Journalist Laura Tingle is one step closer to becoming the staff-elected director on the ABC board after a surprise endorsement from the union representing staff across the public broadcaster.
The candidates for the position are traditionally backed by one of the two ABC unions, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) or the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), but Tingle chose not to be part of MEAA’s earlier ballot process to select a candidate.
The CPSU, which has members across editorial and non-editorial departments, later held a merit-based selection process and chose the political editor of 7.30.
“When nominations closed, the CPSU wrote to all of us asking for information about how we would approach the job,” Tingle told Guardian Australia. “Having assessed all those responses, the CPSU has now decided to endorse my candidacy. I did not lobby for, or seek, the CPSU’s formal nomination or support but am honoured that they have chosen to give it to me.”
The ABC section secretary of the CPSU, Sinddy Ealy, said Tingle would not limit her interest to industrial concerns and was passionate about issues such as the downgrading of ABC archives.
“Laura is a proud CPSU member and has been a card-carrying member of the Australian Journalists Association and MEAA for more than 40 years,” Ealy told staff on Wednesday.
“Her long-term membership across both unions means Laura is well placed to understand the frontline challenges and concerns experienced by many ABC workers including but not limited to their industrial concerns.”
Tingle reportedly upset some union members when she rejected the MEAA process because it “would be detrimental to simply be perceived as representing the interests of one sector of our workforce”.
She said she doesn’t resile from her desire to represent the broader issues on the board.
“I am a 42-year veteran of first the AJA and then the MEAA,” she said. “I joined the union when I joined Fairfax as a 19-year-old cadet in 1981. I am also a proud member of the CPSU. I’m not sure how that can be seen to be ‘anti-union’.
“I have always supported the role of unions and industrial action, particularly because of the need for solidarity to protect younger or more junior staff, and in more recent times, part-timers, casuals and contractors.”
The winner of the MEAA ballot was Melbourne business reporter Dan Ziffer, but Indigenous journalist Dan Bourchier, who is leading the coverage of the referendum and the voice to parliament, has self-nominated.
Ziffer’s pitch is that he is an active member of the union who has consistently lobbied for members’ rights, while Bourchier’s is that he is a regional candidate who grew up in Tennant Creek and is a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. Bourchier has extensive board experience and is deputy chair of the ABC Bonner Committee where he wrote the Reconciliation Action Plan to address issues of inequity at the ABC.
Another high-profile broadcaster, Indira Naidoo, who is now ABC Radio Evenings presenter in New South Wales and Canberra, is another independent candidate. This week Naidoo was appointed host of ABC TV’s Compass.
The CPSU candidate was widely expected to be the head of Indigenous, Diversity & Inclusion, Kelly Williams, a 34-year veteran of the ABC.
The incumbent, Dr Jane Connors, finishes her term on 30 April and nominations close on Friday 10 February. Connors is an adviser on ABC editorial policies and a former Radio National manager.
