Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I did not intend to speak in this debate on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment Bill 2006 but, listening to contributions from those opposite, I thought that there needed to be a few things put on the table about some of the issues they have raised. One of the great arguments seems to be that there should not be any change to the board of the ABC and that action against the representative of the staff, whose position seems to be being removed, is of great detriment to the ABC. I have been thinking very carefully about boards. I remember belonging to a sugar milling board in New South Wales, but there were no representatives of staff on that board. There are no representatives of staff on the boards of many of the big companies in Australia, so I think that some of the arguments are fallacious.

Another argument put forward, which I found rather quaint in the extreme—‘quaint’ is probably too soft a word for it—was that the staff member would be able to alert the Australian public to things that might be going on in the board of the ABC. I would think that would be a breach of secrecy of a matter of the board. From my knowledge of boards, the board’s chair is its spokesperson and any statement to be made about issues discussed on the board is made, on behalf of the board, by him or her. I would have thought that anyone going out and white-anting the board would be acting extremely against the principles of the board itself. In the corporate world, as far as I understand it, they could even be breaking the law.

The member for Lowe asserted that the government was stacking the board with its cronies, which rings a bell, as I dare say most oppositions talk about this from time to time. I have been there once myself—but, thankfully, for only three years in my whole political career. But aren’t we pure in opposition? We are very pure in opposition. I distinctly remember the Hawke government appointing Bill Kelty to the board of the ABC. That is a far cry from the independent nominations being suggested at present by the opposition. Much of the argument coming from the other side about some of these issues is cant and nonsense.

The member for Lowe also raised an interesting point, which I think needs discussing, about the director elect of the ABC, Mr Quentin Dempster, being a person of high standing and, therefore, eminently suitable to be on the board of the ABC. I happen to know Mr Quentin Dempster very well. I was in the parliament of New South Wales when he shifted from Brisbane to Sydney. He and a fellow journalist—I do not know whether they worked together in Brisbane—a man called Mr Murray Hogarth, came to Sydney with their egos inflated, saying that they had done over the Bjelke-Petersen government in Queensland and they had come down to New South Wales to do the same to the Nationals there. If Mr Quentin Dempster is to be on the board, we should understand some of the methods he uses as a journalist. I happen to have been close to some of the stories he ran—very close. In fact, I was the principal involved in one particular story. At that time, I was the member for Clarence and a minister in the Greiner government.

Some years before the running of this story, I had owned and then sold the Ryan Hotel in the town of Lismore. However, The 7.30 Report decided it would do a story on this hotel based on pub gossip around that town. This story was a rather good one. It involved a great conspiracy among a senior minister of the Greiner government—I used to fluctuate from being a senior minister to a junior minister, depending on the story or the day—Mr Harold Fredericks, the Mayor of Lismore and a National Party member, and Mr Elton Stone, a lawyer in that town and another prominent National. We were all involved in this conspiracy regarding the redevelopment of the Ryan Hotel.

I am well aware of what is supposed to be the journalists’ code of ethics. I wonder at times whether any of the journalists in this instance have read that code. However, the journalists’ code of ethics states very proudly that, before running a story, journalists should look at all sides of it. Did Mr Murray Hogarth or Mr Quentin Dempster ring me? No. Did they go to Mr Fredericks, at that time the Mayor of Lismore, and get his side of the story? No. Did they go to Mr Elton Stone, a senior lawyer in Lismore and the other proponent of the redevelopment? No. They ran their story, of which not one scrap was correct. It was fiction. They did not bother to look at the other side of the story.

Mr Quentin Dempster wants to thank his lucky stars that, at that time, all my time was engaged in proceedings against the Sydney Morning Herald, because Murray Hogarth had also written a story about me in the Sydney Morning Herald using the same principles—not checking the facts or coming to me and getting my side of the story. I won that court case against the Sydney Morning Herald for those simple reasons. It never had a feather to fly with, because it did not have any facts. Mr Quentin Dempster wants to thank his lucky stars that I was busy with the Sydney Morning Herald. If I had not been, he also would have been in the dock and, I am sure, would have experienced the same result—except that, after I had been through one court case, my wife did not have the stomach for me to go through another, I can assure you. That is what they rely on. They rely on the average person not being able to take them on and exhausting their funds before they can win. They are the methods of this person who is being put up for the board of the ABC.

So I have to ask those opposite to show me a journalist that abides by the journalists’ code of ethics, which is a very responsible thing to do. In any free and democratic society, journalists play a very important role, especially investigative journalists. But, as the fourth estate, they also hold a huge responsibility to put both sides of the story; otherwise, we may as well live in a totalitarian society. Both sides of the story must be put. In my lifetime in politics—now, after 23 years, it seems like a lifetime—I have seen the standard of journalism slip substantially. When I first went into the New South Wales parliament, the ABC was pre-eminent. The ABC’s standard of journalism was second to none, I would say. I remember its news broadcasts; there was not a hint of bias either way. It gave you the news. Standards have changed in journalism. With any board of the ABC, it is not about bias from one side or the other; it is about a standard. I think any new board of the ABC needs to look closely at that because it is a very important part of our democracy.

In the broader media over time, by-lines have been introduced whereby journalists write stories that really are editorials. Our papers are full of editorials these days. Some of today’s talkback programs, with the misinformation they peddle, are like sessions of gossip over the back fence—and, in many instances, they are about as factual. However, the people who run these talkback programs say, ‘We’re not journalists, so we’re not bound by the journalists’ code of ethics.’ That is an anomaly that has slipped into our system that we need to look closely at. People are listening to this nonsense all the time—and, as Goebbels once said, if you hear something often enough you will believe it. The ABC’s board is extremely important to the ABC as an organisation. It is a good organisation, but I think it needs to understand that it has to respect the society and democracy in which it lives and the standard it should set—and I do not believe it sets that standard at present.

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