The transcript for the May 2013 post-budget Senate Estimates suggest that the ABC Managing Director Mark Scott had a pretty unpleasant experience, and he had some difficulty containing his anger. Senator Abletz chewed him like a wind-up dog, but he may have found a nasty chink in the ABC’s much vaunted integrity. And Scott had to explain the hole created by the loss of the BBC contract.
In Senate Estimates, Stephen Conroy as Minister baits the opposition, Abetz and Birmingham do the Right-Wing Rag, Ludlum and Singh hoist the states rights flag, and the chair, Labor Senator Doug Cameron occasionally hoses down the combatants. The victims are the hapless public servants, who are not supposed to fang everyone, and have only two tactics – pass the burning question to an underling, or take it on notice.
