Darce Cassidy's speech to the 2001 Annual General Meeting of the Friends of the ABC, South Australia

I was one of hundreds of present and former Four Corners staff to attend a function to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the program in Sydney last August.

Most of us enjoyed ourselves, but there were two people there who looked quite uncomfortable. They were in ABC heartland, but neither ABC Chairman Donald McDonald, nor ABC Managing Director Jonathan Shier, seemed to be at home.

Donald McDonald spoke, and gave one of his usual smooth and urbane performances, but without much in the way of feeling. Jonathan Shier kept a low profile on the sidelines.

Only recently Senator Alston had questioned the competence of the ABC legal department. Jonathan Shier had pulled off the air a program cleared by ABC Legal, so that he could get a third, and external, opinion. This night, speaker after speaker praised ABC legal, and its head, Judith Walker.

Speaker after speaker referred to past instances where political interference in the program had been attempted, and resisted. Again and again the heroes and martyrs of Four Corners were honoured.

As the night wore one, Jonathan Shier seemed to become more and more uncomfortable. Eventually, according to press reports, he exploded, publicly abusing a Four Corners producer as a 'stupid Pom' who had made a 'boring program'. The producer in question, Quentin McDermot, had made the very program that Mr Shier had temporarily taken off the air.

For me, and some others in the room, this recalled another occasion, thirty seven years earlier, when another program had been taken off the air for political reasons. The hero of this battle was Four Corners reporter John Penlington, and the martyr was Four Corners Executive Producer, Alan Ashbolt.

I was a young Four Corners researcher in 1964, and every Monday morning, together with the rest of the team, we would gather in a conference room to review last weeks program, and plan programs for the coming weeks. One week our meeting was enlarged to include the ABC's Assistant General Manager, Clement Semmler.

He came to complain about an item in last weeks program. It was a story about claims by Manfred Cross M.P. that womens' stockings were deliberately designed to ladder, as a way of boosting sales.

It was a pretty run of the mill item, but at one point the film showed a model putting on a stocking. As she rolled it up her thigh, the camera lingered for a little longer than strictly necessary. Semmler came to complain that he had been distressed by the program, having seen it, as he put it, in mixed company.

After listening solemnly to the Assistant General Managers view about what was appropriate viewing for mixed company, the meeting proceeded to discuss upcoming programs.

One item concerned the forthcoming execution of Eric Edgar Cook, who had been convicted of murder in Perth. While hanging was still practised in some Australian States, it was now rare, and public feeling was growing against it.

It was decided that John Penlington, one of the programs reporters, should take a camera crew and fly to Perth to cover the controversy.

Penlington was something of a celebrity in Perth. Until recently he had had his own local current affairs program there. When he arrived in Perth the local press asked him what he was doing back in Perth. He told them he was there to make a program about the proposal to hang Cooke.

News of this leaked out, and the West Australian Premier came to hear about it. He complained to local ABC management, who conveyed his complaint to the Assistant General Manager. It seemed that the Premier thought that such a program was in 'bad taste' and should not be made. Semmler then issued a statement saying that Four Corners was not making a program about the forthcoming execution of Cooke.

The press, on hearing this statement, went back to Penlington. What was going on they asked. A nervous Penlington replied cautiously, but firmly, "I stand by my statement of Tuesday" - meaning that yes he was making a program about the Cooke execution. The program's Executive Producer, Alan Ashbolt, backed Penlington.

The next we heard was that Alan Ashbolt, the Executive Producer, John Power, the Producer, and John Penlington, had all be removed from the program. Their offence - contradicting a senior officer in the press. No matter that they had spoken the truth, no matter that there were ten or more witnesses that Penlington had been specifically commissioned to make a program about Cooke, they had publicly contradicted the Assistant General Manager.

It looked very grim indeed. Thinks got blacker. We asked the Union for support. A conservative union in those days, they refused. This is a program matter, not an industrial issue, they said.

Then we were saved. The Secretary of the Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, John Baker, had complained to the ABC Chairman, Sir James Darling, about the removal of Penlington, Power and Ashbolt. Before replying, Darling had consulted senior ABC management, who it appears drafted a reply for Darling's signature. In the letter Darling wrote:

"The officers concerned, against standing instructions, and against all decent practice, contradicted their senior officer in the public press. They have been returned to their previous positions because they have shown a lack of the responsibility necessary to conduct a program of the type of Four Corners"

Baker gave a copy of the letter to Ashbolt. With a copy of this letter in the hands of the Four Corners team, the ABC was advised that an action for defamation was being contemplated. Suddenly the ABC wanted to negotiate. It would be very embarrassing if the Chairman lost a defamation suit on the basis of his signing a letter drafted by one of the ABC's most senior managers.

There were hurried talks, and a deal was done. After a short time in purgatory, Power and Penlington would be quietly reinstated. The program on Cooke would be broadcast, but only after he had been killed and the issue had lost immediacy.

Ashbolt however was to be sacrificed. The Executive Producer of Four Corners, and a distinguished actor, author and foreign correspondent, Ashbolt was to be marginalised and demonised. He survived as a senior executive in the ABC for another ten years or more, but was under constant attack. He retired prematurely for health reasons.

The history of the ABC is full of stories like that, and it's full of heroes and martyrs like Penlington and Ashbolt. It's full of villains too. The program has survived, and gone on to greater things, because Penlington, Ashbolt and many like them have believed in the public's right to know.

As long as that history remains alive in the minds of ABC staff, and in the minds of the ABC's friends, like ourselves, then 'stupid producers' will still try to make programs that politicians think are "boring", and in "bad taste".