The national broadcaster still refuses to fulfil its duty to broadcast the truth, as Alan Austin reports.
WHAT SHOULD an ABC News reporter do when an influential guest makes claims in a pre-recorded interview that the broadcaster knows to be untrue?
Let’s imagine that a Liberal Party leader had claimed that Labor governments took more taxes from citizens than Coalition governments — an assertion of fact, which has been demonstrably false for decades.
Or, that the leader had asserted that the inflation rate, which was then 2.31%, showed the Government had lost control of the economy.
Alternative responses to defend the truth
There are several choices. The first is for the reporter to interrupt the lying politician and confront him with his falsehoods. This used to happen.
Former ABC journalist Tony Jones is remembered for asking fresh-faced young Liberal Minister Tony Abbott in a Lateline interview if he had met controversial churchman George Pell during the 2004 election campaign. Confident the tryst had been top secret, Abbott brazenly denied any meeting.
Jones followed up with, “We believe you have had at least one meeting with him.” Abbott smirked, shrugged and dismissed the question with, “Well, when and where?” Jones replied, “At the Presbytery in Sydney.” Abbott’s composure crumpled and he blustered with, “Actually now you mention it, I did meet with Cardinal Pell. So what? Why shouldn’t I meet with Cardinal Pell?”
The Minister’s acute embarrassment when caught brazenly lying – and his death-stare at the fearless Jones – were such that The Chaser program featured them the next evening, in a classic comedy sketch viewed countless times since. Kudos to Jones.
The second alternative is to ask an independent authority to debunk the false claims with accurate data. A third is to invite a senior Labor politician in for some fact-checking.
A fourth is for the broadcaster simply to point out that the claims are false, as shown by published data. A fifth is to dump the interview altogether on the grounds that the ABC’s charter prohibits spreading blatant lies.
A newsroom that took its responsibility seriously would almost certainly choose the fifth option if the interview contained multiple falsehoods. It should then tell the mendacious politician he is not welcome back if he persists in lying.
What actually happened
This is not a hypothetical. ABC Radio’s AM program on 13 January this year broadcast extended commentary from Liberal Leader Peter Dutton which contained multiple porky pies. All went to air unchallenged.
Independent Australia lodged a formal complaint which itemised Dutton’s more destructive falsehoods and set out the facts published by the statutory authorities.
They included:
Falsehoods 1 and 2: “The fact is that people are paying higher interest rates because of government spending.”
Two lies there. Firstly, Australians are not paying high interest rates. The optimum band is arguably between 3.5% and 5.5%. Below that offers little return for savers and investors; above that burdens mortgage holders. Australians have had interest rates in that preferred range for two years.
Secondly, there is no direct nexus between interest rates and government spending. The two years with the all-time highest government spending – 2020-21 and 2021-22 – correlate with the lowest interest rates on record.
Falsehood 3: “Labor governments live beyond their means…”
This was true of the previous Coalition, but not of Labor. All Coalition budgets from 2013-14 to 2021-22 yielded deficits. That is, spending was greater than revenue.
In contrast, the last two Labor budgets, for 2022-23 and 2023-24, generated surpluses.
Falsehood 4: “Labor governments have to tax so much.”
In the last 40 years, according to the recent MYEFO, the only times tax to GDP has been higher than 23.8% of GDP were 2001, ‘03, ‘04, ‘05 and ‘06, all during the Howard Coalition period. The only times below 21.0% were 1992, ‘93, ‘94, 2010, ‘11 and ‘12, all under Labor.
Falsehood 5: “We’ve got an inflationary environment which is not under control.”
Inflation is under control. It was 6.12% when Labor took office. It was 2.31% when Dutton told these lies and had been within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s optimum band for four straight months.
Falsehood 6: “This government was bequeathed an incredible set of economic numbers.”
That is the opposite of the truth. Economic outcomes throughout the Morrison Government were at the lowest ever relative to other OECD economies.
The formal complaint listed 19 outcomes, with references, showing the appallingly weak situation at the last election and the strong surges since.
Response from ABC Audio Current Affairs
The ABC’s reply to the complaint did not deny Dutton’s falsehoods, nor did it apologise or resolve to do better.
The response claimed, disturbingly, that:
‘We always strive to hold politicians to account but we are not always in a position to forensically interrogate every claim they make in real time, nor is it necessarily AM’s role to do that in retrospect.’
That is, of course, a cop-out that serves to provide cover for the newsroom’s connivance with the Liberal Party’s misinformation campaign.
This prompted a media inquiry to ABC’s Head of News, Justin Stevens, last Tuesday with three questions:
1. Are you aware that blatant falsehoods are now aired on AM without correction? Is this acceptable? If not, are remedial steps being taken?
2. What are the instructions to ABC journalists when a guest makes an assertion that the journalist knows to be factually false?
3. Are you aware that the ABC has responded to a complaint regarding unflagged untruthful assertions by saying ‘nor is it necessarily AM’s role to do that [correct lies] in retrospect’? Does this mean ABC journalists are prohibited from fact-checking blatant lies, or simply permitted to allow them to air?
No reply had been received by Sunday. If one arrives, we will post it in the comments, below.
Alan Austin is an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @alanaustin001.
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