ABC confirms: it was what Milne said about Gillard
Sacked for something he said somewhere else? This is star-chamber stuff:
VETERAN political journalist Glenn Milne has been dumped from ABC TV's The Insiders because of a column he wrote in News Ltd's The Australian.
The column, retracted in full after furious demands from Julia Gillard, made claims about the Prime Minister's one-time relationship with former unionist Bruce Wilson, the embezzlement of union funds and his eventual fraud conviction.
Milne was told he would no longer be part of future episodes of the program on Thursday evening after a meeting by the ABC's news management team.
The ABC's head of policy, Alan Sunderland told The Sun-Herald, last night that Milne had not been "sacked ... because we don't employ him and never have" but confirmed the column had been the catalyst for the decision to cancel his scheduled appearance on the show this morning.
Disgraceful.
The ABC should at least answer this: were any calls made to the ABC about Milne by Gillard, Communications Minister Steve Conroy or anyone speaking on their behalf?
UPDATE
Professor Sinclair Davidson sums up:
Government owned media organisation bans government critic
Indeed, why is Bob Ellis still allowed to write for and appear on this newly censorious ABC, given his own dishing of dirt?:
That notoriety was dramatically boosted by the case brought by Treasurer Peter Costello and wife Tanya, and Tony and Margaret Abbott, who alleged they were all defamed by a passage in Goodbye Jerusalem. It's a story supposedly recounted to Ellis by former State Labor MP Rodney Cavalier, alleging that in the distant past of university days, a long-haired Peter Costello, and the young political firebrand Tony Abbott, were both in the right wing of the Labor Party till Tanya Coleman slept with both, married one of them, and induced them into the Young Liberals. The story was completely untrue.
Is the difference that Ellis merely slimed a Liberal politician, while Milne alarmed a Labor one?
