John Howard faces becoming a victim of the history wars in a tussle between the ABC and SBS over access to television footage of the Liberal Government in action between 1996 and 2007, and of the lead-up to that long period in power.
Both the ABC and SBS have been working on a major series dealing with the Howard years, and the way that they changed Australia.
SBS, which conceived its project early last year, was looking to be first cab off the rank with a series, reaching back to the early 1980s, to be presented by Gary Sturgess, journalist, lawyer and documentary maker. But the ABC, which in April last year agreed to sell archival footage to the documentary, has suddenly decided to put close conditions on a sale conditions apparently designed to make sure that the SBS series is not screened before one the ABC is planning. This, people working on the SBS program say, has been made quite clear in negotiations, even if an ABC spokeswoman was pretending yesterday that the only obstacle was one of agreeing ''appropriate terms and conditions''.
These details were unspecified by the spokeswoman even after a request for elaboration and explanation. The conditions are said to be that SBS agree to the ABC broadcasting first, and that SBS can have only footage that the ABC series does not want.
The ABC intervention appears to have involved both the ABC board, which was directly approached on the issue after the ABC abruptly went back on its April 2007 deal in June, and the ABC managing director, Mark Scott.
Nick Torrens, co-producer of the Liberal Rule program sold to SBS, says that Frank Haines, his fellow producer, had negotiated a normal access and rights agreement with the ABC archive 16 months ago. Initially there had been enthusiasm about helping from the archive, in part because it was going to make significant money for the archive. Verbal arrangements were confirmed in writing with the ABC, and production planning had proceeded on the basis that identified known ABC archive footage some of which would have been ''pool'' footage taken by other stations could be used, in some cases replacing a need by the team to film material for itself.
But in the week before series editing started in June, the ABC archives rang to say it had been instructed not to supply footage. This was said to be after discussion with the ABC News and Current affairs division the division preparing an ABC documentary.
ABC management are said to have stalled and delayed answering questions about what was happening, and it was only on August 4, after appeals to the board, that Mr Scott wrote to deny that any agreement had ever been made, while holding out an ''appropriate'' agreement on conditions.
After questions directed to Mr Scott and the ABC, a spokeswoman said yesterday, ''The ABC is proud of its archival collections and generally endeavours to make this material available to most program makers. The ABC has indicated it is willing to consider the possibility of licensing material sought if appropriate terms and conditions can be agreed.''
She did not take up an invitation to comment on how the ABC saw itself in relation to being any sort of custodian of history, of whether it was right, in principle for a public broadcaster to play dog in a manger with another public broadcaster, and how the episode reflected on the approach of Mr Scott.
A number of observers have detected that the ABC is now taking a more aggressive and commercial approach to matters it regards as being within its copyright.
Mr Torrens, who said that his team was now scrabbling to find footage from commercial television archives, said yesterday that Australian public broadcasters had a mandate to act within the public interest.
''The ABC Archive is a public resource, publicly funded,'' Mr Torrens said. ''What justification could there be for the ABC to place an embargo on the use of the ABC Archive by an independent documentary producer and to reject as well the commercial opportunity of archive recoupment to the ABC?
''For us this is a clear and salutary reminder of Australia's new and commercially competitive public broadcasting environment. The implications for filmmakers, audiences and taxpayers of these decisions and events are dire and of great importance.''