There are bigger issues, too, and former ABC chairman Justin Milne’s resignation amid the “firestorm” he created has completely failed to provide the “release valve” that he hoped for.

Instead it left the remaining board members compromised and undermined faith in the impartiality of the national broadcaster — the very thing he sacked managing director Michelle Guthrie for at the beginning of the week.

In the middle of the mix is former PM Malcolm Turnbull, whose influence over the publicly funded boardrooms of Australia has been underscored by the slow-moving car crash at the ABC.

In New York Turnbull said he had “never called for anybody to be fired” and maintained that his “concern has been on the accuracy and impartiality of news reporting”. Milne (below) has been firm friends with him since his time as managing director of Turnbull’s OzEmail internet start-up which he sold for $520 million.

With Milne on the ABC board is Vanessa Guthrie, chair of the Minerals Council of Australia, who was not nominated by an independent panel but parachuted in as Turnbull’s captain’s pick.

Milne was appointed to the NBN board when Turnbull was communications minister and has been criticised because another company he chairs, NetComm Wireless, supplies equipment to the NBN.

Together with him on the NBN board is Drew Clarke, who was Turnbull’s chief of staff during his time as prime minister, and Kerry Schott, who worked for Turnbull’s investment company Whitlam Turnbull in the 1980s.

Together they also maintain Turnbull’s influence over Australia’s energy price and policy with Schott chair of the Energy Security Board, and Clarke chair of the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Schott was quick to publicly defend Milne this week together with Turnbull’s old chum Ziggy Switkowski, who also happens to sit on the NBN board and the Tabcorp board with Milne.

Australian Shareholders Association CEO Judith Fox says the links show the old boys’ club is still in action. “It is all interconnected and this shows that they still tend to reach out to people they know and know what they are getting,” she says.

But she says what they got with Milne was a chairman who had “no place telling a managing director who to hire and fire”.

Fox says his actions breached the basic rules of governance and damaged the independence of the ABC.

In response, Milne said: “When there is an issue of editorial independence and accuracy, it is appropriate for the chair to be involved.”

Milne started the week as a hero. Veteran Four Corners journalist Sally Neighbour tweeted his sacking of the unpopular Guthrie was an “excellent decision”.

However Guthrie did not go quietly. She took with her, to her final ABC board meeting as managing director, documents containing texts and details of phone calls from Milne. They leaked out days later, after she was sacked.

Milne sent her a text telling her to fire economics correspondent Emma Alberici and told her to “shoot” political editor Andrew Probyn following “white rage” phone calls and meetings from Turnbull.

But Milne said he could not recall telling her to “shoot” Probyn. “I don’t remember saying that at all — but what I certainly would have done is had a conversation with not only Michelle but other members of the leadership team about what I’ll call the ‘Probyn issue’,” he said.

The chairman also tried to defend himself by saying the text was taken out of context. But when the full message was aired the context appeared to be that he had two glasses of red wine before sending it.

“After two glasses of red of course there’s an agenda. They fricken hate her. She keeps sticking it to them with a clear bias against them. We clear her as OK. We are tarred with her brush. I just think it’s simple. Get rid of her. My view is we need to save the corporation not Emma. There is no g’tee (guarantee) they will lose the next election,” he wrote.

Milne was right in that Alberici’s report was inaccurate, it needed to be corrected and refiled, and Probyn has been censured for bias. Corporate governance experts say the problem was that it was Guthrie’s job as managing director to sort that out, not his.

Part of Alberici’s report featured company MYOB which Milne also chairs.

“I don’t think someone should be making recommendations on something if they have a conflict of interest or at least have an appearance of a conflict of interest,” Alberici said.

Executive director of The Australia Institute, Ben Oquist, says the real concern was the impartiality of the ABC board. They knew about Milne’s calls for Alberici and Probyn to be sacked and had seen no problem with that — instead endorsing the axing of Guthrie.

“Wherever we have a board appointment process that is not totally independent, then the board gets filled with friends and colleagues of the current government,” he says.

It has been a disastrous week for Aunty. The inquiry announced by Communications Minister Mitch Fifield and run by department secretary Mike Mrdak will now have its work cut out to restore community confidence in the impartiality of the ABC.