ABC managing director David Anderson to be questioned at Senate estimates about remuneration of highly paid staff

The ABC’s managing director David Anderson will this week be grilled on the remuneration details of the public broadcaster’s most highly paid staff.

ABC managing director David Anderson.

ABC managing director David Anderson will this week be asked to reveal the remuneration of the public broadcaster’s most highly paid staff – including details of their bonuses and allowances – amid heightening tensions among employees about pay disparities within the media organisation.

At a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday, Mr Anderson is set to be questioned by Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson on remuneration packages for employees, contractors, subcontractors or other workers earning an annual salary of $230,000 or more.

The likely probe will sit against the backdrop of a bitter pay dispute between thousands of rank-and-file ABC employees and the public broadcaster’s management, whose generous salaries were uncovered last month in the organisation’s annual report.

Mr Anderson’s total remuneration package in the last financial year was $1.036m, while the ABC’s chief financial officer Melanie Kleyn took home $611,000.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, representing ABC staff, is currently lobbying for an annual 6 per cent pay rise for staff over the next three years, and a rise in superannuation entitlements to 15.4 per cent.

Ms Henderson, the opposition communications spokeswoman, has written to Mr Anderson asking for full disclosure on salaries for employees on the ABC’s higher pay grades, and has requested a breakdown into the following categories – base salary, performance pay and bonuses, other benefits and allowances (including overtime), employer superannuation contributions, long-service leave, any long-term benefits and termination benefits.

Senator Henderson said it’s vital the ABC reveals salary information of highly paid staff.

“I am cognisant of the acute public interest in understanding how the ABC expends its budget, particularly given the ongoing debate about the adequacy of ABC funding,” she said in her letter to Mr Anderson. “Disclosure of this information will also assist the committee to assess whether the ABC is implementing remuneration policies which guard against any gender pay gap.

“This, too, is a matter of significant public interest.”

Ms Henderson has also asked that employees on the higher pay grades be named, and their titles provided.

In 2017, the ABC was asked – via questions on notice – about the remuneration of highly-paid staff by the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee and it provided only the number of staff who earned an income within particular salary bands, and not their specific salaries.

Cassie Derrick, media director of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s Media, said last week that it was increasingly likely that ABC staff would launch industrial action over pay conditions.

Ms Derrick said ABC staff wanted a decent pay rise, improved pathways for career progression, and a review of the significant workloads many staff face.

“Over the last decade there was systemic wage theft throughout the whole place. The ABC bungled the payment of overtime buyout and they had to pay back millions of dollars to people,” Ms Derrick told the On The Job podcast.

“The way that they’ve dealt with cuts is by sacking all of the experienced journalists on higher pay grades, and then rehiring positions on three or four pay grades lower. We’re currently in the process of moving towards protected action which is something we haven’t done at the ABC in a very long time.”

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

In contrast, in the 2020-21 financial year the ABC paid a total of $522m in employee benefits, including $383m in salaries and wages, and $45m in superannuation entitlements.

Budget papers released last month show the ABC’s government funding will be increased to $1.07bn in the 2022-23 financial year.

The federal government also announced it would give the ABC $83.7m, staggered over the next four financial years, which represents the reinstallation of indexation cuts that were removed under the former Coalition government.

The Labor government has also committed to extending funding terms for both the ABC and SBS from three years to five years, beginning from July 1 next year.

Mr Anderson is also expected to be quizzed at this week’s Senate hearing about the use of social media by ABC employees including journalists, program makers and content producers.

It comes after ABC reporter Russell Jackson issued an online apology last month after he tweeted about North Melbourne Football Club president Sonja Hood, describing her as “self-pitying”.

Jackson has reported on the racism allegations against former Hawthorn coaches Alastair Clarkson and Chris Fagan, both of whom have denied any wrongdoing.

Jackson criticised Dr Hood after she wrote a letter to Kangaroos members but he later deleted the post and apologised, saying his comments, “unintentionally led to allegations about her that were false and defamatory”.

At the time of the incident, the ABC refused to answer questions about the matter.