Ombudsman clears ABC over Bridget Brennan’s Australia Day remarks

The ombudsman has cleared the ABC of breaching impartiality rules in a broadcast where reporter Bridget Brennan declared the nation ‘always was, always will be Aboriginal land’.

The ABC ombudsman has cleared the public broadcaster and its Indigenous Affairs editor Bridget Brennan of breaching impartiality standards in an Australia Day news report where she declared the country “always was and always will be Aboriginal land”.

ABC ombudsman Fiona Cameron found that the comments made by Brennan in a live cross with ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland on January 26 were in response to his “reflection that Australia Day has vastly different meanings to different people”.

“We accept that as a leading Indigenous Australian journalist commenting on

these differing meanings, Ms Brennan would reflect on an Indigenous perspective,” the ombudsman said.

“She identified this perspective referring to the significance of the day to ‘her people’

including remembering that ‘it always was, always will be Aboriginal land’.”

The ABC received 25 complaints regarding the live cross that aired on the morning of Australia Day from the at the WugulOra Ceremony at Barangaroo in Sydney.

Friday 26 January 2024, Bridget Brennan reporting on ABC TV's News Breakfast program hosted by presenter Michael Rowland. Photo: Supplied,

In the report the ombudsman said: “We believe that the sentiment is an acknowledgment of the past and recognition of the continued existence and connection to the land of the Aboriginal people.

“It is a call for ongoing respect and recognition and in the context used, did not carry an

exclusive, divisive or literal meaning, ascribed to it by some complainants.”

However the ABC ombudsman also conceded that Brennan could have been clearer with her remarks.

“The ombudsman believes that Ms Brennan’s concluding remarks could have been

more explicitly referenced as the widespread and deeply felt perspective of her

community, to avoid any suggestion that it was a statement of her personal opinion,” she said.

“On balance, and in the context of live television, we accept the ABC submission that

this was not a statement of Ms Brennan’s personal opinion but rather the view of the

community which she is a part and that the comments were editorially justified in the

circumstances outlined..”

The findings determined that the ABC did not breach its standards for due impartiality and diversity of perspectives.