Michelle Guthrie’s fear of ‘looking like idiot’ if she resigned

Michelle Guthrie told Justin Milne in a confrontation she feared “looking like an idiot” if she resigned early.

Sacked ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie feared she would look like an idiot if she was forced to resign early. Picture: Aaron Francis

Michelle Guthrie told ABC chairman Justin Milne in a face-to-face confrontation she feared she would “look like an idiot” if she was forced to resign early, saying she had succeeded where all her predecessors had failed in busting through the broadcaster’s notorious bureaucracy.

The ABC managing director was summoned to meet Mr Milne and board member Donny Walford on September 13 after they sent her a letter ­requesting she resign, just 2½ years into her $900,000-a-year, five-year contract.

According to sources familiar with negotiations, Ms Guthrie dug in, telling the pair words to the effect: “I don’t want to resign, I don’t think I have done anything wrong. I’ve brought all these people along for the transformation (of the ABC), we’ve gone through all the pain.”

Ms Guthrie pointed out she had also achieved the “impossible” as managing director, ridding the ABC of one-fifth of management in March last year in a well-received reorganisation that made 200 staff redundant and cut divisions from 14 to nine.

She then pressed Mr Milne to let her stay on another year so she could at least see through what she had started, reportedly telling him: “So you’ve got problems with my style, let me work with my coach, let me work with you, let’s sort this out … there’s no urgency or deadline here.”

The last ABC managing ­director to be forced out, Jonathan Shier, last night criticised senior ABC leaders as not “having the spine” for reform.

“It is a great concern to me that the current chairman when arriving at the ABC said there is no bias at the ABC,” he told ­Andrew Bolt on Sky News.

The Australian understands Ms Guthrie’s refusal to budge only hardened Mr Milne’s ­resolve to get rid of her.

Only one month earlier, the board had insisted Ms Guthrie take on an executive coaching program to address her leadership “weaknesses”. But the board’s patience ran out.

Staff morale had fallen “through the floor”, with staff engagement plunging 6 per cent to 46 per cent and 83 per cent expressing little faith in leadership, according to an internal survey.

Mr Milne had arrived at the September 13 meeting with a payout figure already approved and a prepared backstory. He reportedly suggested Ms Guthrie could explain her sudden resignation was because she needed to spend “more time with her family” in Singapore.

“Here is this woman, highly qualified, who has been bought in to make the organisation fit for the 21st century,” says one Guthrie ally. “She did the job she was asked to do yet all they could say was ‘you don’t get editorial’.”

People close to Ms Guthrie say they have been “stunned” by the barrage of personal abuse, ­especially by ABC staff, levelled at the former managing director since her public sacking on Monday. “The luvvies and the ABC sisterhood and brotherhood have turned on her badly,” one source told The Australian.

Ms Guthrie is considering suing the ABC for terminating her five-year contract. She has employed Kate Eastman SC from New Chambers and Ruveni Kelleher from Johnson Winter & Slattery, the same legal team that represented Seven West Media chief executive Tim Worner in his dispute with former lover Amber Harrison.

“Michelle is leaving with her head held high,’’ one insider said.

“She’s very blunt but she’s not teary. She has been treated appallingly by the ABC.”

The Australian understands Ms Guthrie was angered by the deliberate disinformation campaign she believed was being run against her from within the ABC.

Her allies say one persistent accusation levelled against her is the claim she was often absent from work this year because of frequent trips back to Singapore to be with her restaurateur husband, chef Darren Farr. They say the four trips to Singapore were work-related and approved by Mr Milne. “They’ve got the wrong narrative. Michelle is a multi-millionaire in her own right. She and her husband are living in two separate countries. She’s not some housewife from the 50s,’’ one said.

Ms Guthrie was also publicly castigated by ABC staff for failing to show up at a Senate ­estimates committee hearing in May.

“Ms Guthrie was attending her daughter’s university graduation, and the committee certainly didn’t have a problem with that, though Mr Milne apparently did,” a source close to Ms Guthrie said.

Former ABC board members yesterday said there had been concerns about Ms Guthrie’s performance within months of her appointment, including clashes with ABC chairman Jim Spigelman. “She was quite feisty and it was pretty clear at board meetings that Jim had had a few blues with her,’’ a former board member ­recalled of Guthrie’s first few months in the job.