Edict over Uluru statement a step too far, says ABC host Tom Switzer

ABC presenter Tom Switzer has criticised the public broadcaster for trying to close down debate about length of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

ABC presenter Leigh Sales. Picture: Getty Images

ABC Radio National presenter Tom Switzer says it’s “highly ­inappropriate” that the public broadcaster issued an edict to staff on what to say in a debate disputing that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is longer than a one-page document.

On Friday, The Australian ­revealed that ABC management and top journalist Leigh Sales told staff that the Uluru statement was a single-page document. Sales ­offered numerous tactics on ­addressing any arguments in ­opposition to this.

Switzer, who hosts the ­Between the Lines program on Radio ­National, said the ABC and individual staff members should not be arbiters on what is right and wrong in debate.

“Why should the ABC or any media outlet issue edicts to staff on highly contentious issues where opinion among even ABC staffers varies?” he said.

“Neither CBS nor the BBC would have solicited legends Walter Cronkite and Andrew Neil, ­respectively, to give rules to staff on what can or cannot be said about highly contentious ­issues. No one journalist is the foundation of all wisdom.”

Switzer said he was recently given direction that he must apply tougher scrutiny to opponents of the voice.

“The ABC seems more concerned about the voice debate than any other public policy issue,” he said. “I’ve been told to subject critics of the voice to more scrutiny yet the same ­direction has been lost on many of my ABC colleagues when they interview Yes supporters.”

In correspondence sent by ABC management on Thursday, editorial policy chief Mark Maley told staff he wanted to “pass on some advice from one of the ABC’s best interviewers, Leigh Sales” on tactics on how to handle misinformation in interviews, particularly surrounding the length of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

“A common way for misinformation to occur is if inaccuracies or errors are stated in an interview as accepted facts and ­allowed to pass unchallenged,” he wrote in the email.

Sales, a former 7.30 host, provided further information about the Uluru statement, including the “claim that the Uluru statement is a 26-page document”.

“This is inaccurate,” she said. “The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a one-page document.”

The claims come after the ABC Media Watch program criticised attempts to shut down Sky News host Peta Credlin’s arguments that the statement is 26 pages.

Media Watch host Paul Barry said a “disputed” claim should have been put on a Credlin editorial posted on Sky News’s Facebook page, not “false information”.

Switzer said the ABC’s conduct was inappropriate. “To rule out definitively any disagreement is to act like an arbiter for the government,” he said.

The advice offered by Sales includes: “Ms X, respectfully, I’ll correct your claim that the Uluru Statement is a 26-page document. It is a one-page document, the other 25 pages were minutes collected during a consultation phase that do not form part of the final document.”

A spokeswoman said the ABC stood “by the information in the email, which is about using factual information to counter misinformation and errors, not to ‘close down debate’.”