Mike O’Connor: $130k tweet storm shows there is no more doubt that the ABC exists in a parallel universe

One tweet has proven once and for all that the ABC now exists in a parallel universe. It’s only a matter of time before the funding tap is turned off, writes Mike O’Connor.

If there was ever any doubt that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation now exists in a parallel universe, it has been swept away by the Commonwealth auditor-general.

Investigating a decision by ABC management to pay $130,000 in legal costs and damages awarded against staff member Louise Milligan for a defamatory tweet she had made, Auditor-General Grant Hehir found that there was “no documented advice … prepared to support the appropriateness of the decision to meet the costs of an employee”.

In other words, someone decided that it was a good idea to burn $130,000 of taxpayer funds on behalf of an employee when there was absolutely no appropriate reason for it to do so.

The ABC did not publish the tweet. Milligan did, yet the ABC paid. The individual defamed by the tweet, Federal MP Dr Laming, had asked Milligan to delete it and apologise. The chances are that at this stage, the issue could have been defused, but Milligan refused to apologise and so we picked up the tab.

It is only a few months since under questioning by the senate, the ABC was forced to reveal that legal action taken by former Attorney-General Christian Porter against it and Milligan had cost it $780,000.

While all this was taking place, ABC managing director David Anderson was enjoying a 10 per cent pay rise, which boosted his salary to $1.098m, while chairwoman Ita Buttrose had to struggle by on $195,000.

ABC Journalist Louise Milligan refused to apologise for her tweet and so we picked up the tab. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Sadly, Ms Buttrose has been a profound disappointment to those who had hoped she would have the courage to subject the ABC to desperately needed corporate and editorial discipline.

Belatedly, she has ordered an ­external review of the corporation’s Audience and Consumer Affairs Investigation Unit, but only after ongoing claims that complaints made against the ABC were routinely dismissed. It investigates itself and finds – surprise, surprise – that all is sweetness and light.

In recent months, Four Corners screened Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire series. It took an external review, only commissioned after an outcry, to find that the series wrongly implied that former NSW premier Neville Wran was linked to corrupt activity.

Complaints were made to the Audience and Consumers Affairs unit and the program faced accusations of sloppy journalism and lazy research, but no ­action was taken.

David Hill, a one-time ABC managing director and chair who has been among the critics of the complaints-handling process, said the review was essential because the complaints process that followed the airing of Ghost Train was “deeply flawed”.

Then there was the two-part TV series Juanita Nielsen: A Family Mystery – removed from the ABC website after serious doubts emerged surrounding the accuracy of material it contained.

When I was learning this trade as a young, moustachioed, safari suit-wearing newspaper reporter – yes it’s true – the ABC represented the gold standard of journalism.

Balance was rigorously enforced and opinions were banned with the emphasis on hard news accurately reported – what happened, where did it happen and when did it happen?

If you heard it on the ABC, then you knew it was right.

It is sad that what was once the ­nation’s premier news-gathering organisation has now lost its way.

Climate change alarmism, doomsday projections, endless opinions parading as news and a perceived lack of impartiality are now its trademark.

ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose . Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Last year, it spent $11m on self-promotion. Staff levels rose from 4257 to 4377 and cost $156m in wages and ­entitlements, but it still found it ­necessary to spend $42.7m on external contractors.

We pay a little more than $1bn a year to keep it going and I don’t think we’re ­getting our money’s worth because it seems that no one is in charge.

If you are senior enough, you do what you like and when it all ends in tears, the ABC management turns up in court with a chequebook and pays the bills.

Ms Buttrose might have failed to ­impose her authority, but she only joins the list of those who have gone before her and similarly failed.

If the corporation maintains its ­present course of self-destruction, then a future government will have no choice but to turn off the funding tap and reconfigure it into a subscription service.

If you want to watch it, you pay a fee. Were this to happen tomorrow how many people, I wonder, would choose to do so?