The Head Of The ABC Shook Off The Haters By Quoting Taylor Swift In A Senate Estimates Hearing Yesterday

The government’s cuts to the ABC have been a rolling carnival of ideological nastiness, needless job losses and, in general, just a fairly horrendous spectacle to watch. Most recently, the network has recorded 241 redundancies, up to 140 of which were selected in a process nicknamed “The Hunger Games” because of how it allegedly pitted staff against each other to snatch one of the few jobs on offer.

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott fronted a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra yesterday and updated Senators on the news, and report that not many more redundancies are expected as the culling process has almost run its course. That’s good news in the way that, if your face fell off, you wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining a vigorous skincare regimen anymore, but we’ll take what we can get at this point.

The only real bright spot of the afternoon came when Nationals Senator Matthew Canavan, who you have almost certainly just heard of for the first time in your life, asked Scott a pretty obvious question on his opinion of “the Taylor Swift controversy,” and his response was both brilliant and probably the entire ABC’s default reaction to anything the government does now.

APT.

If you want to be a killjoy you could probably argue that public servants quoting T-Swizzle at each other in Senate estimates is a waste of time, but considering the behaviour other Coalition Senators displayed during a different inquiry yesterday, you could probably forgive Scott and Canavan for having a good time. The estimates inquiry into the Human Rights Commission’s Forgotten Children report was chaired by Coalition Senator Ian “Mining Jacket” MacDonald, who openly admitted he “hadn’t bothered to read” the report because he assumed it would be biased, while Senator Barry O’Sullivan interrupted an answer from HRC President Gillian Triggs because he thought MacDonald “might like to hear a man’s voice”.

surprised to learn that many of you had foolishly assumed senator ian macdonald knows how to read — eleanor robertson (@marrowing) February 24, 2015

It’s always nice when born-to-rule types like MacDonald and O’Sullivan display the contempt they hold the rest of us in so openly. It makes it easier to hold back the tears that the nation would otherwise shed when they get booted out. Haters gonna hate, hate, hate.

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CORRECTION: This article originally stated that the ABC’s 241 redundancies were entirely the result of the pool process — more than 100 of those redundancies were direct and not the result of a pool selection. It also named Mark Scott as the Chief Operating Officer of the ABC. Mark Scott is the ABC’s Managing Director.