Luna Park documentary: Communications Minister Paul Fletcher pans ABC complaint procedure

Paul Fletcher has confronted the ABC after complaints about its Luna Park ghost train fire doco were dismissed.

Paul Fletcher says the ABC ‘should consider whether the existing complaints process is functioning as it should’. Picture: Getty Images

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has called on the ABC board and management to examine its audience complaints handling process after several formal complaints about its Luna Park ghost train fire documentary were dismissed despite an external review heavily criticising the program.

Mr Fletcher said the independent editorial review by investigative journalist Chris Masters and Sydney University professor Rod Tiffen found the documentary had substantial flaws which suggested the complaints process was not as impartial or thorough as it should be.

“While the ABC has operational and editorial independence, in my view this matter suggests board and management should consider whether the existing complaints process is functioning as it should,” the minister told The Australian.

ABC reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna

Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire implicated former NSW premier Neville Wran in a cover-up of the police investigation, ­alleged that he socialised with criminal underworld figure Abe Saffron and orchestrated the Luna Park lease to go to a Saffron front company following the death of six children and one adult in the fire in 1979.

The editorial review, initiated by the ABC board, found no corruption claims against Wran were substantiated in the documentary reported by Caro Meldrum-Hanna and Patrick Begley. But the ABC’s audience and consumer affairs division, headed by ­Kirstin McLiesh, rejected all complaints.

The most detailed complaint was made by Milton Cockburn, a former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and an adviser to Wran. Mr Cockburn slammed the ethics and credibility of the program and showed how it breached ABC editorial policies to be “accurate”, “fair” and “honest”. But the ABC rejected his complaint and defended the program, relying heavily on statements by the documentary team.

“We are satisfied that the program complied with the ABC’s editorial standards for accuracy,” the ABC replied.

Mr Fletcher said the public must have confidence in the ABC’s complaints-handling process. “If viewers or listeners have a concern about a program, they should have ­access to a robust, independent complaints process,” he said. “This should apply whether or not such a viewer happens to be a public figure or happens to have media connections.

“On this occasion, a complaint was initially lodged with audience and consumer affairs, the ABC’s internal complaints-handling department, which found there were no grounds for complaint about the program.

“The fact that an independent review subsequently found the program had significant defects suggests that the approach taken by audience and consumer affairs was not sufficiently genuine, independent or robust.”

Mr Cockburn told The Australian the ABC board must clarify editorial policies following the review of the Exposed program and establish a more independent and robust complaints handling process. “It is nonsense to suggest that employees of the ABC, who report to an ABC executive, and who work and mix alongside ABC staff, can ever be seen to be objective in handling complaints,” Mr Cockburn said.

“In my case, audience and consumer affairs simply parroted the response by the program makers. If this had been a robust process, I would have been able to respond to the ‘defence’ put forward by the program makers before a final ­decision was made.

“Instead, a complainant is limited to a certain amount of words on an online form which is not easy to navigate.”