ABC apologises to former senator Cory Bernardi over Ms Represented episode
The ABC has issued an apology to former senator Cory Bernardi after airing disparaging comments by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
The ABC has apologised to former senator and Sky News host Cory Bernardi for airing allegations by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young – which he has strongly denied – in its popular TV series Ms Represented.
The public broadcaster admitted that it failed to give Mr Bernardi a “fair opportunity” to respond to the allegations made during the program, and also admitted the episode breached its editorial standards.
Mr Bernardi wrote a letter of complaint to the ABC following the airing of the second episode of the four-part July series focusing on female parliamentarians and hosted by Annabel Crabb.
The episode included Senator Hanson-Young relaying in detail interactions she claimed she had with Mr Bernardi during a parliamentary sitting on December 4, 2014.
She told Crabb that during one sitting Mr Bernardi came in from a party a few corridors down and “was shouting, making mutterings” and “then as the night went on he got closer and closer to the seat next to me”.
She then claimed Mr Bernardi was, “whispering nursery rhymes, it was creepy”.
“He then started to list the names of men, insinuating they’re people I’d slept with or had a relationship with,” Senator Hanson-Young said.
In Mr Bernardi’s complaint to the ABC he strongly rejected the allegations both publicly and in correspondence with the ABC, describing them as “misleading and false”.
In the ABC’s correction published on its website on Monday evening, it reiterated the five points made by Mr Bernardi in his written letter to them which highlighted the ABC’s “lack of journalistic integrity”.
This included that he did not whisper nursery rhymes to Senator Hanson-Young, he was not inebriated at the time, there was no party held that evening, moving seats in the chamber is a product of voting in divisions, and there was no evidence to show he made statements about the senator’s personal life.
Following the ABC’s apology, Mr Bernardi told The Australian: “I don’t want to comment right now as I’m seeking advice.”
The ABC has also recently edited in a short clip from Mr Bernardi on Sky News where he stated: “I refute completely the accusations made about me in the television show”.
Liberal MP Nicolle Flint has strongly criticised the Ms Represented series and said, “taxpayers deserve much better for their billions of dollars a year”.
“Ms Represented was heavily promoted and available across all ABC platforms meaning it has probably been viewed by millions of Australians,” she said.
“It is a disgrace that such a high-profile, heavily promoted program was not only deeply biased against the Liberal Party, and men, but breached fundamental ABC rules.”
The program attracted 585,000 viewers across the five major cities. It was also promoted on social media – a tweet posted by Crabb on the day of its airing attracted more than 1100 retweets and nearly 3700 likes.
In the written apology, the ABC stated: “The ABC acknowledges that it did not provide Mr Bernardi with a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations prior to broadcast, in breach of ABC editorial standard 5.3.
“The ABC has apologised to Mr Bernardi for failing to do so and added his strong denial of the allegations to the program.”
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