Williams agreed with this uncontroversial assertion, so I immediately extended an invitation for him to join me for an interview on air. He pondered for just a second before resolving with some firmness and a \u201cwhy not?\u201d attitude that he would.<\/p>\n
![\"ABC](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fba72bb22fb6fa0c8e01e90ab920c1f3.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
As he shared his mobile number, I wondered whether this was just a way to fob me off \u2013 the way former ABC managing director David Anderson agreed to an interview but never fronted. Whatever Williams\u2019s intentions, surely the ABC media minders would cut him off at the pass.<\/p>\n
It is, of course, only right and proper that the ABC chairman should be publicly accountable. Still, I was impressed by his willingness to follow through where others had baulked, and he joined me on Sky News on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Respectful disagreement is a prerequisite for vibrant democracy and it has become something of an endangered feature, a trend I have long lamented. This, together with increased media polarisation, has meant that I do not get to engage with as broad a range of interlocutors on my program as I would like.<\/p>\n
Only one Labor minister has turned up in the past couple of years, and Anthony Albanese has not joined me since an appearance during the voice debate when he knew I broadly supported his position. Greens politicians no longer turn up, nor have ABC managing directors or chairs despite Anderson\u2019s promise and face-to-face invitations to Williams\u2019s predecessor as chair, Ita Buttrose.<\/p>\n
Cross-pollination is no longer a common occurrence in public debate. The public square is all but gone; instead we get echo chambers, shouting at each other from different mountain tops.<\/p>\n
So Williams deserves credit for agreeing to be accountable, and for turning up to an interview where he knew there would be disagreement. I was determined not to harangue and interrupt him but to allow him to make his points while pressing him to respond to mine.<\/p>\n
My aim was to elicit fresh information or arguments and make strong points, but in such a way that he and viewers would consider he got a fair go, so that he might come back. It is not unreasonable to expect the ABC boss to be interviewed outside the public-broadcasting bubble on a semi-regular basis.<\/p>\n
That said, I was astonished to hear him flatly deny any issues of bias at the ABC. He even insisted he would have no idea about the political leanings of any of the public broadcaster\u2019s prominent hosts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ABC is a national resource,\u201d Williams said in response to my questions about bias, \u201cit is a force for impartiality, and it\u2019s a force for objective journalism.\u201d <\/p>\n
This, to my mind, is a bit like saying the Titanic was a force for safe and efficient trans-Atlantic shipping \u2013 there is no doubt about the aim but the outcome was entirely different.<\/p>\n
The chairman said he would have no idea about the voting patterns of hosts such as Laura Tingle, Sarah Ferguson, John Lyons and David Marr. Well, we were the first nation to embrace the secret ballot, and that\u2019s a very good thing, but nobody who tunes in to the ABC would be expecting any of this cohort to ever vote right of centre \u2013 any conjecture would consider a spectrum from Labor through Greens to the teals.<\/p>\n
The baring of teeth towards Coalition politicians gives the game away. As do the chummy chats with politicians of the green left.<\/p>\n
This is no small matter given taxpayers stump up more than $1bn a year for a public broadcaster bound under law to be pluralistic and objective. I did not expect confession, self-flagellation or apologia from Williams but presupposed there would be a recognition that the ABC needed to do better.<\/p>\n
He said the ABC reported on the Indigenous voice issue \u201cimpeccably\u201d. I could not help recounting how the ABC invited me on to Q&A during that debate because I was a rare right-of-centre voice supporter and everyone on the program that night, including host Stan Grant, was pro-voice.<\/p>\n
Williams said this did not demonstrate bias: \u201cI think you\u2019re making an assertion, as people often do about the ABC, but the assertion is often not borne out by any kind of evidentiary support.\u201d <\/p>\n
I would have thought the lack of diversity on that important program was clear and incontrovertible evidence.<\/p>\n
When all is said and done, in my assessment of the ABC, and the Albanese government for that matter, these issues of climate policy, net zero and Indigenous affairs do not keep me awake at night. They will be resolved eventually because reality cannot be held at bay forever.<\/p>\n
What really distresses me is the incalculable harm done to our citizens, our social cohesion and our national project by jaundiced coverage of the Middle East, Israel and antisemitism<\/a>. It is over this issue that I have lost all respect for Albanese and on which the ABC, in my view, has become a national liability rather than an asset. Since October 7, 2023, the ABC has amplified what was already a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel disposition. Even in Israel\u2019s darkest hours, when innocent women, mothers, children and others were slaughtered, defiled and taken hostage, the ABC could not help but somehow portray Israel as the aggressor.<\/p>\n In almost three years since then Israel has been under attack from Hamas in the south, Hezbollah in the north, the Houthis from the east, and directly from Iran. Yet this tiny pluralistic democracy surrounded by vast Muslim nations is portrayed as the pariah.<\/p>\n Along with other leftist media outlets, the ABC has incorrectly accused Israel of bombing a hospital and killing 500 people (it never happened), of putting 14,000 babies on the brink of death (it never happened), of blocking aid and starving Palestinians (it never happened), of committing genocide (it never happened) and of targeting aid workers (it never happened). <\/p>\n The ABC reported the pro-Palestinian protest across Sydney Harbour Bridge in August last year as a peaceful affair, failing to mention the hate preachers in attendance or the terrorist flags, chants for death or a poster of Iran\u2019s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was then the leading sponsor of global Islamist terrorism.<\/p>\n The ABC has routinely quoted casualty figures and claims about Gaza from organisations controlled by Hamas <\/a>without making that association clear. It has referred to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists as militants and often has reported Israeli military responses but not the attacks that prompted them.<\/p>\n The ABC has criticised me and others for focusing too heavily on antisemitism in Australia. Then when this wave of hate resulted in an alleged Islamist extremist massacre in which 15 people were killed at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah festival in December last year, the ABC\u2019s Tingle (the staff-elected board member) said the atrocity had nothing to do with religion.<\/p>\n Yet, according to the ABC chairman, criticism of its coverage is unfair. \u201cI don\u2019t think that is a fair-minded approach to one of the most disciplined bodies of coverage,\u201d said Williams, \u201cin fact, probably the most comprehensive and disciplined body of coverage over all of the unattractive events in the Middle East that have happened since October 7th of 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n Nine Entertainment newspapers reported the interview saying it was \u201can effective piece of stonewalling by Williams\u201d. Forgive me if, in the interests of our nation, I expect more than stonewalling.<\/p>\n Respectful disagreement is a good start. But denial is no substitute for fact-based debate.<\/p>\n Commentator, author and former political adviser, Chris Kenny hosts The Kenny Report, Monday to Thursday at 5.00pm on Sky News Australia. He takes an unashamedly rationalist approach to national affairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was Kim Williams, the ABC chairman, a man I had sparred with remotely through newspaper columns 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<\/a>Chris Kenny<\/a>Associate Editor (National Affairs)<\/p>\n