ABC chair Kim Williams falls silent over Laura Tingle’s racism claim
Kim Williams, who pledged an unshakeable commitment to editorial impartiality, has gone to ground following Laura Tingle’s statement Australia is racist.
Kim Williams, who pledged an unshakeable commitment to editorial impartiality upon his appointment in March as the ABC chair, has gone to ground following high-profile journalist Laura Tingle’s statements that Australia is a racist county and Peter Dutton encourages the abuse of migrants.
Tingle, who also sits on the ABC board as a staff-elected director, told the Sydney Writers Festival: “We are a racist country, let’s face it. We always have been, and it’s very depressing.”
She proceeded to personally attack the Opposition Leader and the Coalition’s policies on migration, telling the audience that Mr Dutton’s stance on migration and housing issues had given them (migrants) licence to be abused, and in any circumstance where people feel like they’re missing out”.
Tingle said she didn’t recall any other leader of a major political party “saying … everything that is going wrong in this country is because of migrants”.
The Australian made multiple attempts to reach Mr Williams on Tuesday, given his recent comments about the ABC’s non-negotiable requirement for journalists at the taxpayer-funded broadcaster to observe impartiality. “If you don’t want to reflect a view that aspires to impartiality, don’t work at the ABC,” he said soon after becoming the chair.
“I really think this is a very serious issue. This is a publicly funded organisation, it is a publicly accountable organisation, it is a respondent to legislation to the national parliament and it must always aspire to be as fair-minded … as it possibly can be.”
On Tuesday, The Australian asked Mr Williams if he had spoken to Tingle about her comments at the SWF, and whether he thought they fell within the ABC’s editorial guidelines.
He was also asked whether he maintained his stated aspiration that “the ABC would have a freedom of bias” under his watch.
He didn’t respond, with ABC spokesman Nick Leys offering “no comment” on his behalf.
Tingle also failed to respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday night, her former ABC colleague Chris Uhlmann took issue with Tingle’s take on Mr Dutton’s budget reply speech, but refused to directly criticise her, saying “Laura can look after herself”.
“I went back and read Peter Dutton’s speech today; there’s nothing in it where he says he blames migrants for everything that’s going wrong in Australia,” Uhlmann said during an appearance on Peta Credlin’s program on Sky News Australia. “I think there are issues with racism in Australia but that doesn’t make us any different from any country on Earth,” Uhlmann said.
The ABC was further embarrassed on Tuesday when Mr Leys issued a media statement in response to The Australian’s exclusive story that revealed some ABC board members conducted emergency discussion among themselves on Monday. He said “reports of an emergency ABC board meeting are incorrect and baseless”, failing to realise the article never suggested a formal board meeting took place.
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