Christian Porter offered to settle his defamation case against the ABC twice within a matter of weeks, and the public broadcaster agreed only to pay mediation costs of $100,000, a parliamentary committee has heard.
The ABC has spent $780,000 defending the defamation suit, including the mediation costs for the former attorney general’s legal counsel, ABC managing director David Anderson revealed.
The timeline laid down by Anderson revealed Porter first offered to settle his case on 24 March, only nine days after it was filed on 15 March.
A second offer was made on 9 May. In between the two offers, on 4 May, the ABC filed its defence.
Anderson was appearing at a three-hour session examining the wash-up of the Porter case, as well as a contentious Four Corners episode about Scott Morrison’s links to a QAnon conspiracy theorist.
Anderson told the Senate estimates hearing that under the mediation agreement between the ABC and Porter, hammered out over four days, the ABC was given permission to tell parliament some detail of the otherwise confidential agreement.
He revealed that part of the agreement between the two parties when Porter dropped his suit last week was that the ABC would pay half of the mediator’s cost.
Anderson also effectively confirmed a story published by Guardian Australia last week that the ABC rejected an earlier offer from Porter to settle his defamation case.
Porter claimed a victory, but he originally made an offer for a relatively modest financial settlement without an apology or a retraction of the article. In mediation, he agreed to no apology, no retraction and no costs.
Anderson said the first offer from Porter was on 23 March and the second offer was on 9 May. Both offers were rejected by the broadcaster and the two parties entered mediation on Friday 28 May, reaching an agreement last Monday.
Anderson contradicted Porter’s claims last week that the ABC is “humiliated”, that it had “backed down” and that it regretted the article being published.
Porter gave a bullish press conference outside court last week in which he said the ABC had been “forced to say they regret the outcome of the reporting”.
During the conference, Porter said the ABC had been “forced by my taking this action all the way to the court door, they have been forced to say they regret the article”.
But Anderson told senators the ABC was not “humiliated” and “did not regret the article”.
All that had happened was that an editor’s note agreed to by both parties at mediation had been attached to the article, he said.
“The editor’s note said that both parties accept that some readers misinterpreted the article as an accusation of guilt against Mr Porter and that reading, not intended, was regretted,” Anderson told Senate estimates.
“Senator, again I’ll just suggest that the editor’s note was agreed by both parties, and was affixed to the online article as [of] that Monday.”
Anderson stopped short of agreeing with a suggestion that what Porter said outside court was “nonsense”.
The managing director also answered questions about an episode of Four Corners examining the relationship between the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
The episode was delayed for review last week and had yet to be approved, Anderson told senators.
However, he contradicted an article in the Australian on Monday that claimed Four Corners was at war with management over the story.
Happy Monday from #4Corners. Fyi no-one here is at war with anyone and morale is excellent. We fully accept it is the MD’s role to decide whether/when to publish, and we value ABC management’s unwavering support for our journalism. We are continuing to work on the QAnon story.
— Sally Neighbour (@neighbour_s) June 7, 2021
Anderson said he respected Four Corners and stood by its journalism, despite his decision as editor-in-chief to delay the QAnon story.
“I do have absolute faith and the utmost respect for the 4C team ... it is not unreasonable for me to question certain things,” he said.
Any suggestion I’m “at war”, least of all with ABC MD, with whom I have an excellent relationship, is completely untrue. I declined to speak to any journalist about this - in fact, I’ve been very unwell after operation. James Madden @australian didn’t give me courtesy of a call.
— Louise Milligan (@Milliganreports) June 7, 2021
On the matter of whether there had been any political interference, Anderson said no one in government or the Liberal party had contacted the ABC and demanded the story not be aired.
He also said the ABC board had not been consulted over the issue, which was his sole responsibility as editor-in-chief.
However, he confirmed that an adviser for Morrison had contacted the ABC news chief, Gaven Morris, about the story.
“I do not believe there has been an intervention by the government or anyone else that the program should not go to air,” Anderson said.
He defended the broadcaster’s social media policy, after telling senators that Four Corners’ executive producer, Sally Neighbour, would not be disciplined for an inaccurate tweet about Porter dropping his defamation action.
Anderson said Neighbour’s tweet was inaccurate and he had contacted Morris, her superior, to tell him to contact her immediately and get her to take it down. Neighbour deleted it and followed up with an accurate tweet.
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson asked him why the ABC did not follow the BBC’s lead and simply ban journalists from tweeting about certain subjects.
Anderson said ABC staff were required to act within guidelines which were “sophisticated and enforceable”.
The ABC has also confirmed that a story published in the Australian last week saying the broadcaster’s lawyers had apologised to the judge for Neighbour’s tweet was incorrect.
Legal counsel for the ABC told the Senate hearing that the notice to the judge had nothing to do with Neighbour.
