Rita Panahi: ABC’s overt activism for the Yes vote is shameless

When it comes to covering the Voice and the antics of Lidia Thorpe, the public broadcaster fails daily, indeed hourly, to be fair and balanced.

The ABC is again making a mockery of its charter and legal obligation to be impartial. It’s one thing for the Guardian or The Age or just about any other media outlet to relentlessly push a left-wing agenda – including supporting the race-based referendum – given they are not government funded nor obligated to be neutral.

The ABC does have a legal obligation and yet it fails daily, indeed hourly, to be fair and balanced.

And, just like other media outlets, it continues to blur the lines between opinion and news.

The taxpayer goliath’s overt activism for the Yes vote in the referendum is shameless even by its standards.

And it comes after the bloated broadcaster took the extraordinary step of holding an impartiality training session to remind its journalists of their obligations when reporting on the Voice and the need to “not unduly favour one perspective over another”.

The ABC is making a mockery of its charter and legal obligation to be impartial.

Staff were also reminded that “the ABC takes no editorial stance other than its commitment to fundamental democratic principles including the rule of law, freedom of speech and religion, parliamentary democracy and equality of opportunity”.

Well, what a wasted endeavour that was. In typical ABC style a session supposedly devoted to warning staff about the importance of being unbiased was run in part by an activist with a history of tweeting support for Lidia Thorpe. You can’t get more balanced and mainstream than that!

Despite having 4000 staff, hundreds of shows across a number of TV stations and radio networks plus a massively staffed website, the ABC does not have a single conservative presenter employed in a key position.

And, it shows in everything it does. Just have a look at the “Indigenous Voice to Parliament – Everything you need to know” explainer, which is roughly eight minutes of pro-Voice propaganda that could have been put together by Anthony Albanese’s office.

The impartiality training session was run in part by an activist with a history of tweeting support for Lidia Thorpe. Picture: Gary Ramage

In the video, political reporter Dana Morse claims that even if the referendum succeeds, the parliament will still write the laws on it.

That seems to be somewhat at odds with various learned legal experts including some who back the Voice. Constitutional law professor and Voice advocate George Williams has explained: “That’s the point of putting things in the Constitution, it puts them beyond the parliament.”

In the video, the activist, err, I mean the journalist, also claims that the Voice, aka the race-based advisory body, would not have the power to stop policies and laws from being implemented, and any advice it gave could be ignored.

Again, that is very much disputed by leading legal minds including former High Court judge Ian Callinan.

The ABC does not have a single conservative presenter employed in a key position. Picture: AFP

And this week we heard from former Supreme Court judge Nicholas Hasluck, KC, who warned: “In many cases the approval of the advisory body will have to be obtained before a Bill can be enacted”.

In his submission to the joint select committee inquiry into the Voice he also wrote the Constitutional change “would be a profound and essentially irreversible change to the structure of government by vesting an influential advisory privilege in a section of the community defined by race” and “as a matter of principle, the Voice should be rejected on the grounds that our democracy is built on the foundation of all Australian citizens having equal civic rights”.

Isn’t it curious that the ABC with its vast resources could not bring itself to adequately cover Senator Lidia Thorpe’s latest unhinged antics outside a suburban strip club?

It wasn’t until days later when the Prime Minister weighed into the issue that we started seeing some coverage on the ABC’s digital platforms. Now that Thorpe has released a formal statement claiming victimhood we may see some coverage.

The ABC initially could not bring itself to adequately cover Thorpe’s strip club outburst. Picture: 7 News

On Thursday the Australia-hating firebrand claimed she was “provoked and stood up for myself” and that she “can’t go out” without being harassed by racists.

Thorpe also claimed there was “a history of white men in power using the media to attack and demonise Blak people that stand up to racism. They did the same thing to Adam Goodes and Heritier Lumumba.”

To give Thorpe some credit she is at least honest about the desire to strike a treaty. That is precisely what will follow if the Yes vote prevails. After the Voice we will have a so-called “truth telling” then a treaty.

It’s been a tough week for the former Green who even copped criticism from her own father, who labelled the 49-year-old a “racist”.

Roy Illingworth told The Bolt Report on Sky News: “The way I see it, the way she is and the way she’s changed over the years, she’s a very racist person. She doesn’t acknowledge any of her white side.

“I’m a bit disappointed in the way she’s been carrying on lately. Because, after all, she does have English background as well as Irish – the convict side of the English.”