Australia’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster appears to be increasingly out of control. Editorial independence is one thing: sloppy, wildly biased journalism and an utter refusal to concede or retract errors is another.
One only need listen to the ABC’s coverage of Israeli issues to see its bias: reports on the most recent violence have featured exclusively Palestinian stories. Israelis – targeted by thousands of Hamas rockets in a massive campaign of indiscriminate bombing – get no look-in.
Then there is its hysterical pursuit of sexual assault allegations against prominent conservatives, especially Cardinal George Pell and former Attorney-General Christian Porter. Even after Pell’s absurd conviction was quashed, the ABC continues to refer to him as “disgraced”.
Every now and then, astonishingly, the ABC will actually be dragged, kicking and screaming, into conceding bias and inaccuracy. The ABC was forced to apologise to former PM Kevin Rudd not once, but twice. Its star economics correspondent Emma Alberici’s headline stories on corporate tax minimising were so bad that the piece was retracted and ABC bosses put in new “quality control” measures.
They don’t seem to be working.
The ABC documentary on Sydney’s Luna Park ghost train fire, implicating former NSW premier Neville Wran in a cover-up and alleging he was corruptly linked to the criminal underworld, has been broadly condemned. But the ABC has done nothing to correct the record, apologise to Wran’s family or respond to an avalanche of criticism by respected individuals.
I covered the first part of the documentary in a post for The BFD, on allegations that the fire was not an accident, but deliberate arson by “a group of bikies”, according to witnesses. That post also reported allegations that a corrupt NSW detective helped cover up the arson.
But then the ABC went further. Much further.
The most absurd claims in the documentary concerned Wran. A former long-term [Abe Saffron] employee, Rosemary Opitz, said Wran and Saffron had regular drinks together and were “really pally”. It is an absurd allegation not corroborated by any other witness or documentary evidence. It is stupid beyond belief.
Former sergeant Paul Egge claimed Wran conspired with High Court judge Lionel Murphy to ensure the Luna Park lease went to a Saffron front company. This is based on illegal phone recordings by corrupt police. But no tape or transcript exists. No other person backs up Egge’s claim about Wran.
In 1987, the NSW Corporate Affairs Commission found there was no “actual or beneficial” relationship between Saffron and the winning tender, Harbourside. Guess who asked for the investigation? Wran. He also supported a National Crime Authority investigation into Saffron[…]
Yet [Caro Meldrum-Hanna] claims Egge’s “explosive allegation” is “confirmed”. She even tweeted on April 6 that Egge was a “legend” along with a pink love heart emoji. Seriously. In fact, the Stewart royal commission into the police recordings and the parliamentary commission of inquiry into Murphy found Egge’s claim about Wran could not be substantiated, and doubted his reliability.
There is no evidence to support these wild claims and no counter view about Wran was presented.
The documentary’s claims about Wran are so egregious that no less than two former NSW premiers, a former Prime Minister and a former ABC chair and managing director wrote to the broadcaster to complain.
[Sally Jackson from ABC Communications] said — and this is worth repeating — she does not feel it necessary to respond to their “assertions of belief” about Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire. She insults them by attacking the veracity of their statements and spurns the obligation to reply in detail[…]
“I don’t see it as being necessary to respond to their assertions of belief.”
The Australian
This is what Australians get for our billion-dollars-plus per year.
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