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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: