It was a line straight out of US President Donald Trump’s playbook. “Bye bye to the ABC,” Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, said as he ejected two journalists working for the public broadcaster’s rural service from a media event on Friday, less than 24 hours before polls opened in the NSW byelection for Farrer.
The words that followed between Ashby and his boss were a giveaway that something deeper was at play. The One Nation founder said the reporters “shouldn’t have gone” because they were from the local ABC bureau, based in Farrer. Ashby darkly insisted they were reporting back to the broadcaster’s federal politics team in Canberra.
The exchange showed the choice for hard-right-wing parties as they deal with public broadcasters and other mainstream outlets they have often attacked: engage and spread a message but risk receiving hard questions, or steer clear and reach fewer people while reducing risk and building up a useful media foil.
For years, that decision has been finely balanced. But as traditional outlets’ influence has declined and fringe parties like One Nation have been boosted by the polarising force of social media to record electoral success, Ashby, at least, had made up his mind.
This more-intense feud between One Nation and the ABC – which have never enjoyed close relations – had been building for at least seven weeks. It began with a phone call between ABC investigative reporter Charlotte Grieve, formerly of this masthead, and Pauline Hanson’s PR staffer Richard Henderson in March. Grieve had a scoop that there were British arrest warrants out for One Nation’s candidate in the state seat of Adelaide over sexual touching allegations, just days before the South Australian election.
Grieve called Henderson for comment, and reported he was initially defensive. “Sexual offence charge, but not a conviction, right?” Henderson reportedly said.
One Nation stood down its candidate two days later. But the party remonstrated with the ABC, insisting Henderson’s comments had been “off the record” – which means they cannot be used in reporting – and arguing he should not have been named. At other times though, the party’s complaints appeared muddled, according to people familiar with the dispute. But if the ABC did not comply, the broadcaster would not be allowed into One Nation’s state election night function, the party flagged.
University of Sydney media professor Catharine Lumby says there are no set conventions for whether a journalist can or cannot name a spokesperson and the decision is usually at the discretion of the reporter and organisation. But she said the rules were clearer for quoting.
“Unless someone says off the record, and they’re very explicit about it, then it’s on the record,” Lumby says. “If you’re dealing with a media spokesperson, you’d assume they know that.”
In Australian political reporting though – where journalists have to speak to the same sources again and again – it is common for spokespeople not to be named and for phone conversations to be off the record, with attributable statements sent later via text or email.
In this instance, the reporter and spokesperson had no relationship, and Grieve was chasing comment before publication of an investigation. Henderson did not explicitly say his comments were off the record, two sources said.
Grieve referred a request from this masthead for comment to an ABC spokesperson, who did not respond. But the broadcaster did not budge in the face of One Nation’s demands. When its journalists showed up at One Nation’s election night function on March 21, they were denied entry.
What followed, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter speaking on condition of anonymity, was six weeks of turmoil and “negotiations” between ABC management and One Nation, led by chief of staff Ashby, a veteran political staffer, over the public broadcaster’s access to party figures and to events. No deal appeared to eventuate.
In some ways, that is unsurprising. One Nation has strong, established views on the ABC. Like most hard-right-wing political movements in democracies around the world, the party is opposed to public service broadcasting and believes the ABC is too left wing.
Instead, One Nation has found its ideological home on Sky News, where party figures, including Hanson and Ashby, regularly appear. Before that, Hanson was a regular contributor for Seven’s Sunrise and then the Today program on Nine (owner of this masthead), in both cases reportedly having her appearance fees donated to charity.
But the party’s relationship with Sky is closer. On Saturday night, for example, Sky’s Paul Murray said One Nation was not “just in the game, they’re leading it on the centre right of Australian politics”.
The week after the Baxter story and the South Australian election, Hanson said she wanted to defund the ABC and make it a subscription-only service, aside from regional radio broadcasting. Remarks like that have made some believe this latest dispute is a smokescreen to intensify the party’s anti-ABC position, and a way to embolden its staff to push back against the broadcaster’s reporters, as they did on Saturday.
In contrast, Nigel Farage, leader of the UK’s One Nation-esque Reform party, appears frequently on the BBC despite having a contentious relationship with the public broadcaster.
Still, access for local ABC reporters was not an issue until the pointy end of the Farrer campaign: its journalists repeatedly spoke to candidate David Farley.
But after Ashby’s intervention at Farley’s press conference on Friday, the ABC was boxed out. The next day, as the same duo – ABC Goulburn Murray reporter Erin Somerville and a camera operator – tried to get footage of MP Barnaby Joyce outside polling booths, they were blocked and filmed by One Nation staff. The same thing happened outside the party’s election night function at the Bended Elbow pub in Albury, according to sources who were present.
The ABC was denied entry to One Nation’s event that evening. One Nation staff outside told passersby and supporters not to speak to the ABC, even off the record. The Guardian, which leans left of centre and has broken numerous stories about Hanson’s flights on billionaire Gina Rinehart’s dime, was also not allowed entry.
When Farley was asked about the dispute on Sunday, he echoed Hanson’s position that the ABC’s local services play an important role in regional communities.
“I’m not being muzzled from speaking to regional ABC, but there is a negotiation going on at the ABC and headquarters, and I’ll leave that with both of those parties,” he said.
Party sources accuse the ABC of being “entitled” in expecting access to events and party figures and argue its coverage is unfair.
On Saturday night, Hanson took aim at remarks from one of the ABC’s most senior broadcasters, Afternoon Briefing host Patricia Karvelas.
“Last night the ABC, our $1 billion-a-year taxpayer-funded national broadcaster, implied that One Nation was an illegitimate political party,” Hanson said. “These people don’t get it. We live in a democracy … No one except the people of Australia get to decide who is ‘legitimate’ and worthy of representing them in parliament.”
But the clip that spurred Hanson’s anger, which was circulating on social media, had stripped Karvelas’ remarks of context. Rather than saying One Nation was illegitimate, Karvelas had said Coalition leader Angus Taylor’s decision to preference One Nation legitimised the party in voters’ minds.
Cassie Derrick, media director at journalism union MEAA, said One Nation’s actions towards the ABC were undermining the “press freedom that upholds our democracy.”
“For the public to be appropriately informed, journalists need the freedom to report on public interest matters, without being intimidated or told to leave by politicians or staffers,” Derrick said.
Despite the fractured relationship, the ABC has kept trying to engage. Sources said its staff kept requesting interviews with Hanson and other party figures for its flagship programs, including AM and 7.30.
It is having more success with her star recruit, Barnaby Joyce. The broadcaster is filming an Australian Story episode on the Nationals defector, one of the few party figures to still be in regular contact with the broadcaster. Joyce also appeared during a live cross on Saturday night. He is participating in the episode, two sources said, speaking anonymously as the program is still in production.
Lumby, the media professor, says the feud makes life difficult for both sides, particularly the ABC, and is concerned that any mainstream media organisation is being shut out by a party. It echoes more extreme practices in the US under the second Trump presidency, Lumby says.
“There is a view that the inner-city elites, as they’re sometimes called, have a sneering contempt for One Nation and its voters, and I think that’s part of what One Nation is leveraging here,” she says.
“I think sometimes media can be patronising, and One Nation and its voters need to be taken seriously. For the ABC to present the most fair and balanced view, they need access and responses to questions, and I think it’s a less-than-ideal situation in a liberal democracy.”
One Nation declined to comment.
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Calum Jaspan is a media writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Melbourne. Reach him securely on Signal @calumjaspan.10Connect via X or email.
