Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion: ABC Alumni Submission February 2026

The submission asks the Commissioner, amongst other recommendations, not to accept or reinforce the proposal made by Special Envoy Ms Jillian Segal, that she should be given a special role in shaping the public broadcasters’ Editorial Policies or in monitoring their implementation.

Here is a link to the full submission

The submission asks the Commissioner, amongst other recommendations, not to accept or reinforce the proposal made by Special Envoy Ms Jillian Segal, that she should be given a special role in shaping the public broadcasters’ Editorial Policies or in monitoring their implementation.

On 10 July, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal AO, appointed last year by the Albanese government, published her Plan to Combat Antisemitism.  It has already come under attack from many quarters, especially for urging the nationwide adoption of a contested definition of antisemitism, and for its call for universities, researchers, cultural institutions, and public broadcasters to have their funding withdrawn if they encourage, or do not do enough to combat, antisemitism.

Among the more prominent targets of the Plan are the public broadcasters, which it proposes should be monitored by the Special Envoy who would “assist” them to avoid “distorted narratives” and to follow their own editorial policies.

Alumni director Jonathan Holmes argues that, if implemented, the Plan would simply exacerbate the pressure the ABC is under to avoid reporting truths that are unwelcome to the more vocal supporters of Israel.

ABC Alumni director and former Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes has been reading the federal court judgment in the case of Antoinette Lattouf v the ABC, and reflecting on the lessons it has to teach.

27 June 2025

News Corp’s tabloid papers published a vicious attack on the ABC on Friday 14, and another on Saturday 15 February. .  Their content has been endlessly regurgitated on Sky News.

The Australian’s ferocious attacks on Laura Tingle following her off-the-cuff remarks at the Sydney Writers’ Festival have ignited a wider debate about the ABC and its impartiality, as the paper no doubt hoped.

ABC Alumni subscribers will have differing views about the wisdom of Laura’s remarks, and the robustness of the ABC’s response – as indeed do the directors of ABC Alumni. But your Board is happy to endorse these reflections in praise of Laura’s work by Alan Sunderland, who as a former Editorial Director of the ABC has more experience than any other Alumni director of making nuanced judgments on matters such as this.

Gavin Fang took up his appointment as Editorial Director in January this year.  One of the ABC’s most experienced news executives, he began his ABC career in 2000 in the Perth newsroom.  After a stint as the ABC’s correspondent in Jakarta, he took on a succession of ever-more senior editorial roles in ABC News, ending as Deputy Director of News.  Along the way he had a hand in devising the More Relevant to More Australians News policy, and was ABC News Diversity lead. 

The Editorial Director and his team of editorial advisors are responsible for ensuring that ALL ABC content, screen, audio and online, complies with the ABCs Editorial Polices and Standards.

ABC Alumni board director Quentin Dempster spoke to Gavin Fang for a webinar exclusively for ABC Alumni subscribers on Tuesday 19 March.  This is not a word-for-word transcript but a summary that has been approved by Gavin for wider distribution.

Can the ABC improve its complaints handling system? And what are the main challenges facing the new Ombudsman, Fiona Cameron, as she settles into her new job at the public broadcaster? ABC Alumni director Alan Sunderland – who has more experience than most in this area – gives his insights into what lies ahead. 

ABC chair Ita Buttrose has been a stalwart defender of ABC independence, so it’s hard to fathom why she and her directors plan to create a complaints system with an Ombudsman who answers direct to the Board, not to the Managing Director. This structure, if it goes ahead, would be unique among comparable media organisations in the democratic world, and is not without potential perils.

As several commentators have noted this week, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp outlets have gone ‘rogue’ on election coverage, making no attempt to comply with one of the media’s primary obligations to a democratic society — the provision of truthful news coverage. Instead, the dominant commercial media player has become a truth-distorting propagandist for one side, the Liberal-NLP Coalition, and has blatantly attacked Labor, Greens and independents, often without a shred of evidence. Both the Press Council and the ACMA seem impotent to rein in even the most appalling excesses. Add to this, News Corp’s overwhelming reach through newspapers, TV and online outlets – as well as its pernicious influence on other media – and questions arise about a fundamental threat to the health of our democracy. In this article first published in The Conversation, Denis Muller – Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at The University of Melbourne – sums up the main concerns.