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Morrison government asks ABC to please explain controversial Four Corners episode
By Lisa Visentin and Zoe Samios
The ABC is preparing to fire back at Federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher after he asked board chair Ita Buttrose to explain how a recent Four Corners episode exposing alleged affairs and inappropriate behaviour between ministers and staffers was in the public interest.
In a letter to Ms Buttrose, Mr Fletcher posed 15 questions to the ABC board requesting an explanation within 14 days as to how the episode complied with the ABC's code of practice and its statutory obligations to provide accurate and impartial journalism.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has asked the chair of the ABC board, Ita Buttrose, to explain a controversial Four Corners episode.Credit: SMH
ABC sources said the broadcaster is considering a response to what it believes is a further attack on its independence, after the letter posed questions including "Why, in the judgement of the Board, are the personal lives of politicians newsworthy?"
The Four Corners episode titled "Inside the Canberra Bubble", which aired on November 9, detailed allegations of inappropriate conduct and extramarital affairs by Attorney-General Christian Porter and Population Minister Alan Tudge with female ministerial staffers.
ABC sources said Mr Fletcher's decision to publicly release the letter, which he tweeted on Tuesday morning, coincided with the ABC board holding their final meeting for the year.
In an interview on ABC radio on Tuesday evening, Mr Fletcher said one of his senior advisers contacted an ABC board member about the episode before it went to air, but rejected that it was an attempt to lobby the board about the program.
"There was a conversation about it and there's nothing irregular about that," Mr Fletcher said.
"My senior staff, as do I, speak very regularly with directors and senior executives of the ABC and other media organisations."
The strained relationship between the government and the public broadcaster comes as Mr Fletcher is expected to soon announce two new ABC board members to fill vacancies created by deputy chair Kirstin Ferguson and Donny Walford, whose terms finished last month.
The Four Corners episode featured former staffer Rachelle Miller revealing an affair she had had with Mr Tudge in 2017 while working as his media adviser. Mr Tudge responded to the report by expressing regret at the hurt he caused his family and Ms Miller.
The episode also aired allegations Mr Porter had been seen by witnesses "cuddling and kissing" a female Liberal staffer at Public Bar in Canberra. It also alleged one witness was a public servant who used a journalist's phone to photograph the incident.
Mr Porter has denied the allegations in the episode.
In the letter, Mr Fletcher claimed the woman at the centre of the alleged relationship with Mr Porter had also denied the allegations and questioned why the ABC had failed to report this.
He also questioned why the ABC relied on statements from Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young to corroborate allegations against Mr Porter, and accused the broadcaster of failing to disclose the "strong political affiliations" of industrial relations lawyer Josh Bornstein and former Labor candidate Jo Dyer, who were interviewed for the program.
"How is it consistent with the duty of impartiality that the mix of those interviewed for the program was overwhelmingly weighted towards those either politically hostile towards the Liberal Party or personally hostile towards or motived by animus against the Ministers," Mr Fletcher wrote.
Mr Bornstein, a principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn who regularly represents the union movement, provided comments on the role of the federal attorney-general in broad terms, which he said should be "above reproach". Ms Dyer reflected on meeting Mr Porter in 1986, when they were both champion school debaters, describing him as having an "air of entitlement" and an "assuredness that's perhaps born of privilege".
The ABC has been contacted for comment.
The letter follows a speech given by Ms Buttrose to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation days after the episode aired defending the broadcaster's role in public interest journalism. Her speech did not reference the episode but attacked as "malicious garbage" claims by critics that ABC journalists "run agendas and campaign against private enterprise".
Separately, ABC board member Joseph Gersh addressed criticism of the episode in an opinion piece in The Australian last month, saying he accepted it made some people "uncomfortable" but to "demand intervention by the ABC board is misconceived".
Hours before the episode aired ABC managing director David Anderson told a Senate estimates hearing he had been contacted by federal ministerial staffers about the integrity of the episode, which he said was "problematic".
Four Corners executive producer Sally Neighbour tweeted ahead of the episode's airing that the "political pressure applied to the ABC behind the scenes over this story has been extreme and unrelenting".
Government intervention is a particular sore point for the broadcaster. Former ABC chair Justin Milne said in 2018 that managing director Michelle Guthrie had been sacked because the board wanted a different "leadership style" and had concerns about her poor relationship with the federal government.
Mr Milne later resigned amid allegations he encouraged Ms Guthrie to sack high-profile presenter Emma Alberici following a complaint from then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Labor's communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland tweeted the letter was "yet another tactic of intimidation by the Morrison government towards the ABC".