ABC’s David Anderson defends Laura Tingle’s Twitter political rant

ABC managing director David Anderson says 7.30’s Laura Tingle will not be disciplined for her Twitter attack on the PM.

ABC journalist Laura Tingle.

ABC managing director David Anderson has described 7.30’s chief political correspondent Laura Tingle’s social media attack on Scott Morrison and the ­Coalition government as an “error of judgment’’ but the veteran journalist will not be disciplined.

Tingle described a “smug” Prime Minister and “government ideological ­bastardry” in a tweet last week, which was subsequently deleted.

Asked during Senate estimates on Wednesday evening whether Mr Anderson thought Tingle’s tweet was in breach of the television and radio broadcaster’s policy, he said Tingle was upset about the departure of long-­serving colleague Philippa ­McDonald from the public broadcaster.

McDonald is one of more than 200 ABC staff leaving the broadcaster as part of its five-year blueprint in a bid to plug an $84m budget hole.

ABC managing director David Anderson at Senate Estimates. Picture: Sean Davey

“Laura Tingle is a veteran of over 30 years of outstanding journalism, certainly has been for us. And I would ask anyone to judge her on the quality of her journalism that is otherwise put out by the ABC as opposed to social media,” Mr Anderson said.

“With regard to that tweet, I think, well I know, that Laura deems that to be a mistake. I think it was an error of judgment, as I think clearly Laura did too as she took that tweet down.

“It was a mistake by Laura but I would say that the weight of her journalism over many years is not reflected and the outstanding work that she’s done is not reflected by that tweet. As I said, she saw it as a mistake and removed it.”

Tingle’s tweet, first reported by The Australian’s Media Diary on Monday, began by praising a tribute video posted by McDonald: “What a legend … It is what mere journalistic mortals aspire to.”

She then changed tone and attacked the government. “We grieve the loss of so many of our colleagues to government ideological bastardry. Hope you are feeling smug @ScottMorrisonMP.”

Laura Tingle's now deleted Tweet.

Mr Anderson said he believed Tingle was contacted by her executive producer Justin Stevens at 7.30, and he was “satisfied that no more action needs to be taken”.

Tingle would continue to cover federal politics, he said.

He also cautioned that more than 70 jobs could be lost if the federal government did not extend its enhanced news-gathering fund, despite the broadcaster’s annual funding going up.

Mr Anderson quibbled over the ABC’s annual funding in real and nominal terms, but conceded that funding in nominal terms had risen to $1.065bn in the 2020 financial year from $1.046bn last year. He also disclosed that 229 ABC staff would leave the organisation as part of its redundancy plans, compared to its June forecast of up to 250 staff.

The comments come a day after the ABC’s 2020 annual report revealed it spent $35.7m on redundancy payments amid a deeper-than-expected loss in the past financial year.

The ABC, which gets more than $1bn from the federal government annually, recorded an annual loss of $18.4m for the year to June, primarily due to a $9.9m drop in revaluation of its property portfolio. The bottom-line result compared to an original budget loss forecast of $11.1m.