When Malcolm Turnbull emerged from hiding late on election night in July 2016 to address the party faithful, he was seething. Turnbull’s speech could be best summed up as “we was robbed, call the police”.
He was cranky because the government had nearly lost the election, due in part to Labor’s successful “Mediscare” campaign which the Coalition had been unable to counter.
That campaign, which claimed the government was going to privatise the universal health provider, stemmed from a front page story in The West Australian newspaper from February that year.
Written by the paper’s then political editor, Andrew Probyn, the story detailed how the government had advanced plans to privatise the back-office operations of Medicare and other health agencies.
It was a good story but the government should have expected it. After all, in August 2014, The Australian Financial Review ran a similar story on its front page after the Abbott government placed an advertisement in the same paper seeking expressions of interest in providing claims and payment services for the Medicare Benefits Schedule and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It was a recommendation of the Commission of Audit Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey had ordered.
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Still, Labor took Probyn’s story, turned the volume up to 11 and ran a scare campaign that rivalled Abbott’s great big new tax on everything.
Turnbull complained bitterly about Mediscare on election night, July 2, 2016, and it was still eating at him when he spoke to journos during at Christmas drinks at The Lodge. Yet he never complained to Probyn.
Picking on the ABC
That all changed after Probyn joined the ABC. He first felt the wrath when he reported that the government had a role in the decision to hold the super Saturday byelections on July 28 and torpedo Labor’s triennial national conference.
David Porter
It was this report that prompted Turnbull and his communications minister Mitch Fifield to meet then ABC chairman Justin Milne on June 15 to complain about Probyn running “Labor lies”. As we now know, Milne then rang Michelle Guthrie to demand Probyn’s head.
“In that phone call that lasted for approximately half an hour, Mr Milne berated me about Andrew Probyn saying that the then-prime minster hates him and ‘you have to shoot him’,” said a record of the conversation made by Guthrie.
What is not explained is why did the government only pick on the ABC. This journalist wrote in this paper at least three times that the government had some input into the date of super Saturday. Why? Because two cabinet ministers confirmed it, as did a Turnbull adviser.
Moreover, governments have alway had a say in setting byelection dates, despite the final decision resting with the Speaker.
Yet the only time the government complained was when this journalist made the same statement when appearing on the ABC’s Insiders program. Fifield complained to the ABC. The complaint was dismissed.
Similarly, former colleague Laura Tingle made the same claim in her Saturday column which appears in both AFR Weekend and on the ABC website. The government only complained to the ABC.
Just for the record, this column again ascertained on Thursday that Speaker Tony Smith was not the sole determinant of the July 28 date.
“There was a debate about it because it meant another eight-week campaign and some of us were not so keen,” said a source privy to events at the time.
Peter Rae
“But the prevailing view was relayed to the Speaker.
“Smithy didn’t do it in a vacuum.”
Not above criticism
Journalists should not be above criticism. If a journo has messed up then there should be a correction, retraction, right of reply or whatever. If people were sacked for making mistakes or losing objectivity, there would be nobody left.
David Rowe
Most politicians, however, ring the journalist to complain and sort it out. It’s the pissants who go straight to the editor or management.
Nonetheless, the pissants are entitled to complain and the ABC has higher accountability standards than any other organisation because it is taxpayer-funded.
Economics correspondent Emma Alberici was dragged over the coals for weeks over a contentious article about company tax cuts which contained errors. In the end, the ABC issued corrections. To sack her would have been disproportionate. To do it at the behest of the government would have been wrong.
The revelations of this week show the line was finally crossed.
The hectoring of Milne, who subsequently hectored Guthrie, was the final consequence of a building and pathological obsession the Coalition has had with the ABC.
Turnbull and Fifield, as they contend, may not have actually demanded the heads of Probyn and Alberici, but Milne, clearly, was left with the impression that they had to go if the ABC was going to receive the $500 million for his Jetstream digitisation project.
The whole board should go
He has resigned, as he should,but the whole board should go as well.
As it turns out, her style was a strong and quiet defence of journalists against the chairman’s demands they be sacked.
When Guthrie was fighting moves to oust her, she documented all the efforts made to have her sack journos and presented a document to the board on Friday last week.
This included the Alberici email and the records of the Probyn phone call. Yet the board, including the staff-elected director, still backed sacking Guthrie.
Were they ever going to act on the information they had in Guthrie’s document? They continued to support Milne and only acted after the information – information they had had for a week – became public.
They should all follow Milne out the door. Because as long as they remain, the spectre of political interference remains. And who knows what other time bombs are in the dossier Guthrie handed to the board?
Other casualties of this affair include Turnbull. Surely some of the gloss has gone from his image. He was not the saint many thought he was.
And none of this will help the Liberals’ campaign to try to win back Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth. The decision in June by the Liberal Party federal council to support a motion calling for the ABC to be sold was used against the Liberals in the chi chi Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo on super Saturday.
Those ABC employees who cheered Guthrie’s demise on Monday look like dills. This includes Melbourne radio’s Jon Faine, who describe Guthrie as a “epic fail”, unaware she had also defended him against the wrath of Milne and the Turnbull government.
Guthrie was sacked because of her “leadership style”.
David Rowe
As it turns out, her style was a strong and quiet defence of journalists against the chairman’s demands they be sacked for putting at risk government funding for his pet project.
Phillip Coorey is the Financial Review’s political editor. He is a regular panellist on the ABC’s Insiders program for which he is paid.
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