Kevin Rudd's Labor won the 24 November, 2007 Federal Election.   Each leader's policy speech is filed here - I can't find any reference to promises about the ABC.   The ABC and ABC funding were not election issues.

On 2 October, 2007 the ABC filed its last Howard era Annual Report for the FY 2006/07. 

Here are the ABC's mission, vision and values, just prior to the Rudd election.

Distinctively Australian was the first of its Values.   In the Corporate Plan, Objective 1 was "Contribute to a sense of National Identity".   Objective 2 was about engaging with the audience, 3 was independence, and Objective 4 was "Provide Maximum Benefit to the people of Australia".

To summarise, in 2007, Australia had an ABC whose first object was to contribute to a sense of national identity, it did that through a value set that started with being "Distinctively Australian" with no hidden agendas, was creative and courageous, supportive of its staff and accountable to the Australian community.

Here is the same page from the most recent ABC report, October 2012.

"Distinctively Australian" has gone.   It's been replaced by the code-words "For All Australians".  

"For All Australians" means give the same emphasis, or importance to every culture, every religion, every other country and its sub-sets.   It's like making every word in a letter bold.   If everything's bold, nothing is bold.   If the ABC is not "Distinctively Australian" but is dedicated to enriching the lives of "All Australians" then equal emphasis can be given to the perspectives of any culture.

So many of the new ABC Values are clearly the result of ABC staff concerned with internal ABC issues.

Here are the current ABC Values stripped of their headings and fancy photos.  All of the following sentences are taken word for word from the Values - and no sentence has been omitted.  Let me know where their focus is - internal or outwardly focussed towards the people of Australia?

We work together willingly. We cooperate and share in the ABC’s challenges and successes.  We foster creativity and distinctiveness.  We encourage new thinking and strive to achieve quality in all that we do. We embrace diversity. We act with trustworthiness, honesty and fairness. We deliver on our commitments and are accountable. We treat our audiences and each other with consideration and dignity.

The word "audience" appears once and its on the same level with "each other" - we treat our audiences and each other with consideration and dignity.   Australia does not rate a mention at all,  but "we embrace diversity" does.

The current ABC sees its role as this.   To connect with audiences through distinctive content that informs, educates and entertains.

That doesn't sound like a good enough reason for taxpayers to part with more than $1 BN every year.

Why?

Why do we need an inward looking, self-perpetuating ABC that thinks its role is to connect with audience for the connection's sake.   And what is distinctive content that informs and educates?

If the ABC's role is not to be distinctively Australia, but to provide "distinctive content" for "all Australians", why do we need it?