In the tape, obtained by New Matilda, Belsham repeatedly states that he’s under “internal and external” political pressure over Ross’ coverage of the NBN, and explains that despite “having no problems” with the specific story, he (Belsham) can’t publish it because “the Turnbull camp and my superiors will come down on me like a tonne of bricks”.
Belsham – a former Executive Producer of ABC’s flagship Four Corner’s program – suggests the story can only be published after Ross first writes a piece which attacks Labor’s record on the NBN. At the time, Labor was committed to building a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband network, using superior – but supposedly more expensive – fibre optic cabling.
The meeting opens with this comment from Belsham: “Just in terms about the latest piece (which is critical of the Coalition plan), I don’t have anything per se in terms of objections to the piece, but… what I would suggest, to give yourself a bit of capacity to be able to do a few more of these, is to, to just turn the vision around a bit and just find some element of the, you know, of the Labor plan, of the NBN plan, which is up for debate, because I mean, and purely focus on that.”
In the recording of the meeting, Belsham states: “We’ve got to give you some kind of insurance policy, you know. An insurance policy is an article where you are hard-headed about something to do with [Labor’s] NBN failings, or, you know, potential failings. One of the quite basic failures is it’s not going to happen.”
He also states: “I like the [latest]piece, and I would like to publish it. But I’m just saying, before I can let you do that, so I don’t have screams from the 14[SUP]th[/SUP] floor… we need to give ourselves [some insurance]and say ‘Look, this guy is prepared to be critical of some aspects of [Labor’s Plan], he’s written this tough article about X.
“[It could be] about [Labor’s] marketing [of it’s NBN Plan]… I’ll just leave that ball in your court. That doesn’t have to be the angle.”
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