Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 7:06:40 to 7:11:25
ABC management explains the internal approval process and why the segment was approved at the head level rather than being referred further up the editorial chain.
Topics: Integrity, Government spending
Speakers: Senator Dean Smith, Gavin Fang, Unknown Speaker, Hugh Marks
So just to be clear, what were the editorial layers that were observed in this particular matter? Not those that weren't observed, what were observed, because my understanding is that the editorial policies require content that may cause harm or offence to be referred to senior editorial staff. So can you detail for me what were the layers and then does and were and were they at a suitably senior level uh to fulfil the editorial policy requirements?
Would you like me to take that one?
Thanks, Mr. Feng.
Senator, my understanding is that the program uh was referred up to the executive producer of the program, so the person that was in in charge, but um there may be another title but of that in that in the um in the screen division, um, that there was uh a discussion and advice sought about um that the the segment um and the ordinarily um that level of seniority that's a senior role and that level of seniority would uh be sufficient to sign off on a program. Um if the judgment call at that point had been made that it should have been referred up, it should have then gone higher, but it wasn't in this case.
are there? What I mean by that, what I mean by that is that people you know consciously um you know um it they they send it up the editorial line, uh they send it this far, right? Then they consciously do not send it further up the line because they have a level of awareness or understanding that there might be some pushback. Because to go from the executive producer to just then then at that level discussion and advice was sought. And what you're saying, Mr. Fang is that at that point the judgment decision which was made has subsequently been determined to be wrong,
Yes, Senator, yes.
Yeah. So so w why at that level does it stop? Why at that level would it stop?
Yeah, so what is what the policies really look to do is to uh refer up when a matter is contentious or if there it's a judgment call. Most of the time there would be a discussion in a general sense about all programs. Um in this particular matter, uh I think it was uh I think I said the executive producer, but I think it was referred up to what we call head level, so that's a very high level. Apologies if I gave the wrong designation before. Um what we see that we seek to have accountability, I suppose, at the right level around programs, and so if at that point it wasn't determined it needed to go further, it wouldn't have. So, you know, at that point though, if advice is sought and someone would say, uh, you know, I think. You need to refer that up, or you should, if this is a contentious matter, for example, often particularly in the news context, it's an advisory to the manager that goes higher up to the director of news, for instance, so that they are aware and can intervene if they like. In this scenario, my understanding is that it it it would not be unusual. It would be common practice for a program of this nature to go to head level. It would not always go to the director of the screen division. But under the changes that we've made to our guidance, it's more likely that that would have been a refer-up decision.
On notice, can you just give me in detail the decision making process that was applied in this particular matter? Job titles, if appropriate, individuals.
Yeah, we see what we can find.
And then and then a clear understanding of the decision making that was undertaken in this context and the decision making layers that sit above that, but were not utilised in this particular context. When was the last time the editorial policies of the ABC were externally reviewed?
Well, they're on they're publicly available.