Complaints over ABC stories claiming Aboriginals classified under ‘Flora and Fauna’ laws
The Institute of Public Affairs has questioned the ABC’s impartiality on the Voice debate in the wake of more corrections over stories airing an urban myth about Aboriginals.
Clarissa Bye
August 29, 2023 6:59 pm
News staff at the ABC will be sent an official memo reminding them about the need for accuracy in the wake of several of its shows broadcasting as fact an urban myth claiming Aborigines were classified under a “Flora and Fauna Act”.
A damning ABC Ombudsman report found the statements, on a story about Aboriginal Diggers on ABC News Breakfast, News Radio and News Online, were “inaccurate” and constituted a “material inaccuracy”.
And in another segment broadcast by The Drum, the same false claim was aired by former footballer Adam Goodes, which was also found to be inaccurate.
Critics of the taxpayer funded media giant say there is a growing community perception the ABC cannot be trusted to provide balanced coverage of the Voice debate.
ABC Ombudsman Fiona Cameron said the segments were from prerecorded packages and “should have been caught prior to broadcast (and in the case of the online article, prior to publication)”.
The stories have now been amended, with corrections added, while the ABC Director of News will now send out a memo to all news staff “emphasising the need to understand and accurately report issues relating to the 1967 Referendum and its role in Australian history”.
The first story, titled Australian War Memorial honours 251st Aboriginal digger from Vietnam War, contained the statement: “Before the 1967 referendum, Aboriginal men were still counted as flora and fauna”.
And the accompanying online article claimed: “Indigenous men were governed by the Flora and Fauna Act, making them exempt from service”.
In a separate segment prerecorded on The Drum, Mr Goodes claimed his mother “was part of the flora and fauna act when she was born”.
“These statements are inaccurate, as Aboriginal people have never been covered by a flora and fauna act,” the ABC Ombudsman’s report says.
The ABC ombudsman said there had in fact been an RMIT ABC Fact check explaining the origins and perpetuation “of this myth”.
“In the context of stories which talked about the rights and constitutional history of Indigenous Australians, we consider this to be a material inaccuracy,” Ms Cameron said.
Institute of Public Affairs deputy executive director Daniel Wild said that ABC news directors were spending time correcting false information “suggests there’s an internal cultural problem at the ABC, where on air presenters cannot be trusted to get it right.”
“These continued, major on-air inaccuracies reinforce a growing perception in the community that the ABC cannot be trusted to provide impartial and balanced coverage on the Voice to Parliament,” he said.
“The ABC, and its ‘fact checking’ partner RMIT, hold themselves out as paragons of truth, but the bottom line is they are merely just mouthpieces for the Yes campaign who censor other opinions.
“The ABC has pattern of repeated behaviour in spreading misinformation about the Voice to Parliament and needs to be held to account for its relentlessly biased coverage.”
Separately, the ABC has also upheld a different complaint by the Australian Jewish Association of bias about a story three weeks ago about a terrorist attack in Israel, after complaints that the headline was misleading and didn’t convey that it was a terrorist attack.
“Regarding the headline, ABC News agreed this was an issue,” the ombudsman wrote. “…our headlines (main title and teaser title) didn’t make clear that the Palestinian man actually opened fire before he was killed.”
I generally like the ABC but these two examples are not acceptable. They need to get a grip. It’s not good enough.
