One Nation leaves the ABC out in the cold…and wins | Media Watch

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Here come the brides. Two planes, two families, one into Melbourne, the other Sydney. Four mothers, nine kids. Their homecoming, a parade of police, media, and community outrage.

[00:00:13]>> Hello, I'm Linton Bessa. Welcome to Media Watch. And first tonight, the return down under of women who one way or another swapped Australia for the shelter of an Islamic caliphate and the company of terrorists and who with their nine children languished for more than six years in detention camps in Syria before being greeted by a media frenzy and the prospect of years behind bars.

[00:00:39]Three of them arrested, one charged with having taken membership of a terrorist organization and the others of depriving Yazidi women of their liberty and using them as slaves.

[00:00:51]>> The 54 year old is facing four counts of crimes against humanity in relation to the use of a slave. Uh her 31-year-old daughter is facing two counts of similar charges. The spectacle of the women's long awaited return. Loaves and fishes for some of this country's finest headline writers.

[00:01:11]>> There go the brides.

[00:01:14]>> Bridal party >> bastard. You may now arrest the brides.

[00:01:19]>> An event for which they've been in training for months.

[00:01:23]>> Is their return a caliphate to complete?

[00:01:27]>> The courier male with the win. There has been for some time a steady trickle of rumor that the women and their children were finally going to make it back to Australia, priming the media to capture every possible angle when it happened.

[00:01:42]The networks rolling out a mission control countdown before switching over to the flight tracker. Camera operators under orders to bank the money shot were sweating on getting the right plane touching down while swarms of reporters lay in wait at Sydney and Melbourne airports hoping to ask questions of the women themselves.

[00:02:05]>> Why did you marry an ISIS terrorist?

[00:02:09]>> Do you regret what you did? The only real interviews were landed by two very clever, very tenacious reporters who managed to get themselves a ticket and capture footage of the women aboard the plane.

[00:02:22]>> Couldn't wait to have a coffee in Melbourne on street.

[00:02:26]>> Precisely the kind of sentiment which had the opinion makers in a lather.

[00:02:31]>> Australians are horrified about letting people into the country who vowed to kill us.

[00:02:36]>> Would be extremists, could be terrorists. We don't know. Some exploring claims the women could have been stopped from entering the country.

[00:02:44]>> You have politicians uh and many Australians saying don't let them back in.

[00:02:49]>> They can be stopped. The the the the temporary um exclusion order should have been issued to these people given the nature of the charges today.

[00:02:57]>> Well, well, that's not the advice that the government has received.

[00:03:00]>> It is in fact to be celebrated that we don't exile our citizens, even those whose choices we might abore. and marks Australia as one of the world's more enlightened societies. That and our rather boisterous free press.

[00:03:16]And now to that most welcome of all of last week's news.

[00:03:21]>> The Reserve Bank drops another bomb on home buyers. The third rate rise this year, another 25 basis points to 4.35%, slugging Australia's 3.6 million mortgage holders.

[00:03:34]>> Food and petrol prices through the roof.

[00:03:36]And now mortgages, too. Especially devastating for one sector of the economy in particular.

[00:03:43]>> The banks wasting no time passing the hikes on in full.

[00:03:47]>> And which of the big four banks first dragged itself into action? Which bank indeed?

[00:03:52]>> The Commonwealth Bank has been the first to move, announcing it'll pass on the increase in full.

[00:03:59]>> Its gold medal performance observed by other media, but not by the Commonwealth Banks journalists. Yes, journalists.

[00:04:08]Because 18 months ago, the biggest of the big four announced it was moving from the banking business to something much more lucrative than news business.

[00:04:17]>> In an Australian banking first, ComBank will launch its owned media network.

[00:04:23]Creating so slick an operation, some legacy media outfits may be turning a shade of greenback with the latest news, featured stories, and videos joining its very own television program, The Brighter Side, which aired on Channel 10, featuring some familiar faces.

[00:04:43]>> The Brighter Side, brought to you by ComBank, is jam-packed with expert tips and practical ideas to help you live your potential. a spin-off of its glossy lifestyle magazine complete with paid ads. There's also the inevitable podcast because we don't have enough of those.

[00:05:01]One of the CBA's more recent guests, none other than Treasurer of the Commonwealth, the other one. It's >> nice to see you again, Luke. Thanks for the opportunity to have a chat.

[00:05:10]>> And a step-by-step guide to pump more of CBA's wonderful journalism into your browser. ComBank newsroom is a trusted source of news analysis and information.

[00:05:22]>> Of course, it is helping to build this media empire, a man who's already overseen one. The former ABC News director Gavin Morris, under whose guiding hand, the bank has also forged close ties with one of this country's most important news organizations, Australian Associated Press. The notfor-profit wire service, better known as AAP, whose straight down the line reporting has filled the gaps of almost every newspaper and radio and television bulletin in this country for almost a century. AAP has long pledged to remain free of the influence of government and the corporate sector, but in recent years has turned to both in its fight for survival, accepting more than $30 million from the federal government and millions of dollars more from the likes of Boundless Earth Limited backed by Mike Cannon Brooks, the Mindaroo Foundation, funded by Andrew Forest, and the Snow family which owns Canra report.

[00:06:28]But nowhere on that list of supporters was the Commonwealth Bank. Or at least not until Media Watch got involved because last Friday after we dispatched some nosy questions this appeared.

[00:06:42]Confirmation the Commonwealth Bank has been since July last year helping to pay for AAP's finance coverage. The previously undisclosed relationship having no impact at all. AAP tells us on Rosie coverage of the bank like this.

[00:06:59]>> Australia's biggest bank has enjoyed its best single day gains since the start of the pandemic in what one analyst called a stoning result. All this a story about the CBA increasing its share of business banking. What has been happening, however, is that CBA's spinners have been finding some success, pitching stories about the bank before running the wire copy on their own website, adding their own video, and gracing it with the bank's own by line >> by AAP and CBA Newsroom.

[00:07:33]>> The AAP story also running in real news outlets unaware of the CBA deal. It's no secret that CBA Chief Matt Common is a big believer in the value of artificial intelligence.

[00:07:46]>> Since last year's funding deal, AAP has published critical news about the bank, but it has also failed to write up several major and rather embarrassing stories about the CBA. the announcement in late February of hundreds of job cuts at the bank to make way for more AI which ran across major news sites and a month later serious revelations in the Australian Financial Review then republished almost everywhere. ComBank may have issued $1 billion worth of home loans off the back of fraudulent applications.

[00:08:21]AAP may well have had good reason to miss these yarns, but its failure to tell readers that its finance reporting was partly funded by the bank can only but raise questions about those decisions, even if the CBA insists it has clean hands. Our association with AAP respects and complies with the AAP charter, and CBA is not involved in AAP's editorial decisions. AAP said its charter of independence had not been compromised and its failure to disclose its financial agreement with the bank was a mere snafu.

[00:08:57]>> The grant agreement, like all AAP agreements, is subject to AAP's charter of editorial independence. Consent to the charter is not negotiable. After a near-death experience six years ago when its traditional shareholder, the media industry itself, walked away from the wire service, AAP has been doing everything it can to stay alive and keep its journalists employed. But as a wire service depended upon for its impartial delivery of the facts, it can only have a long-term future, surely if it shows a greater appetite not just for transparency, but for biting the hand that feeds it.

[00:09:36]And now to the seat of Farah, where on Saturday, once loyal supporters flipped the bird at the Liberal Party and turned instead to the plainspeaking anti-immigration force that's sweeping the nation, >> unleashing hell in the coalition's heartland.

[00:09:57]>> David Farley winning almost 40% of first preferences. Strong numbers, yes, but this is the CRA suburb of Farah, not the federal seat of Farah, some 350 kilometers away. The victory in the actual electorate came about in spite, or was it because of an ugly attitude towards the press, in particular, the ABC captured in an excruciating encounter just 24 hours before votes were cast.

[00:10:28]>> Bye-bye to the ABC. Pauline Hansen's chief of staff, James Ashby, taking it upon himself to boot the ABC from a media event on the eve of the Farah bi-election.

[00:10:39]>> See you later, guys.

[00:10:40]>> But had he run this executive decision by the boss?

[00:10:49]>> Thank you.

[00:10:54]>> No, Pauline, they shouldn't have. But the confusion was perhaps understandable because her candidate for Farah, David Farley, had already had a good old chat with the ABC that very morning.

[00:11:07]>> One Nation candidate for Farah, David Farley. Good morning to you.

[00:11:10]>> Good morning.

[00:11:10]>> And might the ABC Jouro swing by One Nation's election party?

[00:11:15]>> Jouro's welcome to pop in.

[00:11:16]>> Well, the best is to talk to my team over here, and if there's room, I'm sure they'll all thank you very much for your time, mate. Which is why when the ABC reporter arrived at One Nation's press conference later that day, she assumed all was peachy as she later told ABC Ilawa.

[00:11:32]>> So, we really did have that feeling of being blindsided and being shocked.

[00:11:37]>> That conviviiality evident too on polling day, this time out on the streets with One Nation supporters trying to block the ABC's camera.

[00:11:46]>> Mean, please.

[00:11:47]>> I'm on public space.

[00:11:48]>> No, please don't. Please don't.

[00:11:51]So you're denying me at ABC to get cuts cutaways on a public property.

[00:11:59]>> So why was Australia's national broadcaster shown the door by One Nation on the eve of a knife edge bi-election?

[00:12:07]Could it be what happened 7 weeks ago when it South Australian election campaign was soiled by this ABC corker?

[00:12:15]>> One nation candidate Aui Baxter wanted in the UK. A UK court has confirmed that Ai Baxter, also known as Trent Baxter, was charged with sexually touching a woman without consent.

[00:12:28]>> Forced to dump its preferred candidate, the Party of Grievance added another to its ever growing list.

[00:12:35]>> One Nation doubles down on ABC ban.

[00:12:38]>> I don't want to talk to them. It's bad enough. I got to pay their wages. The acrimony still fresh when the ABC set about reporting another bi-election in the Victorian state seat of Nepion with One Nation hopeful Darren Herkus responding to one ABC interview request with this. Unfortunately, due to the ABC's lack of impartiality, I am unwilling to discuss the Nepan bi-election.

[00:13:04]>> Another ABC reporter, Alicia Thomas Sam, receiving similar treatment.

[00:13:09]>> Do you want to speak to the ABC? at the moment. No. Thanks, Ale. No, >> this is a national program.

[00:13:14]>> Yeah, I know. I know, Rally.

[00:13:15]>> Neither One Nation nor the ABC would comment, but One Nation's animosity should really come as no surprise.

[00:13:23]Pauline Hansen's Swingali, having voiced his displeasure for years over unflattering pictures.

[00:13:30]>> Pauline Hansen had a tick bite or a wasp bite on a face. They continued to use that shocking image for almost a year.

[00:13:36]and allegations. The ABC gives the PM an easy run.

[00:13:41]>> Well, we know the ABC's been biased for at least a decade now.

[00:13:44]>> Reporting an election is among the most sacred of responsibilities for the press and vital to the body politic. If One Nation is blocking the ABC because it suffered some tough reporting, or worse, because it believes it's lit upon some kind of cunning electoral ploy, alarm bells should be ringing. Not least for those other journos who stood and watched the ABC ejection and raised not a word of protest. Because if modern-day America is any guide, the fake news prescription, the enemy of the people designation may very quickly be hurled at others, too. And that's all from us tonight. Be sure to check us out on ABC View as well as YouTube and Facebook.

[00:14:28]You can find full statements on our website, and don't forget to send us your tips. See you next week.