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The ABC has refused a Senate order to hand over the full legal advice, which led to the taxpayer paying the personal legal bill of ABC journalist Louise Milligan. In documents obtained by Sky News Australia, the ABC at first argued it was against “public interest” to release the full advice, despite taxpayers forking out hundreds and thousands of dollars on Ms Milligan’s defamatory tweets – it has now said it needs more time. Sky News Digital Editor Jack Houghton criticised the ABC for not being transparent in dealing with the Senate request. “Milligan defamed federal liberal MP Andrew Laming in tweets claiming he had admitted to taking a photo of a woman's underwear as she bent over in Brisbane in 2019,” Mr Houghton said. “This was false, and in April, Dr Laming was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing relating to the incident, but the ABC picked up the bill for Milligan's personal tweets, which cost you, the taxpayer, hundreds and thousands of dollars.” Instead of releasing the full legal advice, the ABC released an excerpt from law firm Seyfarth Shaw which explained that the ABC could be liable for the social media activity of its reporters on their private and personal accounts. “It is possible for the ABC to be held vicariously liable … there are likely to be challenges for the ABC to succeed in arguments that it is not vicariously liable for posts/shares made by journalists,” the advice read. “Especially those that relate to topics about which they have written stories or contributes to the production of content for the ABC; or matters of public interest, concern or debate (because such matters would in our view typically fall within the remit of a journalist’s role).” Mr Houghton said that legal advice has sweeping ramifications for the ABC, which had previously argued it was not responsible for the tweets of its journalists on social media, despite paying Ms Milligan’s legal bills. “This means the ABC is aware that every single tweet or sharing of a tweet by its journalists can result in the taxpayer picking up the bill if someone is defamed,” he said. “In that case, ABC needs to immediately ban its journalists from engaging in activist Twitter activity as it is legally responsible for them. “You deserve better from an organisation which costs so much to run and has behaved so appallingly in recent years. “But don’t hold your breath; if this interim response is anything to go by, the culture of secrecy at the ABC is here to stay.”
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