ABC may face Senate heat after Stokes denial

The ABC report claiming Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes conspired to bring down a PM could be headed for scrutiny.

ABC political editor Andrew Probyn.

The ABC’s disputed report claiming media proprietors Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes conspired to trigger the demise of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull could be headed for scrutiny by federal parliament’s Senate estimates committee.

A member of the committee said yesterday he would consider quizzing the ABC about the story, which was strongly rejected by Mr Stokes, the Seven West Media chairman.

The report by political editor Andrew Probyn claimed that Mr Murdoch, executive chairman of News Corporation, told Mr Stokes that “Malcolm has got to go” and the pair were involved in “a tug of war” over the prime ministership.

Nationals senator John Wil­liams, a member of the environment and communications stand­ing committee, said he would consider raising the matter at the estimates hearing scheduled for October 22.

“I have no idea whether the Murdoch press got involved with dismissing the former PM or others, so perhaps the ABC can deliver the facts if asked at Senate estimates,” Senator Williams said.

He said he was likely to defer to the committee chair, Jonathan Duniam.

Senator Duniam declined to comment on his intentions.

For a second evening, the ABC did not tell its 7pm news viewers that Mr Stokes had denied parts of the original story.

 

And the ABC did not disclose whether its audience and consumer affairs unit had received any complaints about the report, which ran online and on ­Tuesday’s 7pm news.

The media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, said it had not received any complaints or inquiries about the story, which it would refer to the ABC in the first instance.

The online version of the story was headed: “What did Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes have to do with the Liberal leadership spill?” In a statement, Mr Stokes said: “But, in reply to your question posed in the headline. Absolutely nothing, full stop.”

The Tuesday story contained what were purported to be text messages of a conversation between Mr Stokes and Mr Murdoch. Mr Stokes said he had never exchanged text messages with Mr Murdoch on any matter, and that: “I have never been involved in leadership events nor autopsies of them like the one you have ­published.”

Mr Stokes told The Australian: “I have never received a text from Rupert Murdoch on this or any matter. I don’t think he has my number nor I his.”

News Corp is the publisher of The Australian.

The ABC added parts of Mr Stokes’s statement to the online article on Wednesday, while Probyn, who previously worked at both News Corp and Seven West Media, read out the denial on air during the day.

An ABC spokeswoman said: “There was no story involving Mr Stokes in the evening news bulletin. In addition, by 7pm Mr Stokes’s statement had not only been online for several hours but had also been read out live by ­Andrew Probyn at about 1.45pm on the pre-question time show.” Earlier this year, Probyn was found by ACMA to have breached impartiality standards when he described former prime minister Tony Abbott as “the most destructive politician of his generation” in a piece to camera.

Mr Turnbull and Mr Stokes are known to be close, and Mr Stokes was part of a business delegation that accompanied the former prime minister on a trip to the US earlier in the year.

Sources say Mr Stokes had been in contact with MPs around the time of the leadership spill — in which Mr Turnbull lost the prime ministership and was replaced by Scott Morrison — but that was in his role as chairman of the Australian War Memorial.

Sources say Mr Murdoch and Mr Stokes’s discussions centred around business and that politics was “way down their list”.