ABC Chair pushes for a funding boost, urges renewal

RN Breakfast - Separate stories podcast

The ABC's new Chair, Kim Williams has begun a campaign to lobby Canberra for extra government funding, outlining his vision for the national broadcaster to be a "national campfire" that brings Australians together.He told RN Breakfast "democracy is fraying at the edges", and has urged a "much more vigorous style of engagement in fact-based exchange" in our discourse.The ABC Chair says Australians actually crave and love respectful debate and we need to see this structured into our public conversations in a much more robust way.Kim Williams says people to return to the ABC as a "safe-place" for a range of views, and perspectives freely exhibited and interrogated.

• Guest: Kim Williams, ABC Chair