PM’s anger with ABC

A WAR of words between the federal government and the ABC has escalated after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield wrote separate complaints slamming a second report by the public broadcaster’s economics correspondent Emma Alberici.

Senator Fifield wrote to ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie on May 9 complaining that articles and broadcasts on the government’s innovation policy “contained a number of errors and omissions of fact”.

The Prime Minister’s Office had complained that Dr Roy Green – who was critical of the government’s innovation policy – was described as “one of the government’s own advisers” when he had only been “contracted by a Labor chaired and controlled Senate committee”.

In responding to the complaints Ms Guthrie wrote that the ABC’s news director Gaven Morris “agrees that the description that Dr Roy Green is advising the government is misleading”. An ABC spokeswoman said an independent review process had investigated the complaint and “apart from one clarification all aspects of the complaint were rejected”.