Matters were heated out the gate during Tuesday morning’s senate estimates, with the first question to the ABC about the disclosure of salaries and staffing levels at the public broadcaster.
Senator Sarah Henderson, who herself is an ex-ABC employee, was visibly annoyed with ABC managing director David Anderson about the disclosure of salary details of every ABC employee, with a breakdown of salary band, gender, and location.
The senator had sent the ABC a letter about this information prior to the public hearing, which the ABC had declined on four grounds.
“I just want to remind you that you’re in Senate estimates,” Henderson said as Anderson was giving his first answer.
“Yes,” Anderson said.
“You’re required to answer all questions in relation to the expenditure and operations of the ABC. I am seeking these details. Are you able to provide them?”
“Senator, no,” Anderson replied, “I don’t believe it’s appropriate that we provide the information that you seek and I can let you know why. I think there’s enough –”
“– Sorry, Mr. Anderson, it’s actually not open to you to decline,” the senator said.
The grounds on which Anderson declined to disclose information were:
- the information would lead to the identification of individual employees,
- the need to protect overseas staff from undue harassment,
- the ABC’s role as a member of the fourth estate meant requests for additional information should be treated with caution, and
- the commercial competitiveness of the ABC with the private sector for the same employees, giving the private sector an “unfair advantage”.
There was a second letter sent to the ABC, which was the source of some confusion about whether or not it had been tabled or responded to, about the total remuneration of highly paid staff at the ABC.
At a few points, when not making a public interest disclosure claim, Anderson informed the senator that some of the information she sought was found on pages 210-214 of the ABC’s annual report.
The decision about whether or not the information could be protected under such claims was deferred, following a break in the public hearing when a private meeting was held.
At several points during the public hearing, politicians were yelling over each other about lines of questioning being put forward by the opposition, including about ABC’s programming and the behaviour of ABC employees.
Anderson was questioned about a speech ABC reporter Louise Milligan gave to the ACT’s Women’s Lawyer Association, which The Australian reported had distressed a cohort of Canberra lawyers.
The managing director said that although he had not read the speech, there were no complaints about the speech to the ABC itself and Milligan was acting in her personal capacity.
Milligan herself was tweeting during the hearing.
This is the second time she has told something to parliament about me that is completely inaccurate. Rebecca Curran from the ACT Bar Association both thanked me for my speech and pitched me a story on the night.
— Louise Milligan (@Milliganreports) November 7, 2022
When asked by senator Alex Antic about the diversity of ABC employees, the managing director commented he thought it was important that the public broadcaster reflects the community it reports on.
“It’s who we are as a nation, senator,” Anderson said.
“To be able to reflect who we are as a community, whether it be reflecting First Nations culture to culturally linguistically diverse communities, whether it’s LGBTQIA+ communities, whether it’s people living with a disability, I think that we reflect the diversity of the nation,” he added.
The ABC’s public hearing is set to continue after a morning tea break at 11 am.
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