ABC won’t take back Yes campaign footage despite admitting it made the wrong decision to hand it over

The public broadcaster has conceded it will not be rescinding video and audio footage it gave to the Yes campaign despite admitting it made the wrong decision to give it to them.

The ABC will not rescind video and audio content for the Yes campaign’s John Farnahm “Your the Voice” television ad due to commercial reasons, despite it admitting it made a mistake to provide the content in the first place.

The Liberal Party’s federal director Andrew Hirst wrote to the ABC last week asking what action the ABC was taking after it licensed the archival footage used in the two-minute Yes commercial.

The ABC later apologised for doing so and admitted it was a mistake.

Mr Hirst said in his letter to the ABC that it was a “matter of great significance and urgency” and the referendum proposal arguably “represents the biggest change to our Constitution in our history”.

“The granting of the license provides a benefit to one side of the referendum debate,” Mr Hirst said in correspondence to the ABC.

The ABC responded and told Mr Hirst that the footage – which includes 26 seconds of video and five seconds of audio – could not be removed despite the public broadcaster admitting it broke its own rules.

“The relevant contract does not provide the ABC with the ability to terminate the licence agreement in these circumstances,” the ABC said in a response to Mr Hirst.

“The decision to licence the content was an error and regrettable.

“Processes are being updated to ensure that the situation does not arise again.”

Farnham gave the green light to gift his hit song to the Yes campaign and he said in a statement that he hoped it “changes the lives of our First Nations people for the better”.

But opposition communications spokesman David Coleman said the ABC’s explanation that no action would be taken beyond the apology is “just not good enough”.

“For the ABC to effectively say ‘we can’t do anything about it’ just doesn’t stack up,” he said.

“The ABC has a decades-long policy of not providing its material for political advertisements.

“It must be nonpartisan at all times and must also be seen to be nonpartisan at all times, but in this case, the ABC is making no attempt to stop the usage of its material in the advertisement.”

No campaign leader Warren Mundine said it was a “stupid thing to do in the first place” and the Yes campaign should give the footage and audio back.

“The ABC have said it was wrong to do it so the decent thing for the Yes campaign to do would be to hand it back,” he said.

“This is the problem, there is this elitism, this arrogance in the way they (the Yes Campaign) talk about and treat people, that’s why their polling has gone down.

“Hand it back and get their money back and leave it at that.”

Mr Mundine also said the ABC had to improve their processes to ensure this error is not repeated.

“The ABC needs to clear up the way they do things … they need to get their admin together,” he said.

The ABC and the Yes campaign have both been contacted for comment.

Originally published as ABC won’t take back Yes campaign footage despite admitting it made the wrong decision to hand it over