A partly leaked dossier has revealed that Michelle Guthrie told the board months ago she believed it would be an act of “retribution” if she was sacked.

A Fairfax report on Saturday claimed Guthrie wrote to the board months before she was fired, claiming that any decision to terminate her appointment “would not be based on a valid reason”, and would appear to be – at least in part – because she had made disclosures “about the chair’s inappropriate conduct towards me and [interference] in the independence of the ABC”.

The details emerged a day after the ABC’s acting chair, Dr Kirstin Ferguson, said would be an “unreasonable expectation” for the public to learn the reason behind her firing.

Ferguson was named on Friday as the broadcaster’s acting chair after Justin Milne quit following revelations he appeared to interfere with the independence of ABC journalists.

The board members are facing questions about when they became aware that Milne had demanded the sacking of two senior journalists – Emma Alberici and Andrew Probyn – over stories that upset the federal government.

Ferguson, who has been on the board since 2015, declined to say when allegations of Milne’s demands first arose, and rejected suggestions the public were owed an explanation for Guthrie’s departure.

“I think it is an unreasonable expectation. It is unfair on the person involved and I just won’t go there,” she told ABC TV on Friday. Ferguson said she had “never seen evidence in our board discussions from my current board of any political interference”.

The claim from the Fairfax report was drawn from a document compiled by Guthrie and given to the board before she was sacked.

According to the Fairfax report, Guthrie wrote to Ferguson in May and said: “I can’t do this any more.” It said Guthrie claimed Milne had demanded Alberici’s sacking at least four times over various mediums. She said she had repeatedly defended the ABC’s independence and pushed back against demands to fire journalists because the government of the day complained about them.

“I reiterated the need to maintain public trust and the ABC couldn’t be responding or be seen to be responding to pressure from the government of the day,” she wrote to the board, the Fairfax report says.

“In response, Mr Milne continued to yell at me and berate me and wouldn’t let me finish the call.”

Guthrie is also reported to have rejected concerns the board is said to have had about her management style, poor relationships with staff, frequent absences and not informing them of major financial issues.

Milne has denied demanding that any journalist be sacked but maintains he was entitled to intervene on issues of editorial accuracy and independence.

When asked about the emails reported in Fairfax and the claims he told her to fire Alberici at least four times, a spokesperson for Milne said: “Mr Milne has nothing to add to his comments during the week.”



Labor has called for the appointment of a permanent chair to be a bipartisan process, and will join the Greens in trying to initiate a Senate inquiry.

Ferguson has said she will cooperate with the inquiry and that the timeline of events will then be revealed.

The communications department secretary, Mike Mrdak, is also looking into issues around the ABC board.

The acting Labor leader Tanya Plibersek said there was a cloud over the entire ABC board because they asked Milne to step down only after allegations against him became public. “I think other board members really do need to examine whether they have fully discharged their responsibilities to protect and defend the ABC,” Plibersek said.