Letters tabled in Senate reveal criticism by Alan Joyce plus admission of nine errors by ABC in economics correspondent’s piece

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, has accused the ABC of having an anti-business bias in a letter of complaint about the “slanted analysis” and “poor reporting” in economics correspondent Emma Alberici’s company tax stories.



In the letter to the ABC managing director, Michelle Guthrie, Joyce wrote: “Any reasonable person consuming the ABC’s coverage would incorrectly be led to believe that Qantas (along with other large corporations) was in some way shirking its tax responsibilities and not contributing to the Australian economy. This could not be further from the truth.”

Joyce’s letter, along with letters of complaint from the prime minister’s office and the chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, Jennifer Westacott, were tabled in the Senate on Tuesday in response to questions on notice at estimates.

“Emma Alberici’s story – ‘Tax-free billions: Australia’s largest companies haven’t paid corporate tax in 10 years’ – is not only grossly inaccurate and unbalanced, it implies these reputable Australian companies have broken the law,” Westacott wrote.



“The leading companies under attack in Ms Alberici’s report employ thousands of Australian workers, pay taxes, pay dividends, make other contributions, and invest heavily in the Australian economy.



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“Equally, Business Council member companies provided material information to Ms Alberici but it was not included in the story.



“Despite our members providing detailed and important context to Ms Alberici, much of this was ignored in order to give the impression that business was somehow acting in bad faith. This is despite the very same member companies being mentioned in the story multiple times.



“Nationwide, business provides five out of every six jobs, the private sector is responsible for 80% of Australia’s economic output and paid $71bn of company tax in 2016-17.”



The ABC has detailed nine errors in Alberici’s news story for the first time in answers to previous questions on notice.

At Senate estimates in February, Guthrie and her editorial policy adviser, Alan Sunderland, declined to pinpoint a single error, but the ABC has always maintained there were errors in the news story.

The errors included a misleading headline that was not written by the reporter and mistakes such as calling MYOB a “corporate advisor” rather than a software company, a point Alberici disagrees with because the company does offer an advisory service according to its website.

“ABC News and the editorial team identified errors in fact as well as omissions of fact that required editing,” the ABC said.

One error was that it was “not clear what the author means by ‘generous tax concessions’ in relation to Qantas. Depreciation, amortisation and operating losses are not tax concessions”.

Another said “Etihad, Emirates and Qatar are not Australian airlines” in relation to a line in the story that called them “Australia’s biggest airlines”. However, the sub-editor introduced this mistake not Alberici.

The ABC told the Senate no factual errors were identified in the initial post-publication review.

“The key editorial findings identified possible breaches of the ABC’s editorial standards in relation to impartiality. The ABC’s Audience & Consumer Affairs investigation is ongoing,” it said.

The ABC removed Alberici’s analysis piece on 15 February. The answers to questions from Labor senator Kristina Keneally reveal the director of news, Gaven Morris, raised concerns with news executives about Alberici’s news and analysis stories at 7.06am on 14 February, only a couple of hours after they had been published and before the ABC had received the letters from Westacott and Malcolm Turnbull.

An email from Morris to his deputy, Craig McMurtrie, read: “Are we sure about this? Did we give the companies listed a chance to respond? It’s a great story if true. My worry is it sounds too sensational to be true – and it’d be good to know we had a rock solid process of checking and vetting the facts.”

“At 9.54 on 14 February, Craig emailed Emma saying that it was a strong story but that he had questions about whether she had consulted the Australian Taxation Office and the use of the term ‘exclusive’,” the ABC told the Senate.

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The ABC amended the news piece but did not remove the analysis piece from its website until late on 15 February, after receiving the complaints. It was extensively rewritten and republished a week later.

In a 12-point letter of complaint to Guthrie, Turnbull’s office said “the Alberici ‘Analysis’ piece should not be labelled ‘Analysis’. It should be labelled ‘Opinion’. This is a frequently repeated ABC mistake.”

Keneally had also asked the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, if he had ever complained about reports by journalists from other publications, including Greg Jericho of Guardian Australia and Ian Verrender of ABC Online.

“The treasurer’s office regularly provides clarifications, context and feedback on articles by journalists of all stripes and, yes, both genders,” the answer said.

The ABC confirmed that the headlines for the analysis piece and the news story were not written by Alberici, who also had no input into the selection of photographs or captions. The photograph of Joyce alongside his salary was a matter of contention.

“However, the final versions of both stories were shown to Emma prior to publication for review,” the ABC said. But Alberici says she was not shown the final version with headline before publication at 5am.

“Both the analysis piece and the news story were reviewed by Deborah Auchinachie from ABC Legal prior to publication. The stories did not give rise to any legal issues.”