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ABC - lessons learnt from the 'good old days' could help

By Patricia Jenkings - posted Thursday, 14 July 2005


Mr B. Molesworth, ABC Director of Talks, said that migrants were beginning to settle into their new homeland and the aim was now to determine, “how they were getting on with us and we with them”. While the program was to be informative, the emphasis was on making it an entertaining, fast-moving broadcast, promoting a friendly relationship between old and new Australians.

On March 14, 1952, Australia’s first Federal Department of Immigration Chairman, Tasman Heyes, wrote to Boyer concerning extra time for radio lessons and advising that the Department of Education would provide funding of £400 to £450 to meet additional program costs. Boyer advised Heyes that financial assistance was not required as migrant program costs would be provided from the ABC budget. He concluded that the ABC was pleased to be in a position to help in the absorption of new settlers into the Australian community.

On March 28, 1952, Boyer wrote to Heyes updating him on ABC radio migrant education programs. He assured Heyes that the Commission would maintain an interest in migrants and would be glad to be of any possible assistance. Boyer mentioned that the ABC had for some time been devoting considerable attention to special programs directed at migrants. He made reference to English for New Australians, New Australians Program and Happy to Know You, which were broadcast regularly on regional stations.

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Boyer also listed plays and features aimed specifically at assisting in the assimilation process. The list included I Survived the Gas Chamber, The Samuels in which consideration was given to some of the special problems of a Jewish family, The Capellis which gave a picture of some new arrivals from Italy and Postscript to Jubilee in which problems of new arrivals were considered and a plea made by politician Billy Hughes for sympathetic consideration of these problems.

Boyer mentioned other pending broadcasts, which portrayed a picture of Australia or explained migrants’ problems to the Australian-born. He assured Heyes that he would be pleased to be of any possible assistance.

A further initiative was centred on encouraging native Australian children listeners to help migrant children settle. In 1952 Gretel Comes Home was introduced, based on the story of a Central European child settling in Australia. The listener was encouraged to display a helpful attitude towards new arrivals. Many children responded by sending in letters describing how they had made friends with migrant children and some of these were broadcast during the session. Information about the lives of children in other lands was further represented in a series of talks while a number of serials and talk series were devoted to various aspects of Australian life. They included The Outback Forty Years Ago and Before the White Man Came.

National leaders largely supported ABC programs directed towards new settlers. In 1952, Prime Minister Robert Menzies received a letter from the Victorian Premier, J.H. McDonald, containing a resolution passed by the Women’s Section of the Country Party of Victoria calling for the elimination of English for New Australians from ABC radio. Menzies opposed the resolution pointing out that a great deal of emphasis had been placed on the learning of English skills for migrants and the implementation of this policy had enjoyed the wholehearted support of all sections of the community.

The ABC further assisted the Federal Government in its massive 1955 national campaign to publicise the arrival of the millionth post-war migrant, English born Mrs Barbara Porritt. Liberal Immigration Minister Harold Holt took the opportunity to speak favourably to listeners about the building of Australia through immigration. After the celebrations, the Minister also wrote to the ABC for what he considered the, “valuable and efficient co-operation of the ABC in helping to make a success of publicity arrangements on the arrival of the millionth post-war migrant”.

In 1957, Boyer remarked that he had been given an unusual degree of freedom in managing an opinion-forming medium as powerful as the ABC. Boyer’s view was supported by that of Sir John Medley, a former ABC Executive, who recalled in the 1960s that Boyer at the ABC felt he was in charge of one of the remaining enclaves of freedom. Medley added that Boyer was consistently ready to resist any attempt by governments or groups to erode its charter. Prime Ministers Chifley and Menzies, however, were both disposed to leave the ABC to operate quite independently. Each made it a practice to answer questions in Parliament reminding members that the ABC was an independent body.

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By the end of the 1950s, television provided additional means of providing education for new citizens. Boyer, however, still saw radio as an educative force of immense significance. In 1960, he stated that radio broadcasts to teach migrants English would be extended to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. He believed that he was justified in the belief that one of the greatest services that Australian could provide for emerging nations to the immediate north of Australia was to pass onto them the English language. “Not only in our mother tongue the key to the riches of wisdom and tolerance which we believe to lie in our own inheritance” (sic), he said, “but there appear to be good prospects that English may become the lingua franca of the human family”.

Undoubtedly from the perspective of a government institution, the ABC under Boyer had several advantages in promoting the government’s post-war immigration policy and substantially contributing to the settlement of new arrivals from a diversity of cultural backgrounds.  It was only 13-years-old at the war’s end and had a charter that gave it a high level of independence. As a purely Commonwealth conception, the ABC had little trouble liaising with national leaders and federal departments in pursuing its policy, and harmony among the ABC ranks was evident. Bipartisan agreement contributed to the ABC’s quest to be an educator of migrants, limiting potential interference and providing cohesion of policy.

The paradox for the ABC was that radio needed to strike a balance between town and country, and ABC independence could not be taken for granted. Nevertheless, radio represented for Boyer something of a tool for good or evil. In his able hands, supported by the educative and informative precepts of the ABC charter, ABC radio served as a liberating force in Australian society for migrants and Australian-born alike in a turbulent post-war Australia. As Australians today gear up for the largest intake of migrants in decades and global conflict is a major concern, ABC executives and national leaders in Canberra could learn a good lesson from Boyer’s initiatives, able leadership, foresight and pursuit of not only national but also global peace. 

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About the Author

Patricia Jenkings is a former political advisor. She has a PhD from the University of Sydney in social policy studies and education.

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