Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The accusations of ABC bias which have been outed in the media over recent weeks during Senate estimates have come as no surprise to me. In September of last year I brought to the attention of this House a report on The 7.30 Report, aired in June 2007, which has been proven to be bogus. I will go to this shortly.

This bias is entrenched. It is no secret that the ABC is an incubator for ALP candidates, parliamentarians and their staffers. The most high-profile ALP export is the member for Bennelong, Maxine McKew. She was with the ABC for over 30 years working as a presenter on The 7.30 Report, Lateline, the Carleton Walsh Report, AM, PM, the Bottom Line et cetera. The The 7.30 Report presenter, Kerry O’Brien, was a former press secretary to Gough Whitlam. Insiders presenter Barrie Cassidy worked as a media adviser to Bob Hawke. David Hill, former economic adviser to Neville Wran and former Managing Director of the ABC, stood as an ALP candidate for Hughes in 1998. The former Labor Premier of New South Wales Bob Carr worked as a current affairs journalist for the ABC. Mary Delahunty, the former ABC newsreader and host of Victoria’s The 7.30 Report, was elected to the Victorian seat of Northcote in a by-election in 1998. She held that seat until stepping down in 2006, having held several senior portfolios. ABC journalist Mark Bannerman worked for a senior minister in the Hawke and Keating governments, John Button. The Western Australian Premier, Alan Carpenter, started as a state political reporter for the ABC, moving on to be the Western Australian presenter for The 7.30 Report and the first presenter of Stateline. Former ALP Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin was a journalist for ABC Radio and presenter of The 7.30 Report.

Tom Switzer in the Australian said:

When it comes to the quality of news and current affairs programs, our public broadcaster could do so much better if a certain bias did not cloud so many stories.

He is right. As an example, spare a thought for Andrew Fraser. During last year’s New South Wales election, the ABC ran a caption that had the Coffs Harbour Nationals MP seeing red. It read ‘Andrew Fraser the strangler won’, referring to an incident in 2005 in the New South Wales chamber. This appeared three times.

It also emerged during the Senate estimates hearings that the Prime Minister’s minders are now censoring the national broadcaster, preventing filming and who knows what else. The fact that the ABC has allowed this is certainly not surprising.

So, taking these and many other examples into account, it is good to see that the ABC is planning for a review to improve transparency and the effectiveness of its handling process of complaints. I hope it works. To date the ABC has monitored its election campaign coverage and political discussion through external vetting. Essentially, this means that, as long as equal air time is given to major parties and candidates, everything is okay. Obviously, under this system there is no way to monitor actual bias or favouritism. While politicians and commentators can spend the same amount of time on air, the perception the audience is left with can be vastly different. One can certainly not underestimate the power of the media. Even the ABC has conceded the external vetting process is weak, saying:

… the data has limited utility … it cannot prove or disprove the presence of impartiality.

There is no mathematical way to determine bias; there has to be an action by the broadcaster. I welcome the review into the ABC’s bias vetting. I am pleased that the ABC has also committed to reviewing its complaints handling processes. But it must make a difference. The cultural left-wing bias is now so entrenched in the ABC that it will take strong measures to eliminate it. As I mentioned earlier, the matter I raised last year was another example of the ABC running the union agenda on The 7.30 Report. Kerry O’Brien of the ABC is a regular and habitual offender.

The story focused on a petition apparently signed by around 200 people at the Mount Whaleback mine site at Mount Newman. The crux of the petition was that the signatories suggested that they had been victimised and intimidated so as to sign an AWA and they raised safety concerns. With a number of fly-in fly-out workers in my electorate contacting me with the real story, I wanted the ABC to set the record straight. The signatures were not all credible. At least 80 of them were ineligible. Many of them were from people who were not even working at Mount Whaleback, and some of the names were of people who did not even exist.

Managing Director Mark Scott responded to my complaint, stating that the ABC had looked into the matter and that they had believed it was a relevant story at the time. Mr Scott said that, following the investigation of the Western Australian mines inspector, the ABC would look at doing a follow-up story. He said that The 7.30 Report is awaiting the final report of this investigation and that he intends to do this in a follow-up story. Madam Deputy Speaker, I have a letter here from Mr Scott and my letter to him, which I would like to table if that is okay with the members opposite.

Leave granted.

The mines inspector had already completed his report, in which he said he found the site to be of a high standard of safety, comparable to and higher than the standards found in other major companies and sites in the region. He also said that the allegation that the employees were too afraid to raise safety issues was not supported by greater than 90 per cent of the people in question. In fact, this mine site had actually won a safety award for its track record on the mine site.

My point is that The 7.30 Report story, with Mr Kerry O’Brien and Mr Peacock, the reporter, had no foundation. It was an effort by the unions to support Labor’s push to demonise AWAs, and the ABC and Kerry O’Brien were key conspirators. Mr Scott assured me that there would be a follow-up story. I am still waiting for the story or Mr O’Brien’s correction nearly 12 months later. Mr Scott has now become a willing member of the ABC’s gulag on this issue.