No breach: ABC clears Four Corners over Last Post edit

The War Memorial said the ABC had portrayed construction noise occurring over the Last Post - which was either “insensitive” or designed to “deliberately mislead.” The ABC’s Ombudsman has ruled this was not the case.

The ABC has cleared Four Corners over its episode on the Australian War Memorial, finding the program “did not breach” the public broadcaster’s editorial standards.

A report released by the ABC Ombudsman on Wednesday night also ruled the March 10 feature “did not suggest that construction noise from the development site had disrupted a Last Post ceremony.”

It comes after The Daily Telegraph revealed the War Memorial had launched an official complaint, alleging Four Corners had wrongly portrayed building works on its $500 million expansion had occurred during the sacred daily ritual.

The Ombudsman noted that while the scene “does depict a Last Post ceremony, Four Corners has advised that the recording of the Last Post used as musical soundtrack for these four scenes was captured at another time entirely.”

“We think that Four Corners is correct that no reasonable viewer would interpret this series of scenes as a continuous sequence” the report reads.

Watch the footage and have your say:

The program has been the subject of major criticism this week, with former NSW Veterans Minister David Elliott accusing the public broadcaster of “manipulating footage to create a sense of drama using innuendo.” Shadow Veterans Affairs Minister Barnaby Joyce also called for “accountability.”

In strongly-worded comments, War Memorial Director Matt Anderson told this masthead: “at best, it was remarkably insensitive to all for whom the sounding of The Last Post is a most solemn act and tribute.

“At worst, it appears it was a deliberate edit to mislead the audience” Mr Anderson claimed.

The Ombudsman confirmed it had received seven content complaints from the episode, relating to impartiality, “out of context” information and failing to make reasonable efforts to offer a right of reply.

Responding to the findings - a spokeswoman for the public broadcaster said: “the ABC stands by this piece of public interest journalism by reporter Mark Willacy and the Four Corners team.”

Still images from the ABC's Four Corners Episode on March 10 , 2025 which was highly critical of the Australian War Memorial's expansion. Source: ABC,

The Ombudsman was established three years ago as a new independent avenue for audience complaints.

In the 2023-2024 financial year, the Ombudsman received more than 8,000 complaints relating to content. Only 77 were upheld, representing 2% of the total.

The ABC came under fire last year after it was revealed a report by the same reporter, Mr Willacy, had added extra gunshots to footage of a helicopter mission in Afghanistan, in a story alleging possible war crimes. A review of the saga found no evidence of any ABC employee deliberately adding gunshots to the frame.

The public broadcaster was also forced to delete several war crimes stories from the internet after being successfully sued by Australian war veteran Heston Russell in 2023.