Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan is taking Ray Hadley to ACMA, claiming that Hadley’s report on cost cutting measures for children’s tours in Parliament House should be acknowledged as inaccurate.
The controversy arose on the 25th of June when Hadley interviewed Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey about a report in The Daily Telegraph, which claimed that Parliament House would no longer give fruit straps and bottled water to school groups touring Parliament house, in a cost cutting measure.
On June 26th The Daily Telegraph retracted the report, claiming that the proposal over water and fruit straps was a mere draft that had been rejected.
Treasurer Swan said that because The Daily Telegraph acknowledged that the report was inaccurate, “it’s important for its listeners that 2GB does the same”. Swan claims that Hadley should have issued a correction and his program should have telephoned Mr Swan’s office before the Hockey interview. This is the basis for the ACMA complaint.
But Hadley rejects that The Daily Telegraph report was inaccurate, and so maintains that he does not need to apologise.
“Now on June 26th The Daily Telegraph acknowledged that its report was incorrect, which it wasn’t, based on the information they had on that day”.
Hadley then went on to detail why he believed this to be the case, with the caveat: “here’s the sequence of events Wayne, and I’ll talk slow so that you can keep up with it”.
Hadley claimed that on June 21st a savings measures document was published by the Clerk of the house, which said that the hospitality program for visiting schools would be discontinued. This was sent out to 23 MPs and the basis of the Daily Telegraph report.
Hadley stressed that this “wasn’t a draft policy” as had been claimed by The Daily Telegraph in its retraction, but “a decision by the Clerk to cut costs”.
Hadley said an email that he received after the interview, but dated the 22nd of June and sent out to nine MPs, said that this savings measure would not go ahead. It appears that it was this statement that was current when Hadley interviewed Hockey.
A seemingly bewildered Hadley then said that the day after the interview, the government announced that cutting the hospitality measures would be subject to a review, and then the day after that (the 27th of June) the measures were rejected again.
‘And he wants to take me to ACMA’, said Hadley incredulously.
Hadley said this Thursday, the 12th of July: “They are trying to stifle debate in print [through proposals for media regulation], now he’s trying to hop into the electronic media. I have been doing this for nearly 20 years . . . and to my knowledge no politician has gone to ACMA or the governing body looking for a remedy.”
This incident follows Hadley calling Swan a liar and a “boofhead” after he promised before the election that “no its not possible that we’re bringing in a carbon tax, that is a hysterically inaccurate claim by the Coalition”.