ABC boss David Anderson refuses to disclose details of top staff salaries

Managing director David Anderson tells Senate estimates that he won’t disclose details of highly-paid staff at the public broadcaster.

ABC managing director David Anderson has refused to reveal the details of employees earning high salaries over $230,000 including any bonuses and allowances they receive.

Appearing at Senate estimates in Canberra on Tuesday, Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson requested that he disclose the pay of the public broadcaster’s most highly-paid staff including their base salary, performance pay and bonuses and other benefits and allowances including overtime.

“I don’t believe it’s appropriate that we provide the information that you seek,” Mr Anderson told the hearing.

“I think we are charged, both management and board with both running the ABC efficiently and effectively as possible, it is something we look at all the time.”

He referred Senator Henderson to the ABC’s annual report released last month and said, “As a Commonwealth entity we already provide the information that we are required to under the PGPA (Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013), that information is in our annual report,” he said.

“It does report by band the quantum that we have there.”

Mr Anderson said for some of the information Senator Henderson sought, he could refuse do so under the doctrine of public interest immunity – this means there may be grounds to claim immunity to produce information and documents publicly.

The British public broadcaster, the BBC, has published the names and salaries of its highest-paid stars.

The ABC’s latest annual report showed it paid $538m in employee benefits in the 2021-22 financial year, including $403m in salaries and wages, and $72m in superannuation benefits.

Mr Anderson referred to four grounds on which refused to disclose the specific details of highly-paid staff including the name and title of each ABC employee earning more than $230,000.

“Firstly the disclosure of names and titles of staff members would clearly identify those individuals and remuneration, so this personal information would be an unreasonable invasion of privacy for those affected individuals and goes beyond what is necessary to ensure the ABC is accountable for the expenditure of its taxpayer funds,” he said.

Mr Anderson, who has been at the helm since mid-2019, said it would put “on-air talent in precisely the situation the Privacy Act intends to guard against, as of which would unduly impinge on the privacy of individuals”.

He also said it could also cause, “unwarranted public criticism or targeted online abuse that may arise from the disclosure of individual staff members and salaries”.

Mr Anderson said the ABC was a member of the fourth estate and this means disclosing personal information of employees “should be assessed with additional degree of caution”.

He also told estimates, “the information requested is commercially sensitive and disclosure would damage the ABC’s commercial interests”.

“The ABC competes in the private sector for talent, that requested level of disclosure would give commercial competitors an unfair advantage as they would have full visibility of the ABC’s remuneration strategies and structures.”

The Senate committee will consider Mr Anderson’s public interest immunity claim at a later date.