She’s also brutal, politely, about the former minister for communications, Paul Fletcher, the member for Bradfield on Sydney’s north shore, back in the day when it was a safe seat: “His communications skills were not good. When we met, he showed little interest in anything we were doing. I often wondered if he watched or listened to the ABC.”
Then she spills the tea: “It was obvious that Paul Fletcher didn’t want any kind of relationship. In fact, it was soon apparent that his office and the office of Prime Minister Morrison leaked like sieves.” And that includes, writes Buttrose, the time when she learned on Twitter of a letter of complaint from Fletcher about the Four Corners Inside the Canberra Bubble program, in which veteran reporter Louise Milligan explored the behaviour of two ministers. Buttrose republishes the letter in full, and it’s a useful reminder of the level of control Fletcher and his political pals tried to exert.
Buttrose’s new memoir is as compelling for what it omits as for what she includes.Credit: Ross Coffey
One of the lovely things in Buttrose’s book is her enthusiasm and support for journalism – which must have driven the government of the time barking mad. I adore and admire her decision to reprint correspondence in full, and she writes to Fletcher: “This is not the first time that your correspondence to the ABC has been publicly revealed before we had been given the courtesy of reading it. Your letter and its publication add to a pattern of behaviour that go well beyond normal inquiry and might well be construed as political interference.” The full letter is even more scathing (and it’s worth buying this utterly incomplete book just to get a lesson on how to respond to fools) – and Fletcher never raised Inside the Canberra Bubble with her again. Plus, who doesn’t love a woman who keeps receipts?
Buttrose left out some of her other challenges too – Stan Grant’s name does not appear and there is no reckoning with the way he was hung out to dry after repeated racial harassment, although she acknowledges the reality of Indigenous dispossession and discrimination. There’s no recognition of her embarrassing misstep when she basically – and I paraphrase – called the younger staff of the ABC a bunch of snowflakes.
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I wouldn’t say there was much self-reflection – any keen follower of the ABC will see Buttrose doesn’t acknowledge the way she turned her position as chair into a five-day-a-week job, more of an executive than a chair – and starved the actual managing director David Anderson of oxygen.
I love her advocacy on disability, ageing and menopause, all of which require some rewiring of the Australian media sensibility – and some of the biggest changes we’ve seen in how the media cover some of these issues is down to Buttrose, who speaks openly about her own disability.
But a really great memoir is one where you confess both failure and success. Looking forward to the second edition, with apologies where they are due.
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