Do as I say, not as I do. That’s the message new ABC chairman Kim Williams sent when he publicly criticized opposition leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy policy.
It comes just weeks after prominent ABC political journalist Laura Tingle was formally sanctioned for criticizing Dutton’s immigration policy at the Sydney Writers Festival.
In March this year, shortly after Williams took over as ABC chairman, he boldly declared that there is no place for political “activism” at the public broadcaster and that anyone who cannot meet that standard should up and leave.
But with more than four years left in his term, I can only assume Williams won’t follow his own advice.
I’m not sure what offends me more: the stupidity of the ABC president in making those comments, especially in the current climate, or the obvious political bias they so openly displayed.
We should note that Williams is not subject to ABC’s editorial guidelines. He is not a journalist.
But if he doesn’t want to be accused of hypocrisy (the pot calls the kettle black, so to speak), he should have kept quiet.
Anthony Albanese named Kim Williams president of ABC earlier this year
Instead, Williams joined the After The Fact panel, alongside the director of the Vivid Festival and the chief executive of IndigenousX, and told his audience that Dutton’s nuclear policy “lacks the normal fabric of policymaking”.
Williams’s psychic powers aside (the Opposition’s nuclear policy has not yet been published), surely the new ABC chairman must realize how inappropriate it is for him to intervene in such an issue?
Apparently not, because he also told his audience that he was only speaking as an “Australian citizen”, as if it were that easy for one of the most prominent roles in Australian media to don and doff his ABC hat every time he decides to throw some partisan criticism.
Would Tingle’s comments have been okay if he had made this tenuous distinction when he said, “We’re a racist country, let’s face it”?
It just shouldn’t be that difficult for someone in a role like Williams to do better.
He could offer his reflections on Dutton’s nuclear policy credentials in private, at home, among friends and family. Out of earshot of anyone with a recording device, and certainly not on the stage of a public event.
Think about it quietly if you want.
It’s hard to believe that this comes so soon after the Tingle saga and with so many parallels. ABC CEO David Anderson even had to appear before Senate Estimates in Canberra and reprimand the conduct of his star journalist.
However, Williams has already done it. Perhaps the worst part of what happened is that Tingle and others at ABC could learn the wrong lesson and think that two wrongs make a right. If the President can do it, so can we.
The extent of Williams’ denial was revealed when, after criticizing Dutton’s alleged poor policy-making skills, he told the audience: “I’m not being political.”
Actually? Maybe it was about emulating Seinfeld’s George Costanza: “Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Would Williams even have been invited to join a panel flagged as discussing “sound policies” if he weren’t the president of ABC?
Given the obvious political content that will likely be discussed by the panel, shouldn’t Williams have known this and politely declined?
Laura Tingle (left, with Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame) sparked controversy when she described Australia as a “racist country” during a panel discussion.
The rest of the ABC chairman’s attempt to criticize Dutton’s policymaking skills as woefully poor only revealed his own ignorance of how the opposition policymaking process works.
Williams confidently stated: “I grew up in a time when governments published green papers… then they published white papers… followed by debate in parliament… that was the traditional process for formulating public policies… “I think it’s a pretty good system.”
Guess what, Kim, it’s a pretty good system, and it still works that way.
But Dutton is not in the government, he is in the opposition.
The same policy-making processes do not exist because the opposition does not have a team of departmental bureaucrats to design its policies.
Nor does it control Parliament, or at least the Lower House. Therefore, oppositions cannot follow the traditional policy-making cycle as they should and sometimes governments do.
But leaving aside Williams’ (failed) attempt to educate Dutton on the policy-making process, he simply should not have weighed in on such a hot-button political issue.
And you’re absolutely kidding yourself if you think you can take off your ABC hat every time you want to weigh in.
The real world doesn’t work that way.
If, after being appointed president by the current Labor government, Williams cannot help but offer opinions on one of the central political issues that are likely to dominate the next election campaign, he should only do so over a beer with friends.
Or more likely, in the case of the former director of the Sydney Opera House Trust, with a nice glass of chardonnay.
If you can’t meet that basic rule, then you should quit.