‘Bald men fighting over a comb’: Crikey readers assess the Murdoch and ABC legal battles

An anonymous public service worker writes: Regular Australian public service staff are often innovating and proposing how to make our work more efficient. The great brakes on improving efficiency are the Senior Executive Service (SES) who are generalists moving positions too often, devoted to climbing the greasy pole and terrified of putting one foot wrong. They constantly divert APS to work on things that are not our job in response to a media or minister’s office enquiry, and they are too upwardly focused to listen to or understand what it is they are managing.

The SES is a nest of narcissists who recruit people like themselves — more narcissists, who only talk about how great everything is and refuse to carefully dissect the real issues. I’m generalising, of course. There are some terrific SES, but they are the exception and they don’t get too far.

Another brake on productivity is crappy legislation. We tell successive governments the silly, unintended idiosyncrasies in the legislation that need correcting, but our ministers either want to focus on bold initiatives or not open a can of worms. Result: the easy fixes never get fixed and we have to do tortuous workarounds.

Frank Dee writes: “Fox … is vital to the future of the English-speaking world.” No, Rupert, don’t sell yourself short. It’s vital to the future of the human race. Don your Superman costume and stand proud upon the roof of Fox with the cape billowing in the wind. You have Donald. You will shortly have Dutton.

Reach down and devour the planet, like that unfortunate kiddy being devoured by Saturn in the painting by Goya.

Neil Hudson writes: The features in The New York Times and The Atlantic regarding the bitter Murdoch family feud as played out in the Nevada Probate Court last year (and since) appear to have created irreconcilable divisions within the family. The interview of James Murdoch in The Atlantic story “Growing up Murdoch” leaves absolutely no doubt about his and wife Kathryn’s estrangement from Rupert and Lachlan. The fact James was prepared to speak on the record (and break the cardinal family rule of not doing so) gives an insight, especially, into how James feels about what he perceives as family betrayals, allegedly motivated by his father setting the siblings against each other. 

Can you blame him? What sort of father pits his children against each other? What sort of father demonstrates “a dishonesty of purpose and motive” in a plan to usurp the rights of Lachlan’s siblings? What sort of father acts in “bad faith” as a part of a “carefully crafted charade” to keep secrets from Lachlan’s siblings? What sort of father would text questions to his lawyers to ask James while present at that meeting? What sort of father would allow James and Kathryn to be targeted and denigrated by his executives?

Perhaps Elisabeth should have the final word: “You are completely disenfranchising me and my siblings. You’ve blown a hole in the family”.

Simpson writes: My husband worked for News Limited many years ago, before Rupert scarpered to the USA. His modus operandi for running a business was to foster competitiveness among employees to climb the ladder, no matter how many they trampled on the way up. All this does not surprise me.

Sidney R writes: Bald men fighting over a comb.

Laurie Patton writes: Charlie Lewis’ Lattouf yarn is good, but it leaves out the smoking gun. Ita Buttrose told the court that ABC managing director David Anderson “instructed” her to deal through chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor. She sent him numerous emails. According to Anderson, Ita “declared over his protests” that she would forward all the complaints she was receiving to Oliver-Taylor.

Sounds like someone is telling fibs.

Louisa writes: The parade of senior-level staff at the ABC involved in the sacking of Lattouf is a story in itself, one that no-one in the media has picked up. Cathy Wilcox showed us that parade with her cartoon in The Sydney Morning Herald earlier in the week.

The story I am referring to is the striking similarity of the members of that parade of senior staff: white, seemingly of Anglo-Saxon background and mostly male. The only two women were, yes, white. One was younger and appeared to understand the issues around Lattouf but was apparently disregarded, while the older one — the chair of the ABC no less — was seemingly out of touch with events, judging by her comments in court that she just wanted to get rid of the “problem”.

What if the parade had been made up of a diversity of people — diverse in background and experience? People from non-English speaking backgrounds, more women, people of colour? That would surely have brought to this matter a diversity of informed views about the issues around reporting on Israel, the war it is prosecuting in Gaza, the plight of the Palestinians, the difference between antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment, and the relative reputability of organisations such as Human Rights Watch when coming to a finding on whether Lattouf had acted in breach of the ABC’s charter or of journalistic standards.

But no, we had a parade of seemingly ill-informed people, confident in their ignorance, making a decision based on minimal fact and in line with the wishes of a vocal pressure group. We are entitled to expect better of the ABC, and a better ABC will only come when that ABC’s hiring practices come under scrutiny so that all staff, including senior staff, are hired on the basis of merit, not class or background.

Michael Gormly writes: “We don’t owe her anything”. Really? When I employed people I definitely had some responsibilities to them. Ita does not come off very well in this, IMO.