Investigation Report No. 2619
File No. / ACMA2011/1188Licensee / Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Station / ABN Sydney
Type of Service / National Broadcaster
Name of Program / 7.30
Dates of Broadcast / 17 May 2011and 8 June 2011
Relevant Code / Clause 4.1of the ABC Code of Practice 2011
Date Finalised / 14 September 2011
Decision / No breach of clause 4.1 (impartiality)
The complaint
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) received a complaint regarding the7.30program broadcast on17 May2011and 8 June 2011by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).The complaint concernsinterviews conducted with Senator Bob Brown and the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.
The complainant was not satisfied with the response bythe ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs and then made a complaint to the ACMA.
The investigation has considered the ABC’s compliance with clause 4.1 of the Code.[1]
The program
7.30is described on the ABC’s website as a “ABC TV's national flagship current affairs program led by two of Australia's most respected journalists, Leigh Sales and Chris Uhlmann”[2]and is broadcast weeknights at 7.30pm.
On 17 May 2011, Chris Uhlmann interviewed Senator Bob Brown about the carbon tax. The interview covered the starting price of carbon tax, the diesel fuel rebate scheme and the closure of the coal industry.
On 8 June 2011, Chris Uhlmann interviewed the Prime Minister about the government’s decision to suspend exports of cattle to Indonesia. This interview covered the following issues: the impact of the government’s decision on Indigenous cattle stations, education of Indigenous children, welfare dependency of Indigenous Australians and alcohol restrictions in the Northern Territory.
Transcripts of the interviews are at Attachment A.
Assessment
This investigation is based onan email of complaint to the ACMA, correspondence between the ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs and the complainant, and a copy of the broadcast provided by the broadcaster. Other sources used have been identified where relevant.
In assessing content against the Code, the ACMA considers the meaning conveyed by the relevant material. This is assessed according to the understanding of an ‘ordinary, reasonable viewer’.
Australian courts have considered an ‘ordinary, reasonable viewer’ to be:
A person of fair average intelligence, who is neither perverse, nor morbid or suspicious of mind, nor avid for scandal. That person does not live in an ivory tower, but can and does read between the lines in the light of that person’s general knowledge and experience of worldly affairs[3].
The ACMA asks what the ‘ordinary, reasonable viewer’ would have understood this program to have conveyed. It considers the natural, ordinary meaning of the language, context, tenor, tone and inferences that may be drawn.
Once this test has been applied to ascertain the meaning of the broadcast material, it is for the ACMA to determine whether the material has breached the Code.
Issue: Impartiality
Relevant Code clause
4Impartiality and diversity of perspectives
Standards
4.1Gather and present news and information with due impartiality.
The ACMA’s general considerations as to whether or not material complained of is compliant with the ABC’s obligations under clause 4.1 of the Codeare found at Attachment B.
Complainant’s submissions
The complainant submittedto the ABC in an email of 17 May 2011that:
Chris Uhlmann’s aggressively interruptive behaviour towards Bob Brown tonight was unnecessary and unacceptable.
If he is going to behave like that he should go to commercial radio as a ‘shock jock’. If 7.30 can’t fairly interview someone of Brown’s intelligence and knowledge without denying them a chance to finish their well-informed answers, then don’t bother interviewing them at all.
Uhlmann behaved as though Brown was not answering his questions, when in fact if he’d shut up and stopped childishly playing the tough interviewer, he would have realised that Brown WAS answering, and the producer should tell him that the viewers would have appreciated hearing the answers and not Uhlmann’s stupid bullying interruptions.
The complainant submitted to the ABC in an email of 8 June 2011 that:
Uhlmann’s interview with the PM on tonight’s 7.30 proves my point in my earlier email.
As Gillard rabbited on with her soothing, patronising platitudes, not one aggressive (or even confronting) question was asked, and not once were her answers interrupted.
Uhlmann was obsequious, disingenuous, cowardly and boring. What’s good for the gander should be good for the goose.
I defy you and/or ABC News management to watch the Brown interview followed by tonight’s (June 08 2011) interview with Gillard, and tell me I don’t have a genuine case against Uhlmann of bias.
Broadcaster’s submissions
The ABC statedin its response to the complainant of 8 June 2011 that:
While noting your concerns, the ABC is satisfied that this interview was conducted in an appropriate manner. The questions asked by Mr Uhlmann addressed legitimate matters of public interest, and did so at all times in a calm and measured tone. It is the case that at times Mr Uhlmann interrupted Senator Brown; however, when he is doing a one-on-one interview with a politician from any political party Mr Uhlmann has a duty to conduct a testing interview that does not allow the politician to use the occasion as a political platform. It is his duty to put other points of view to the politician and his responsibility to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the questions are answered.
The ABC has a responsibility to serve the public interest by investigating issues affecting society and individuals, and the level of scrutiny evident in this interview was consistent with that obligation…
The ABC stated in its response to the complainant of 27 June 2011 that:
In respect of your concerns regarding Mr Uhlmann’s interview with Prime Minister Julia Gillard on 8 June, please be advised that 7.30 allows for varying approaches to, and styles of, interview, and that any review conducted by Audience & Consumer Affairs is made without comparison with, other program interviews. Assessing whether an interview has met the ABC’s editorial requirements for impartiality involves consideration, in context, of all relevant factors. These include, among other things, the type, subject and nature of the content, along with the circumstances in which the content was presented. Having taken these factors into consideration, we are of the view that Mr Uhlmann’s interview with Ms Gillard was suitably rigorous. In the context of Ms Gillard’s visit to the Northern Territory, Mr Uhlmann questioned the effect of the Government’s suspension of live exports to Indonesia on Aboriginal farmers in particular, and noted that Ms Gillard’s visit had been “overshadowed” by the announcement of that suspension; when the discussion moved on to the Prime Minister’s plans to lift Aboriginal communities out of poverty, Ms Gillard was pressed about dropping school rates for Aboriginal children, along with the effectiveness of the Government’s program to halt welfare payments if a child does not attend school.
We remain satisfied that both broadcasts were in keeping with the impartiality requirements of the ABC Editorial Policies…
Finding
The ABC did not breach clause4.1 of the Code.
Assessment
The complainant submitted that Chris Uhlmann’s “aggressively interruptive behaviour” and “bullying interruptions” during the interview with Senator Bob Brown amounted to bias.
Whilst there is no question that the presenter interrupted Senator Brown on many occasions throughout the interview, the interruptions in and of themselves, however, do not necessarily amount to bias.
As indicated at Attachment B, achieving impartiality requires a broadcaster to present content in a way which avoids conveying a pre-judgement, or giving effect to the affectations or enmities of the presenter or reporter who play a key role in setting the tone of the program. Whether a breach of clause 4.1 has occurred will depend on the themes of the program, any editorial comment, the overall presentation of the story and the circumstances in which the program was prepared and broadcast.
The ordinary, reasonable viewer would have understood that the use of interruptions in this case was employed to move the interview forward and to ensure that the questions were probing and challenging. The use of such technique does not affect the impartiality of a program, as long as willingness is demonstrated to include alternative perspectives without prejudgment. The delegate considers that theinterruptions did not limit Bob Brown’s ability to provide responses to the questions posed during the interview. For instance:
Bob Brown: … so the price should be the best one that can be levied given the current political circumstances in Australia.
Chris Uhlmann: So higher than $40 a tonne? (spoken over the final words spoken by Bob Brown above)
Bob Brown: Sorry?
Chris Uhlmann: Higher than $40 a tonne?
Bob Brown: Well, I can't tell you what that figure will be because other things…
There is insufficient evidence to indicate that the interviewer’s interruptions demonstrated partiality or represented his own view in relation to the carbontax. The interviewer did not use sustained emotive or colourful language in asking the questions nor provided any comments which indicated that what was being reported was his own view.
For these reasons, the delegate considers that the interruptions made by the presenter did notconvey a prejudgement or partiality. Accordingly, the delegate finds that the ABC did not breach clause 4.1 of the Code in relation to the broadcast on 17 May 2011.
The complainant also referred to an interview with the Prime Minister broadcast on 8 June 2011 in which he submitted that Chris Uhlmann did not ask any “aggressive questions” or interrupt the responses.It is unclear whether the complainant intended the reference to be a complaint about the broadcast or a comparison with the interview with Bob Brown.
In the event that it is a complaint, the delegate considers that the interview style adopted by Chris Ulhmann does not display bias towards the Prime Minister. The language used by the interviewer was objective and did not represent his own views regarding the issues covered in the interview.
Accordingly, the delegate finds that the ABC did not breach clause 4.1 of the Code in relation to the broadcast on 8 June 2011.
Attachment A
Transcript of interview with Senator Bob Brown –7.30–17 May 2011
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The focus of Federal politics flicked back to the carbon tax today. The multiparty committee hammering out its details met in Canberra. One of the burning questions yet to be settled is what the starting price will be. Tomorrow the Government will release a report that says that carbon will have to be $40 a tonne to shift power production from burning black coal to gas. But the Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, says the price will be well south of that. Earlier, Chris Uhlmann spoke with the Greens leader Bob Brown and asked if $40 a tonne is about right.
SENATOR BOB BROWN, GREENS LEADER: Well, it is for getting that outcome, but the question is what is a carbon price going to be when you add other complementary measures to it and I'll be interested to see the Deloitte report when we get it presumably tomorrow - a day or two after Martin Ferguson has had it, the Minister, and his friends in the big end of town who apparently have given it to The Australian.
CHRIS UHLMANN, REPORTER: But what do you think the price should be?
BOB BROWN: Well, the price should be one that gives us the best reduction in the extraordinary pollution in Australia. We're the biggest per capita polluter for any similar country in the word. We've got the biggest coal exports, we are prodigious burners of fossil fuels so the price should be the best one that can be levied given the current political circumstances in Australia.
CHRIS UHLMANN: So higher than $40 a tonne?
BOB BROWN: Sorry?
CHRIS UHLMANN: Higher than $40 a tonne?
BOB BROWN: Well, I can't tell you what that figure will be because other things do come into play, like what you're going to do in terms of stimulating renewable energy, how you're going to treat transport, whether you're going to stop destroying forests and woodlands which create up to 20 per cent...
CHRIS UHLMANN: Sure, but many of those things also come with costs, though, don't they? Your complementary measures that you're talking about which would be giving subsidies to renewable energies, for example, come at a cost to the taxpayers.
BOB BROWN: Chris, at the moment we give- after years of the Howard Government and lesser years of Labor, we give $11 billion of subsidies to the polluting fossil fuel industries. For example, $1.7 billion to the coal mining industry so that they pay 38 cents a litre less for their fuel than the average punter in Australia.
CHRIS UHLMANN: So you're talking about the diesel fuel rebate scheme?
BOB BROWN: That's a component of it but I emphasise that the big coal industry - largely owned outside Australia - pays 38 cents less than the average Australian, including small business people, for its fuel because of this massive subsidy going to actually promote pollution.
CHRIS UHLMANN: But that subsidy also goes to farmers, it goes to hospitals, it goes to nursing homes, so you would withdraw that as well to subsidise complementary measures?
BOB BROWN: Six hundred million goes to farmers, a tiny fraction, which we would keep in place. But when it comes to this massive subsidy - multibillion subsidy - to the mining industry, which under current trajectory is going to get billions more out of a reduction in its taxes next year, we've got to look at all that money pouring overseas instead of producing a clean, green economy here in Australia...
CHRIS UHLMANN: Sure. The money just doesn't go overseas. In fact it's helping to fuel what is the second mining boom, which is going to drive this economy into the future. A lot of money will be reaped in Australia by what happens in the mining industry, won't it?
BOB BROWN: Well, some. Xstrata sends- it's almost 100 per cent owned overseas, Rio Tinto 70 per cent, BHP 40 per cent...
CHRIS UHLMANN: But the activity in this economy is going to be extraordinary over the next few years, which will drive investment which will drive dollars coming into the economy?
BOB BROWN: Absolutely. So the Greens challenge the big parties to recoup that money along lines put by conservative treasury, which would be a super profits tax but they won't do it. Tony Abbott wouldn't collect a dollar of that. He wants to put all the impost on to households and keep benefitting the big polluters. You know, this is...
CHRIS UHLMANN: You talk about it that you tax the big polluters and it doesn't end up in households. You wouldn't have to compensate people if it didn't end up as being a cost to households, would you?
BOB BROWN: Well, there are flow on costs.
CHRIS UHLMANN: They pass those costs on.
BOB BROWN: Let me, let me-
CHRIS UHLMANN: And the complimentary measures that you're talking about- the complimentary measures that you're talking about...
BOB BROWN: The point here is, Chris, at the moment householders are paying these big polluters $11 billion in subsidies, which is about the amount that will be recouped under a carbon price system, if you look at some of the figures.
But the householders are paying for it now. What we are here saying is householders want us to tackle the dangers of the climate change, which is caused by big pollution.
We say we'll do that.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Sure. And they would like to know what the cost is going to be - not just the carbon price but also the complementary measures, some of which will mean costs for households?
BOB BROWN: Yes, and that will be compensated under the proposal by...
CHRIS UHLMANN: Complementary measures as well as the carbon price?
BOB BROWN: That'll be compensated...
CHRIS UHLMANN: All of it?
BOB BROWN: We are going to compensate households but Tony Abbott will not. He's going to put all the money in from households into the big polluters, estimate $720 per household by the end of this decade and - either that or reduce 100,000 jobs in the country or start closing hospital wards and schools to fund the big polluters. We will not do that.
CHRIS UHLMANN: That $11 billion that you're talking about is money that he would forego in the mining tax, and I noticed you started your budget and reply speech just there. How would you replace the $50 billion a year in export income which comes by way of coal - an industry that you'd shut down?
BOB BROWN: Well, a lot of that money is bouncing straight back out to shareholders overseas. Now what we're...
CHRIS UHLMANN: A lot of that money is circulating in the economy. It's creating job, Senator, it's bouncing through to our cities.
BOB BROWN: Yes, Chris, and what we would do is take the advice of the Treasury of this nation and recoup the $145 billion over the next 10 years through a super profits tax. Tony Abbott says...
CHRIS UHLMANN: But you can't recoup it if you shut the industry down.
BOB BROWN: Treasury...
CHRIS UHLMANN: If you shut the coal industry down there won't be that money...
BOB BROWN: I'm sorry...
CHRIS UHLMANN: …available to you.
BOB BROWN: I'm sorry, Chris, Treasury has no intention to shut the industry down. it tends to- it tends...
CHRIS UHLMANN: No, but you do.
BOB BROWN: No, I'm not.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Didn't you say back in 2007 that we had to kick the coal habit?
BOB BROWN: No, I did not. You're looking at the Murdoch press, where I said back in 2007 we should look at coal exports with a view to phasing them out down the line.
CHRIS UHLMANN: It wasn't the Murdoch press, it was a comment piece that you wrote. So you want to phase out the coal industry?
BOB BROWN: The world is going to do that because it is causing massive economic damage down the line through the impact of climate change.
CHRIS UHLMANN: But the question-
BOB BROWN: No, let me...
CHRIS UHLMANN: The simple question is how do you replace $50 billion worth of export income?
BOB BROWN: You go to renewables over the coming decades and you do that by exporting... Look, Germany did this. It's closed its coal mine. It's closing its nuclear power stations. It's gone into exporting renewables - including using Australian technology...
CHRIS UHLMANN: And those jobs...
BOB BROWN: It's created 350,000 jobs and a multibillion dollar export industry and Australia- China's going to have as many solar panels by 2020 as the whole world has now, using, again, a mission of technologies, including those from Australia while this country is captivated by the old polluting industries which are making climate change worse.
Now, we can do much better than that. This is a resource rich country. We should follow 37 other countries, take some of the money from those resource riches, put it into a sovereign fund and make sure this country can be educated, wealthy and wise into the future.
CHRIS UHLMANN: We're going to have to leave it there, thank you.
BOB BROWN: Thanks, Chris.