ABC’s James Valentine mocks the public broadcaster paying $79,000 in damages to Liberal MP Andrew Laming

The ABC’s Media Bites program has made light of the taxpayer-funded payout that was awarded to MP Andrew Laming.

ABC's Media Bites host James Valentine. Picture: Supplied

The ABC has mocked the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s $79,000 payout to Coalition MP Andrew Laming after he was defamed in a social media post by high-profile Four Corners reporter Louise Milligan.

The payout to Dr Laming was ordered by the Federal Court on Wednesday, with the media organisation also agreeing to pay Dr Laming’s legal costs as well as their own — leaving the ABC with an overall legal bill which is likely to be in excess of $80,000, on top of the damages.

On Thursday, the ABC’s Media Bites segment — which the broadcaster’s website describes as “the show that casts a critical eye over the media industry, watching the watchers and commenting on all forms of media, spin and communications” — made light of the defamation payment, which resulted from Milligan posting about an unproven incident involving Dr Laming.

ABC Journalist Louise Milligan. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

ABC Sydney’s afternoon radio host James Valentine – who was filling in for regular Media Bites host Paul Barry – joked about the national broadcaster’s handling of public funds.

In the short clip which has already attracted tens of thousands of views online, Mr Valentine said: “They (the ABC) are forking out $79,000 plus costs to MP Andrew Laming over a tweet by the ABC’s star reporter Louise Milligan.

“Who said we don’t put your money to good use.”

The public broadcaster receives more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds annually.

The four-minute segment then goes on to show Sky News host and News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt commenting on his 7pm nightly program about the ABC paying all the costs relating to the defamation action.

“We have got to ask yet again, why is the ABC running a protection racket for journalist Louise Milligan,” he said.

Mr Valentine counters: “Good question, let’s hope that racket extends to all of us, I’ve got some stupid tweets to send out this afternoon.”

Media Watch executive producer Tim Latham said the Bites program was “humour”.

He said he would be “covering the issue” further on the program on Monday night.

ABC’s managing director David Anderson only four days earlier updated guidelines for ABC employees using social media and warned if they did breach the rules they could lose their job.

Federal MP Andrew Laming. Picture: Tracey Nearmy

Dr Laming launched defamation action against Ms Milligan in May after he claimed she “irrevocably damaged his personal and professional reputation”.

In March 29-year-old Crystal White accused the Queensland politician of taking a photo of her while she was bent over at a Brisbane landscaping business in 2019.

Dr Laming denied taking a photo under the woman’s skirt and police investigated the matter and cleared him of any wrongdoing.

One of the tweets by Ms Milligan about the alleged incident read: “Laming upskirts”.

Dr Laming asked Milligan to delete the tweet and apologise but she refused to do so, only deleting it but offering no apology.

The ABC said on Wednesday they would cover all the costs arising from the defamation action due to “particular and exceptional circumstances”.

The Media Bites video was shared on official ABC social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter.

Mr Valentine replaced Media Watch host Paul Barry, who is recovering from a bicycle accident, to host the short segment.

“Who says the ABC is short of money, I’m getting paid thousands to do this show after I knocked Barry off his bike,” Mr Valentine joked.

Media Watch has eight staff to produce a 15-minute segment each week plus one short Media Bites clip each Thursday.

Journalist Janine Perrett will be the fill-in host on Media Watch on Monday night.