Want just a microcosm of the damage that’s been done to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation by having the likes of former Newcorpse junkies Ita Butrose and Kim Williams in charge?

Let’s dissect ABC TV’s Queensland lead yarn at 7pm last night: the Albanese government’s announcement to increase the income caps on its help-to-buy shared equity housing scheme.

Newsreader Lexy Hamilton-Smith eases us in with mention of Labor’s improved scheme and that it’s the Albanese government’s signature policy for young people as the election debate gathers pace.

Cue reporter Oliver Caisley’s take on this government announcement. “Suiting up for the election campaign…” she begins and what follows is more than 30 seconds of vision and comment from … you’ll ever guess who … Peter Dutton promoting an LNP plan to spend $35 million to upgrade two regional airports in two Tassie electorates the Coalition needs to win!

Surely the improved shared equity help-to-buy promises from Labor has to come next?

Caisley carries on with “Labor with a promise of its own…” and minister Ed Husic gets a short run about Labor’s promise to spend $49 million on building pre-fab housing that our reporter describes as “trying to spark voter interest”. Our guess is that the ABC rarely if ever describes Dutton as a try-hard.

A good minute into her report Caisley finally gets to the lead item, and the screen then shows the increased caps for how much singles and couples can earn to still be eligible for the shared-equity scheme. Useful information indeed, even if the bitter, twisted, old hacks who compile this column suspect that Aunty’s ageing viewership has probably nodded off by now. Something Caisley and her booth editors cunningly planned for?

Still, we’ve surely had enough of What Dutton Says, right! NO! We’re back to Dutton declaring “the Albanese government has created this housing crisis by bringing a million people in!” Nice little piece of dog-whistling there. That should give racist voters leaning towards Trumpet of Patriots something to think about!

Caisley (above, right) then declares that Labor’s shared-equity improvements have been “welcomed by industry experts but with a warning…” A voice then adds: “tinkering at the edges”.

We then have comments from those two experts, and neither of them uses the phrase “tinkering at the edges”. We’re not 100 per cent sure but we think Caisley utters those words before the experts each have their spray. No attribution. An LNP talking point perhaps?

We suspect there’s not one of you BUGgers out there who would consider this lead report on the ABC news last night to be fair and balanced in any way, shape or form. Or put another way, if this had been a Dutton policy announcement, do any of you think Albanese would have been given such a strong and dominating run?

The MGH notes that Nine News Queensland an hour earlier presented the Labor announcement the right way. It was the ALP’s promise and that was the news. Peter Dutton and what he had to say were put in their place.

And when Nine News comes across as professional and balanced (our compilers are still in shock) and makes the ABC look fixated with “What Dutton Says”, you know Aunty’s been dreadfully damaged over recent years.

And that’s probably exactly what Buttrose and Williams have wanted all along. Chip away at the ABC’s reputation; make fair-minded Australians tire of its performance and support it less and less. And then one day, an LNP government can flog it off, most likely to the Murdochs, with limited political damage. It took a while but job done.

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