Coalition ‘ignored’ best candidates for ABC board

The independent nominations panel for the boards of the ABC and SBS was a “charade’’, says a former panel member.

Former minister Neil Brown QC. Picture: Aaron Francis

The independent nominations panel for the boards of the ABC and SBS was a “charade” and ­Communications Minister Mitch Fifield was being “misleading” about it, a former panel member said yesterday.

Neil Brown QC, a former deputy Liberal Party leader under John Howard and former communications minister in the ­Fraser Coalition government who left the panel last year, said the process had “gone wrong” ­because the government had not complied “with the spirit or the letter of the law” that related to the nominations panel.

Mr Brown criticised the appointment of ABC board members, including South Australian business executive Donny Walford, whom he said “came from nowhere” and also revealed ­Bulent Hass Dellal was not the panel’s top choice to be SBS chairman.

When the panel sent in its nominations for the role of SBS chairman in October 2016, it ranked its preferred candidates. “What the minister did was take the one who was our last ranked, and said that we recommended him. That is in my view quite misleading,’’ Mr Brown said.

Minister for Communications and the Arts Mitch Fifield. Picture: AAP

This was despite the first nominated candidate being “head and shoulders above everyone else”. He did not reveal that candidate’s name.

Senator Fifield said last night: “Dr Hass Dellal was one of the candidates recommended by the nomination panel. He is an outstanding chair of SBS, is ­supremely qualified and well respected in the community and across the parliament.”

While the government is bound to receive the panel’s nomination, it legally does not have to appoint from the list.

Mr Brown, who left the panel in June last year, said Senator Fifield made incorrect public statements about the appointment of former ABC chairman Justin Milne. Mr Milne resigned last week after the ABC board sacked managing ­director Michelle Guthrie, throwing a spotlight onto the government’s ­selection of board members.

Mr Milne was on a list of five people the panel forwarded to the government, Mr Brown said. When former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Senator Fifield announced Mr Milne’s ­appointment in March last year, they said the panel had “recommended” Mr Milne.

“The minister said we recommended Mr Milne, which is not true. We nominated five people and said they were qualified. That is not the same as a recommendation,” Mr Brown said.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was consulted on Mr Milne’s appointment and Labor supported it. Mr Shorten yesterday urged Scott Morrison to ensure the next ABC chairman was chosen in a ­bipartisan way. “Labor is incredibly concerned about the ability of Minister ­Fifield to make suitable appointments, including for the new ABC chair, given his disregard for the independent nomination panel process,’’ he said.

Mr Brown was critical of the appointments of ABC board member Vanessa Guthrie, chairwoman of the Minerals Council, who was not on the panel’s list, while the appointment of Ms Walford came “from nowhere”.

“We nominated five people; Donny Walford was not one of them. That’s a clear breach of any recognition of the panel process being of any value whatsoever,’’ he said. “In all of those cases the minister is holding up a figleaf in what is a government directive to ­appoint individuals, using the charade of going through the nominations panel process.”

Ric Smith, a former head of the Department of Defence who chaired the panel when it was created by the Labor government in 2007, said it originally worked well. “It’s an arm’s-length process,’’ Mr Smith said.

Additional Reporting: Rachel Baxendale