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ANTHONY KLAN
Well-heeled secretive lobby group the “Institute of Public Affairs”, which seeks to influence Australia’s public debate, sway government policy - and is running an aggressive campaign against the nation’s most trusted news outlet - is refusing to say who actually funds it.
The IPA is spending substantial sums of money - funds it is refusing to disclose the source of - on a long-standing clinical and systematic campaign attacking Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC.
Yet the IPA and its executive director John Roskam - who is due to appear on ABC TV’s Q&A program tonight - are steadfastly refusing to even disclose who actually funds the highly vocal operation.
That is - who is ultimately calling the shots on all the attacks against Australia’s public broadcaster.
IPA Executive Director John Roskam. Source: IPA
The IPA’s anti-ABC campaign includes outlandish claims, such as the ABC is “structurally and geographically biased against mainstream Australia”, is an “echo chamber disconnected from the mainstream” and has “obsessions” such as around climate change.
It produces anti-ABC “news” style articles and videos - and most recently has produced a five-part “documentary podcast” - all attacking the ABC, its procedures and its ethics.
Yet the IPA has refused to say whether it, as publisher of all this material, considers itself an adherent - in any way - to the basic ethical frameworks that underpin Australian journalism.
Further, Roskam has failed to provide the name of a single employee or contributor, behind the barrage of anti-ABC “news” items, who considers themselves an adherent to Australian journalism’s ethical guidelines
A new five-part “documentary series” podcast attacking the ABC, which dismissively refers to the outlet as “their ABC”, was “written and presented by IPA Director of Communications Evan Mulholland”.
Yet when we approached Mulholland asking if he - the person savagely attacking Australia’s most trusted media outlet - considered himself a “journalist”, or bound by, or adherent to, the Australian Journalist Code of Ethics, he steadfastly refused to comment.
Questions put to Mulholland over the past two days have gone unanswered.
IPA Director of Communications Evan Mulholland. Source: IPA
The IPA’s attacks on the ABC are particularly remarkable given polls consistently show that the ABC is the most trusted news source in the country.
A poll in March last year found 72% of Australians agreed the ABC was “Australia’s most trusted news source” and a massive 84% agreed the ABC “is a valuable source of news to the Australian community”.
ABC newsrooms are widely known among professional journalists to be some of, if not the most, ethical in the country.
We asked Roskam how his lobby group’s attacks on the ABC, such as that it is “structurally biased against mainstream Australia”, squared with the fact that the ABC was consistently voted Australia’s most trusted news source.
He declined to comment.
We asked Roskam and Mulholland if Australians had it wrong when they consistently voted the ABC as the nation’s most trusted news source.
Both refused to comment.
The Klaxon’s first set of questions to the secretive IPA yesterday.
IPA’s accounts for the 2020 financial year the IPA received $4.96 million in “donations” and “general contributions” - yet it does not disclose who is providing that money.
The Klaxon has asked the IPA for a list of its top 20 donors during the past financial year.
ASX listed companies, even though they do not have influencing public debate and public policy as their primary business - unlike the IPA - are required to disclose their 20 biggest investors.
That’s so market participants know who they’re dealing with.The IPA discloses none of this.
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Roskam not only flatly refused to disclose the information - he didn’t even respond to our questions.
To steer clear of any potential objections on grounds of “privacy” The Klaxon requested the donor information be provided, but without any dollar values attached - ie only the identities of those funding the IPA, not how much they were contributing.
We received nothing.
While the ABC is the consistently ranked the nation’s most trusted news source, the least trusted source, according to a June study, is Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph, owned by News Corporation.
Former Labor Prime Minister Keven Rudd and former Coalition Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull have to called for a Royal Commission into media diversity, largely due to alleged highly unethical actions by News Corporation.
A petition by Rudd attracted over 500,000 signatures - more than any other petition in Australian history.
Such an inquiry would investigate all of Australia’s major media outlets - including the ABC.
Given its aggressive campaign against the ABC, we asked the IPA whether it backed the proposed Royal Commission into media diversity - given such an inquiry would investigate the ABC, the source of its claimed concerns.
We received no response.
The Klaxon’s questions today to the secretive IPA and its executive director John Roskim.
The IPA states the "essential elements of the economic policies we support" are "lower taxes", "smaller government" and "less red tape".
It has been revealed that over $40 billion of public money handed out under the Federal Government’s JobKeeper stimulus campaign went to large corporations that did not need the money (with only about 1% repaid).
This is a landmark, "big government" style spend - and the $40 billion that went to big companies will take Australians many years to repay, putting significant upward pressure on taxes.
Given this, we asked whether the IPA considered that those big corporations that received JobKeeper, but which didn't need the money, should repay it.
We received no response.
More to come…
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Welcome
Editor, Anthony Klan
Australian journalism is under threat like never before. So too is the ability for us, the public, to make informed decisions. A disintegrating media is serving to further concentrate the already vast, unhealthy, power held by a few. That power is routinely abused, its attendant responsibilities wilfully ignored, and our democracy weakened.
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Anthony Klan
Editor, The Klaxon
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