Broadcasting from the backblocks - ABC run out of town
In the 1970s the ABC developed a policy of moving out of the city centre to the suburbs. In Adelaide the ABC abandoned a prime position in Hindmarsh Square in favour of a high rise tower dominating suburban Collinswood. Locals called it the Weet Bix packet.
The Melbourne headquarters were to go to the outer suburb of East Burwood. This was originally the location of the Tally Ho home for delinquent boys, but was now given over to horse agistment. In Sydney a site in French's Forest was under review.
The East Burwood site would feature acres of car parking for the staff. While this was popular with administrative and technical staff, program makers felt that working in a dormitory suburb would isolate them from the cultural, economic and political life of the nation.
Management was implacable. While nearly all of the ABC's commercial competition, and the SBS, were in the CBD or the inner suburbs, management rejected city and inner suburban sites.
Program staff began a long campaign against East Burwood. Noting that the site was formerly a home for bad boys the staff described the move as punishment. Badges were produced with the slogan "Tally Ho - We won't go". Staff not only wore the badges - they also pinned the badges to any correspondence dealing with the East Burwood proposal. A photograph of the paddock with a sign for horse agistment, with the Radio Australia building in the distant background, found its way onto the Melboure Age.
Purchase of the paddock was approved in 1974, but building progress was slow. By 1983 only Radio Australia, a comparatively small section of the ABC, had moved there. In 1983 the ABC had a new board, including a member elected by the staff, Tom Molomby. Molomby was a former president of the Staff Association in NSW.
The staff remained divided. Most technical and administrative staff favoured the move, program makers wanted ready access to people who would contribute to programs. The Staff Association, dominated numerically by administrative and technical staff, favoured the move. The role of the Staff Elected Director was to be critical here. Would he act as a puppet of the Staff Association?
Molomby wrote in his memoirs:
It was in my view a wholly impractical location from which to conduct radio in particular. Travelling time from there to the most frequently required locations for interviews and research would be enormous, and some outsiders would be reluctant to come so for for studio interviews..... I outlined my reservations briefly to the board and they agreed with me immediately. Staff in Melbourne who had bought houses near the proposed new site were aggrieved, but it seems to me that the only possible decision was in accordance with the operational interests of the organisation.
The view from the back of the bus
While the ABC Board had decided against East Burwood, the issue was not finalised. The Board had appointed a new Managing Director, and he had appointed a new team of senior executives who were in tune with the Board's thinking. The new management had selected an alternative site at Southbank, in the heart of Melbourne's new cultural precinct and on the fringe of the CBD.
However the new site required the approval of the federal parliament's Public Works Committee. The member for the electorate which included East Burwood was said to be a member of the committee, and he was reported to be strongly in favour of the Burwood site. It appeared that he might have been lobbied by ABC people who lived in the area.
Given that the Public Works Committee had shown interest in the East Burwood site, the new ABC management decided the committee should see both sites at first hand. They arranged to pick the committee members up at the Tullamarine Airport, and travel by minibus to Southbank After a brief inspection of the Southbank site they would move on to East Burwood.
By the time the committee left Southbank it was getting close to peak hour. After nearly an hour of chugging through traffic in a minibus to East Burwood, the committee was persuaded.
The Southbank building (above) was approved, and would house the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Radio Australia, State management and all of radio. At a later date large parts of television would also move there.
