ABC in hot water over Kamala Harris blunder

ABC Brisbane is under fire after posting — then swiftly deleting — a video they said was of Kamala Harris in Queensland.

ABC Brisbane is facing backlash after posting a social media video on Monday morning misidentifying a woman as former US Vice President Kamala Harris.

The now-deleted Instagram clip showed a woman exiting the Gold Coast Convention Centre with a string of bags, a large name tag, and no visible security detail. The caption, however, confidently stated the footage featured “aerial shots” of Harris leaving a national conference where she had addressed a crowd of nearly 5000 people.

The post quoted Harris on the importance of learning from history, including: “It’s important that we remember the 1930s … that isolation does not equal insulation.”

A social media clip posted by ABC Brisbane misidentified a member of Kamala Harris’s entourage as the former US Vice President, sparking online confusion before the video was quietly replaced.

But viewers were quick to spot the error.

“That’s not Kamala,” several users pointed out in the comments.

Insiders have speculated the woman shown was likely a member of Harris’s team, possibly her assistant, who was exiting the venue moments before Harris herself.

It’s believed the original footage showed both women arriving, but the clip was trimmed in a way that mistakenly identified the first woman as Ms Harris.

Former US Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris attends the 2025 AREC Convention at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre on Sunday. Picture: NewsWire / Social Focus

ABC removed the post 25 minutes later, uploading a different video that showed Harris arriving shortly after, flanked by a visible security detail.

She was among the headline speakers at Sunday’s Australian Real Estate Conference (AREC), which also featured international names like Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett and Buying Beverly Hills star Mauricio Umansky.

ABC has since issued a correction, publishing a statement hours after the post went live in the “Corrections and Clarifications” section of its website.

“A social media post published on the ABC Brisbane Instagram page on Monday 26 May incorrectly identified a person leaving The Australian Real Estate Conference being held on the Gold Coast as former US Vice President Kamala Harris,” the statement read.

“While Ms Harris was in attendance at the conference, the image that was included in the post was of another person. The post has since been removed.”

The Courier-Mail contacted the ABC for further clarification on how the error occurred. A spokesperson directed inquiries to the statement published on the broadcaster’s Corrections and Clarifications page.

Originally published as ABC in hot water over Kamala Harris blunder