ABC chair Milne, MD Guthrie split over its future, ties ‘frosty’

A damaging rift has developed between ABC chairman Justin Milne and managing director Michelle Guthrie.

Michelle Guthrie and Justin Milne.

A damaging rift has developed between ABC chairman Justin Milne and managing director ­Michelle Guthrie over the future of the ABC.

The pair have clashed over a number of key projects and how to deal with a hostile Coalition government as the ABC prepares its case for its next round of three-year funding, its triennial budget.

A number of executive sources inside and outside the ABC say there is little contact between the two executives, and that Mr Milne is more frequently in contact with other ABC executives. Spokespeople for both Ms Guthrie, who became the ABC’s first female managing director in May 2016 after she was appointed to a five-year term by previous chairman James Spigelman, and Mr Milne, an NBN board member and former Telstra executive appointed chairman in March 2017 by the government, yesterday declined to comment about a number of specific issues.

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The Australian spoke to a number of current and former ABC and industry executives who requested anonymity. Some regard Ms Guthrie as lacking some skills needed to run the national broadcaster and not being an effective lobbyist in Canberra, while others say Mr Milne was too close to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and criticised him for lobbying politicians in Canberra directly and dealing directly with ABC executives.

One ABC executive said the relationship between the pair was known to be “frosty”.

The Australian has been told flashpoints include two key initiatives of the chairman, the ABC Annual Public Meeting, held in February, and July’s announcement of Project Jetstream, a multimillion-dollar idea designed to provide a digital infrastructure base for the ABC decades into the future when broadcast television shuts down. Both Mr Milne and Ms Guthrie declined to comment on specific questions about both these instances.

One source told The Australian that Ms Guthrie was left “furious” when this paper published an interview with Mr Milne about the technology project, which would require millions of dollars in special government funds, as she was unaware the article was going to be published.

In July, Mr Milne gave some details about Project Jetstream at an American Chamber of Commerce function in Sydney, and followed up with an interview with The Australian about Project Jetstream, a plan to build a giant digital database to house all ABC content.

The “giant iView” would expand to house digital collections of government museums and galleries and archives.

“The technology is all around,” Mr Milne said back in July.

“We just need to implement it; we don’t need to invent anything. This is not rocket science. It’s a big project and we are putting it on the agenda. It will be expensive, it will take time, three or four years. It is something Australia has to do now.”

Mr Milne said the ABC would “wither away and cease to exist” if it was barred from digital platforms. He said the project would take a year to refine and would not be presented to government before the next federal election.

The following week, The Australian approached Ms Guthrie for comment about the project, but the request was declined.

Ms Guthrie and other executives believe the ABC’s priority should be to attempt to reverse the government’s surprise ABC budget indexation funding freeze, which will cost it $84 million over three years from July, rather than launch the long-term technology project.

“They just want him to shut up about Jetstream. It is not going to happen,” one industry source said.

The ABC’s triennial funding, the three-year, $3bn budget that comes into effect next financial year, must be negotiated during spring and summer and announced in the next budget, although that timetable could be upset by next year’s federal ­election.

Another clash between the ABC bosses was over the inaugural Annual Public Meeting in February, a pet project of Mr Milne’s which Ms Guthrie was persuaded to stage.

Sources say both disagreed about the form and content of the meeting, which was designed to showcase the breadth and scope of ABC activities to its audience.

A more recent issue has been the ABC’s budget strain, which has led to the delay of four additional episodes to Four Corners, and a delay until next year of the second funding round of Ms Guthrie’s pet project, a contestable funding pool known as the Great Ideas Grant.

Government relations has been another source of friction.

Some ABC executives felt Mr Milne, a long-time friend of Mr Turnbull’s, was “too close to Canberra”. On several occasions Mr Milne is said to have travelled to Canberra on lobbying trips without the knowledge of his managing director, although he is a member of other boards, including the NBN.

The ABC under Ms Guthrie has had a difficult relationship with the Coalition government after a series of stories prompted complaints from the government, which was once again underlined last week by a report by political editor Andrew Probyn about alleged conversations between media proprietors Kerry Stokes and Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of The Australian’s publisher News Corp.

But the ABC had a victory in parliament last week when three bills it says represent an unwarranted curb on its activities were taken off the legislative schedule.

The three bills were designed to force the ABC to reveal the salaries of its highest paid employees, and oblige the ABC to meet requirements to be fair and balanced as well as meet rural and regional obligations.

Independent senators Derryn Hinch and Tim Storer, as well as Centre Alliance senators Stirling Griff and Rex Patrick, refused to support the bills. The Greens and Labor are already opposed.

The government was forced to withdraw the bills.