ABC journalist Leigh Sales has doubled down on her argument over the length of the Uluru Statement from the Heart

Journalist Leigh Sales has doubled down on her move to direct ABC staff on how to refute any arguments that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is longer than one page.

ABC journalist Leigh Sales has doubled down on her decision to send all staff at the public broadcaster directions on how to quash any argument that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is longer than one page and she likened the furore over its length to the 2016 Mediscare campaign.

The former 7.30 host said that with her “seniority” and “weight of my profile”, that she should be explaining to colleagues about how to stamp out any “misinformation” including relating to the upcoming voice referendum.

Appearing on 2GB’s breakfast program on Monday morning, host Ben Fordham asked Sales, “Why are you sending around emails to all staff at the ABC about the voice to parliament?”

She replied: “One of our jobs at the ABC is to ensure that we get factually correct information out to the Australian public and as you would know on contentious issues you have people who come along and they will drop out things that aren’t accurate.

“One of those things is the idea that there’s some secret document that the Uluru Statement, as we’ve been presented as a one-page document, that that’s not all there is and there’s a secret 26-page document.

“I don’t think there’s anything inappropriate with telling ABC staff, ‘stick to the facts’ on both sides, the yes and no side.”

Last week The Australian revealed that the ABC’s editorial policy chief Mark Maley and Sales sent out a lengthy email to all staff at the public broadcaster and told them the Uluru Statement is a one-page document.

Sales provided staff with exact scripts on how to quash any arguments contrary to this.

Sky News host and columnist at The Australian, Peta Credlin, has repeatedly said the Uluru Statement is actually 26 pages only after she received a response to a Freedom of Information request from the National Indigenous Australian Agency showing it contained 26 pages.

Prominent voice architects including Professor Megan Davis had also previously publicly said the document is longer than one page.

Sales defended Prof Davis’s comments and said, “She clarified that and it was a poor choice of words that she used”.

Credlin told The Australian on Monday the ABC has no right “to decide what Australians can and can’t know about a critical change to the nation’s Constitution given their taxes pay for the ABC”.

But Sales said on Sydney radio that the other 25 pages of the Uluru Statement are, “of interest to people who want to understand the full context” but it’s “a separate thing” and she likened it to the Labor’s 2016 Mediscare campaign.

“It’s not some secret document that the government is going from that has actually been hidden from the Australian public,” she said on 2GB.

“Do you know what this reminds me of actually … Mediscare … the 2016 federal election campaign where the Labor Party claimed that the (Coalition) government had a secret agenda to privatise Medicare, there was no such thing and it’s similar to this.

“There’s not a secret out there to pay reparations or anything of that ilk, the Uluru Statement is the one-page document and it’s incumbent on the ABC to be factually accurate.”

Sales said the reasoning behind her sending out the edict to staff was after she had spent years dealing with misinformation in the media.

“I’ve spent so much of my career having to deal with misinformation and being criticised for doing so … I feel like it is part of my job and part of I guess the weight of my profile to actually take a stand for things like factual accuracy in debate,” she said.

“When I saw last week that this idea that there was a secret 26-page document starts to take hold as if it’s fact, I think someone of my seniority, it’s incumbent of me to say, ‘hang on a minute, this is not factually accurate’, we need to make sure out reporters are very crystal clear on that point.”

But the email is at odds with ABC Media Watch host Paul Barry, who said on his program last week that a “false information” that was put on an editorial on Sky News Australia’s Facebook page where Credlin said the Uluru Statement was 26 pages was the wrong move.

“The Uluru Statement is expressed on one page, but there are many more pages of notes and background … where matters like a treaty and reparations are raised,” he said.

“And given that there may be some point in what Credlin is saying, we think a ‘disputed’ label would be more ­appropriate.”

The tag was done after an investigation by the RMIT’s FactLab, which described on its website that it “works hand-in-hand” with RMIT ABC FactCheck – this reference has now been deleted from its homepage.

In the email sent to ABC staff last week, Sales provided employees with scripts on how to close down debate on the Uluru Statement’s length.

“Ms X, respectfully, I’ll correct your claim that the Uluru statement is a 26-page document,” she said.

“It is a one-page document, the other 25 pages were minutes collected during a consultation phase that do not form part of the final document.”

Sales said the journalist should then “move on … to your next question”.

The Australian has repeatedly contacted Sales about the matter but she has not responded.