PARLIAMENT yesterday gave an offending snip of what the proposed media review bill could do to you - the taxpayer.

For barring the press from its hearing into the shenanigans at the SABC is tantamount to telling us we don't have to know how our hard-earned money is spent.

The SABC is a public broadcaster and any attempt to keep its affairs secret is like making someone pay for a car they are not allowed to drive.

Only lowlife sales people dabble in such practices.

Thanks to the South African Editors Forum. They immediately applied and got an interdict against the unsavoury bid to lock the press out of the hearings.

It is to this dark world the ANC is trying to drive us with its proposed bill.

After the many bail-outs the SABC received from the government, it is more than necessary for us to know what's happening at Dithering Heights.

Chief executive officers are now changed like underpants, while the undercurrents have put the foundations on far too shaky ground for far too long.

We are uncomfortable with so much expenditure in one place with little source for comfort. Only those with sinister motives have something to hide and it must be unpleasant to the public.

If that bill - it is giving the fourth estate nightmares - goes through it is bye-bye to a free press.

No less an ANC heavyweight than Pallo Jordan thinks it is uncalled for.

And, yes, we cannot be running to courts to tell you what you have to know.