Turnbull government submits two complaints to ABC over Emma Alberici
A WAR of words between the Turnbull government and the ABC has escalated after Malcolm Turnbull and a minister wrote separate complaints slamming a report by the broadcaster’s Emma Alberici.
NSW
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A WAR of words between the Turnbull government and the ABC has escalated after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield wrote separate complaints slamming a second report by the public broadcaster’s economics correspondent Emma Alberici.
In correspondence obtained by The Daily Telegraph, Senator Fifield wrote to ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie on May 9 complaining articles and broadcasts on the government’s innovation policy “contained a number of errors and omissions of fact”.
An ABC investigation into a separate story about company tax authored by Ms Alberici was last month found to have been riddled with errors, with several claims found to have been “highly implausible” and “potentially misleading”.
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“These errors and omissions — together with several others — left viewers and listeners with the impression that the Turnbull government is not committed to supporting innovation and that our approach is strongly criticised even by our own advisers. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Senator Fifield’s letter to Ms Guthrie reads.
In responding to the new complaints by Senator Fifield and Mr Turnbull’s office, Ms Guthrie wrote that the ABC’s news director Gaven Morris “agrees that the description that Dr Roy Green is advising the government is misleading”.
One analysis piece, published early last Friday, was updated at midday.
But an ABC spokeswoman today said an independent review process had investigated the complaint and “apart from one clarification, which was promptly acknowledged — that Dr Roy Green is not currently an adviser to the government — all aspects of the complaint were rejected”.
The Prime Minister’s Office had complained Dr Green — who was critical of the government’s innovation policy — was described as “one of the government’s own advisers” when he had only been “contracted by a Labor chaired and controlled Senate committee”.
Dr Green’s role on a number of Labor review panels and for the Gillard and Rudd governments was not acknowledged by Ms Alberici, the Prime Minister’s Office complaint alleged.
Ms Alberici also ignored $7.5 million in grants given to Carbon Revolution when citing the company as “an example of an innovative Australian business that deserves support”.
The government agrees, that’s why, so I am advised, the Prime Minister has twice visited Carbon Revolution with media present and the company has received a total of $7.5m in grant funding from the government,” Senator Fifield wrote in his complaint.
“Neither of these facts were included in the report.”
The ABC is due to front a Senate estimates hearing this evening.