements attributed to Labor Senator Bob McMullan that the government should have more direct control of how the ABC spent its money. A copy of that letter is available here.
  

It should also be noted that Akerman has form with regard to the ABC. The Australian Press Council, in a formal adjudication, has found that an attack on an ABC journalist by columnist Piers Akerman was "unbalanced and unfairly derogatory".  The full text of the Press Council's findings can be found at http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/adj/1257.html

See also: How Piers Akerman "sexed up" the figures of the ABC budget