Newly appointed ABC chair Kim Williams returns to the organisation after 28 years. Photo: AAP
The ABC’s incoming chair Kim Williams will have to use his extensive background in media to right a national broadcaster facing mutiny, funding issues and questions of bias, advocates say.
The Albanese government will nominate the experienced media executive for a five-year term as chair when Ita Buttrose steps down from the role in March, following a recommendation from an independent panel.
Cassandra Parkinson, national president of ABC Friends, said she was surprised by the appointment, but “personally thought it was a smart choice”.
“He’s got a very impressive background in media, the arts and sport,” she said.
“That experience will be of great benefit to the ABC, but I’d also say that he’s pretty tough and very bright.”
That experience includes two years leading News Limited and roles at the Australian Film Commission, Fox Studios Australia and Foxtel.
Parkinson said it is pleasing the independent panel made the recommendation and it wasn’t a captain’s pick by the government like previous appointments.
“I have already told the minister’s office I am very pleased about that. It was very important from our point of view,” she said.
“It’s the first step in improving the independence of the ABC, but a very important one.”
Williams led News Limited from 2011 to 2013, including during the “digital revolution” when 1600 jobs were cut in an attempt to keep the news business profitable as advertisers fled.
Williams described the circumstances of his outing from Rupert Murdoch’s company in his book, Rules of Engagement, stating it was in response to a speech he gave at the current minister for energy, and then-treasurer, Chris Bowen’s book launch.
“I knew at that time it might be a controversial thing to do as it was possible some colleagues and Rupert Murdoch himself might see it as partisan on my part,” he wrote.
“By the start of August I no longer had a job. The reasons were clear. Colleagues who mattered had lost confidence in my views and approach (if they ever had them) and the speech to launch the book was seen as unsound and inappropriate.”
Kim Williams before his fateful speech at Chris Bowen’s book launch. Photo: AAP
His sacking involved a mutiny by editors, but he said ultimately the decision was Murdoch’s.
“I had no illusion about who was really in charge, and that would clearly always be Rupert,” he said.
“At times he can be swayed by representations and ones that are taken in isolation from your own participation, which is clearly a fairly unusual way to run something.”
Parkinson said Williams has held “a lifetime of different roles”, and shouldn’t be judged because he worked for News Corp.
“You could never say he was a lackey for Rupert Murdoch when he worked there,” she said.
“The circumstances of his departure, it showed that he won’t just bow down.”
Before leading News Limited he was chief executive of Murdoch’s Foxtel from 2001 to 2011.
He has also chaired the Sydney Opera House Trust, been CEO of the Australian Film Commission and served on the board of Copyright Agency Limited, among many other roles.
Williams is returning to the ABC after an ill-fated attempt to sell content to Foxtel in 1995, having described it in his memoir as an “enormously harsh and difficult place to work” and “mired in internal factions, divisions and industrial rigidities of the most arcane kind”.
He will walk into an organisation currently in a bitter dispute after the sacking of journalist Antoinette Lattouf resulted in an overwhelming vote of no confidence against its managing director David Anderson, and harsh internal criticism from its most respected journalists.
Parkinson said John Lyons’ criticism of bias towards Israel is troubling, and Williams must address it while increasing transparency and funding issues.
“It is absolutely critical the ABC does not buckle to external pressure and I think for that to happen, you need great transparency on who makes complaints and how they are dealt with,” she said.
“He is quite a complex person and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
A classically trained musician and composer, Williams was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and was nearly jailed because he refused to serve.
That complexity is on full display in Williams’ book, including where he describes his experiences following his mother’s death.
“For months afterwards she would visit me, each night. She would tap on my shoulder, demanding my attention urgently,” he wrote.
“The strongest of these visitations occurred when I was giving a speech for the NSW Public Education Foundation a couple of weeks after she died.
“I kept reading but began an earnest monologue to her in my head that was along the lines of: ‘It is not a good time just now, Mum. Can’t you wait until later?’”