ABC can’t be trusted to review complaints against it

Ita Buttrose’s latest dummy spit proves it’s time for an independent umpire.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose has slammed the Senate inquiry. Picture: Ryan Osland

As ABC chair, Ita Buttrose does a fine rendering of Hamlet’s mum, Queen Gertrude. The lady doth ­indeed protest too much, turning a dummy spit into performance art.

Buttrose’s response to a proposed Senate inquiry, accusing Senator Andrew Bragg of engaging in a partisan political exercise and undermining the ABC’s independence, was a stretch.

And she was not done making inflated accusations.

“Does he agree with the notion of an independent public broadcaster and an independent board, or does he believe politicians should be able to meddle and ­dictate to the national broadcaster about content? Because that’s where this is leading,” Buttrose grumbled on ABC radio.

Bragg, the new head of the Senate’s communications committee, plans to conduct a Senate inquiry into the complaints processes at SBS and ABC. That’s all.

Predictably, ABC staff can’t get enough of Buttrose hamming it up on their behalf. But she surely knows that’s the wrong audience.

The ABC chair has a legislative duty to run the broadcaster on ­behalf of taxpayers in accordance with the ABC’s legislative charter. It’s a simple and crystal-clear remit. Her wickedly deliberate exaggeration suggests that the ABC has something to hide.

I’m growing weary of reminding Buttrose and the ABC of their legislative compact with the Australian people: taxpayers send $1bn a year to the public broadcaster in return for the broadcaster meeting its charter obligations.

The idea that the ABC can responsibly and fairly report on complaints about itself, especially whether it complies with those charter responsibilities, has always been silly.

All sorts of public organisations have complaints about them dealt with by independent arbiters. Why does Buttrose, an otherwise smart woman, think the ABC should be treated differently? Because staff want it that way?

That’s not just dumb, it’s wrong, and it raises the question of what the ABC chair, its board, management and staff have to fear from a transparent and independent complaint process?

If the ABC is genuinely confident that it meets the charter ­responsibilities, then it should ­welcome an independent complaints body.

And why, for example, would the ABC chair be worried by the ABC having the same level of oversight as the SBS, namely an independent ombudsman?

The usual band of screwballs have taken up their stock standard places. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young wants to pull the plug on the Senate inquiry. Does that have anything to do with her conflict of interest, appearing on two ABC programs, Ms Represented and Four Corners’ Inside the Canberra Bubble, that have drawn ­serious complaints about ABC unprofessionalism?

And then one of Twitter’s regular conspiracy theorists, Kevin Rudd, tweeted that it’s a “Murdoch Protection Racket deal with Morrison to kill public broadcasting and leave the media to him”.

Settle down, kids. It’s an inquiry into the ABC and SBS complaint-handling processes.

There have been other inquiries into parts of the Australian media, the Finkelstein inquiry under the Gillard government and the recent Senate inquiry into media diversity.

Yet, the ABC chair is squealing as if the government is planning to tear the organisation apart limb by limb.

These foolish reactions to legitimate concerns about a $1bn taxpayer-funded organisation remind me of my time on the ABC board when some staff and executives ­assumed that a conservative must be planning to bend the ABC into a conservative mouthpiece. It was nonsense. All I ever wanted, and still hope for from a taxpayer-funded broadcaster, is that it abides by its very good and simple charter. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It’s not all Buttrose’s fault. Past and present governments, and minor parties, wear part of the blame for the ABC’s growing arrogance and unprofessionalism.

Liberal and Labor governments have treated the broadcaster as a protected entity that can never ever become an election issue. Former communications minister Richard Alston likens it to what Telstra once was – an incompetent monopoly business that treated customers with contempt.

“When you don’t have any competitors, and you don’t have to earn a living, you can basically ­behave however you like. So you thumb your nose at taxpayers, at the charter, at complaints, and after a short kerfuffle, everyone moves on and the ABC continues to get away with the broadcasting equivalent of blue murder,” he said.

If the Labor Party endorses Hanson-Young’s misguided opposition to the inquiry, they will embolden worse behaviour at the ABC.

Buttrose’s latest dummy spit ­reveals just how arrogant Aunty has grown under her leadership. In a 15,000-word essay soon to be published, Alston sets out in forensic detail the ABC’s sloppy and haughty handling of recent complaints, including the debacle raised by The Australian’s Troy Bramston about the ABC’s ghost train documentary at Sydney’s Luna Park. That program tried to destroy former premier Neville Wran’s reputation by tying him to a cover-up and corruption.

When an independent external investigation found the program’s claims to be unfounded, the ABC did nothing, refusing to correct the record or apologise for its woefully unprofessional program. Instead, the ABC defended the dodgy allegations against Wran. Managing director David Anderson and editorial director Craig McMurtrie claimed that the doco did not breach editorial policies.

Next, consider the ABC’s dismissive and arrogant response a few months ago when a former Liberal staffer complained to the ABC about Louise Milligan’s unauthorised exposure of her as a source and the misrepresentation of her in a tweet.

Alston traces this sorry saga: “Instead of providing a substantive reply, the ABC complaints department washed its hands of the matter on the grounds that it was a personal tweet and referred it to Milligan’s boss, Sally Neighbour. She wrote back to say that she had looked into the matter and spoken to Milligan and ‘I am satisfied that there has been no misconduct by Ms Milligan’ – a classic case of the offender being judge and jury in its own cause. The blatant conflict of interest was ignored.”

Speaking to Inquirer this week, Alston says Buttrose’s hysterical over-reaction to a Senate inquiry into the ABC and SBS complaints processes is disingenuous: “She must know that this system is not fit for purpose. You can go back to my time 20 years ago, the system wasn’t fit for purpose then.”

Alston is alluding to 68 complaints he lodged 18 years ago about the ABC’s coverage of the Iraq War.

The ABC’s internal complaints unit upheld two of them. After Alston criticised that outcome, the ABC announced an ABC-appointed Independent Complaints Review Panel which upheld another 15 complaints. After Alston asked the Australian Broadcasting Authority to look at the outstanding complaints, the ABA upheld another four breaches of the ABC’s charter and concluded: “The ABA considers that the findings of 17 breaches of editorial standards … plus the four code breaches found by the ABA compromised the quality of AM’s coverage of the Iraq War”. Yet this was met with a deafening silence from the ABC’s chair and managing director.

In other words, the rot at the ABC is longstanding, and is getting worse. Alston says the days of public bodies judging their own performance is over. “No one else is still able to judge themselves,” he says, “and yet Ita pretends it’s an independence issue.” This confected outrage is especially curious from an experienced woman who ought to recognise the conflict of interest in a system that is heavily loaded against complainants.

Last month, the ABC announced an “independent” review of its internal complaints process due by March next year. Alston says the strategy is crystal clear: “Come up with some modest changes ahead of an imminent federal election, keep firm in-house control of the process and claim the problem has been solved before the government can put in place a genuinely arms-length decision-making regime, which does not involve the ABC, save for having the chance to put its side of the case.”

As Bragg told Inquirer, a Senate inquiry has two important advantages over the ABC re-examining itself behind closed doors. Senate hearings offer legal privilege to those making complaints, which is important where a complainant is making serious accusations of wrongdoing against the ABC, for example, like blowing your cover as a source. Secondly, Senate hearings are public, a critical part of our democracy where community groups and private individuals can be heard.

Alston says those at the highest levels of government are disappointed that a woman of Buttrose’s calibre has been so captured by the lure of a chauffeur-driven car, free air travel and all the faux love and affection of ABC staff who treat the charter as optional.

A Liberal government will not reappoint her, he says. Now, with an election looming, there’s a reason for ABC staff to show even more contempt for the ABC charter with their campaigning journalism. Not that they have ever needed a reason.