ABC says staff free to post opinions on social media

The ABC will not discourage staff from posting provocative personal opinions on social media, despite the recent resignation of a senior in-house lawyer who ­labelled the Coalition government as ‘fascist’.

ABC managing director David Anderson.

The ABC will not discourage staff from posting provocative personal opinions on social media, despite the recent resignation of a senior in-house lawyer who ­labelled the Coalition government as “fascist” and described Scott Morrison as “an awful human being”.

“We are editorially responsible for what we do on our own ­official platforms; we are not editorially responsible for what our staff do on their personal social media, hence we have introduced the code of conduct to capture personal social media,” the ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday night.

“We can’t supersede people’s civil liberties … people don’t park all their civil liberties at the door when they come through the door at the ABC.”

Mr Anderson said staff could be disciplined if they breached the ABC’s code of conduct, but the management did not have the authority to order staff to stay off social media platforms.

The ABC boss did reveal that a senior lawyer at the national broadcaster, Sebastien Maury, had recently resigned following discussions with management in the wake of his posts on Twitter, which included references to the “fascist” Morrison government and disparaging remarks about the Prime Minister.

“We did an investigation on that, we followed the process, we got to the end of that process and Mr Maury resigned, he no longer works at the ABC,” Mr Anderson told the Senate hearing.

Earlier, Mr Anderson announced the ABC had struck a deal with Google and Facebook that will see the tech giants compensate the national broadcaster for the use of its journalism.

“When these commercial deals are concluded, they will ­enable the ABC to make new and significant investments in ­regional services,” he said.

“These investments will provide a huge boost to the regions at a time when many areas of ­regional and rural Australia have experienced a withdrawal of media services.”

The proposed agreement follows “payment for content” deals reached in February between the digital platforms and commercial media companies including News Corp (publisher of The Australian, Nine, Seven West Media and the Guardian Australia.

ABC executives were also quizzed about the perceived lack of editorial rigour applied to the recent documentary on the fatal Ghost Train fire at Sydney’s Luna Park in 1979.

Labor senator Tony Sheldon asked why the ABC had not given former NSW premier Neville Wran’s widow, or any of his former political and business colleagues, an opportunity to respond to the claims that he was implicated in a cover-up of the fire investigation, had a social relationship with underworld figure Abe Saffron and orchestrated for the amusement park lease to go to Saffron’s front company.

ABC editorial director Craig McMurtrie said he did not know if “the allegations are right or wrong” and Mr Wran was not “a focus” of the documentary.

Liberal senator Alex Antic questioned Mr Anderson on the ABC’s “anti-Semitic” coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“It’s certainly something we are looking at very closely and guidance notes were issued to our journalists,” Mr Anderson said.