In 1989 my wife and I left Canada for Australia and settled in Melbourne. She was Australian so it was left to me to fall in love with the cheeky friendliness of Aussies and Melbourne's cosmopolitan atmosphere. And the food: Melbourne's variety of international cuisine is unmatched anywhere in the world, including Paris and New York. Even better was the great innovation of BYO restaurants. At last we could bring a decent bottle of wine at bottle shop prices instead of being forced to drink overpriced rubbish we would normally never touch simply because it was the cheapest item on the wine list … and often enough cheapest meant that it cost more than both of our meals combined.

I also fell in love with Aussie Rules football. Here is a sport that outdoes all other sports combined, for the simple reason that it includes every possible sporting skill and accommodates all body types. The first footy match I attended was the 1989 grand final … how lucky was that?

One of my earliest delights was listening to Henry Blofeld rabbit on during Cricket matches. I never became a cricket fan, but his banter during the interminably dull patches was always hilariously idiosyncratic.

But best of all things Australian was SBS television. Here was the dream channel for my kind of person. The sort who has become utterly despised in recent times; that is, a person who is sustained by the arts, who enjoys learning from documentaries, and who especially loves foreign films. Where else in the world are you going to find films from every nation presented in the original language with intelligent subtitles? Not only that, but the subtitles are in easily readable yellow instead of indecipherable white. This is an innovation that remains uniquely Australian. And all this without being interrupted by commercials. In short, the SBS is unique in the entire world.

The other day, I got out a video of a French film I recorded ten years ago, with an introduction by David Stratton. Stratton's intros were never all that informative, but I knew he was largely responsible for obtaining the great films, and that his taste was impeccable. Thanks to him, I have a collection of rare, obscure films that are simply not available anywhere anymore.

When, in 1991, the SBS inaugurated block advertising between programs, I felt a shiver of anxiety for the future, but at least the commercial inanities didn't rape your mind before the program was finished. But when the SBS's board of directors let Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz go last year, I knew the golden age was all but over.

Looking back, my honeymoon with Australia was short lived. More or less concurrent with the beginning of the SBS's block advertising, was the election of the Kennett government in Victoria. From that point, the country began its slow descent into a privatised, user-pays fiefdom for privateers. But that was nothing compared to the Howard government's logical extension of Kennett's innovations to the point where Australia has now become a model for xenophobic philistinism.

Over these years of despair at the perversion of Australian culture by these corporate-pocketed vultures, I have clung to the SBS as if it were a lifeline to civilisation. "As long as the SBS exists," I was wont to say, "I will never leave Australia."

Now that is about to change. In six months or so, the SBS is will start shoving ads down our throats during programs. Just like all the other chump channels all over the world. When that happens, Australia will truly become a nation ruled by the lowest common denominator.

Along with the takeover of the ABC board of directors by right wing lunatics, the Howard Government will soon suck the life out of the SBS, one of Australia's crowning achievements. Make no mistake, it is the Howard Ethos that is responsible for this move. They who know the price of everything and the value of nothing will have finally conquered.

Regardless of whether I leave or not, I can honestly say that I no longer call Australia home.

For more on this cultural tragedy, read Ross Warneke's Debate needed on SBS ad changes.

-- Benoît Balz