The Act says ‘accurate and impartial’ but chairmen and MDs keep failing

Justin Milne has let down Australian tax payers. Picture: James Croucher.

ABC staff might be excited about a new boss, but Australian taxpayers have every reason to yawn. After a few days of navel-gazing, normal programming will resume at Aunty: the taxpayer-funded media organisation will continue to ignore its fundamental compact with the Australian people.

It is not enough that Michelle Guthrie has gone, ousted by the board and chairman Justin Milne, barely halfway through her term.

Milne needs to pack his bags too. He has let down Australian taxpayers.

Let’s be very clear about the reason why the ABC chairman should go. Those calling for Milne to resign for interfering in management — by telling Guthrie to sack Emma Alberici — have not read the ABC Act.

Section 8 places clear and direct duties on the board — meaning the chairman, the managing director and every board member.

They are legally required to ensure that “the gathering and presentation by the corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial”.

Milne should have called for action against Alberici because it is patently untenable for the ABC’s chief economics reporter not to understand the difference between profits and revenue.

To meet the duties laid out in the ABC Act, Milne should have been proactive, rather than reacting to complaints from the prime minister of the day.

Section 8 also requires directors to ensure that “the functions of the corporation are performed ­efficiently and with the maximum benefit to the people of Australia”.

Now read that legal duty alongside section 6, which requires the ABC to broadcast “programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community”.

This is where Milne has failed. And he follows a sorry history of failure by previous chairmen and chief executives.

In his first public address as managing director in 2006, Mark Scott said that, under his leadership, the ABC would be “looking for further diversity of views”. Yet nothing changed on this front when Scott led the organisation for a decade, first under Donald McDonald and then Maurice Newman as chairmen. When Newman, as new chairman in 2010, called for a “spirit of greater curiosity” at the ABC and less “groupthink” about issues such as climate change, he was howled down by staff. Nothing changed then, either.

During Guthrie’s short stint as boss, the ABC has become more diverse — on every front except opinion. Under Milne, normal programming has continued.

As new ABC chairman, Milne dismissed accusations of bias.

Is he kidding? He said the organisation would continue to resist political pressure over its editorial output. Yet, according to leaked emails, he wanted Alberici sacked because the Coalition “hated her”.

Not so long ago, Milne, a friend of Malcolm Turnbull, told a private gathering that if the ABC did swing one way politically, wasn’t it good that the taxpayer-funded broadcaster swung to the progressive side of politics. No, it is not good. That would be a direct contravention of the ABC Act. Politically, the ABC should not swing one way or the other.

Taxpayers might start to get excited about the ABC — funding it more, watching and listening to it more — when it has a chairman, managing director and board members who meet their legal ­duties. Until then, the ABC remains a non-performing party under its contract with the Australian taxpayer.

Janet Albrechtsen was on the ABC Board between 2005-2010.