Systemic racism overwhelmingly exists within the ABC, an independent investigation has found.

Led by Indigenous lawyer Dr Terri Janke – a Wuthathi, Yadhaighana and Meriam woman – the review examined the ABC’s workplace culture following multiple claims of racism.

During the investigation, the review team spoke to 120 participants – comprising current and former ABC staff. Only one respondent described not experiencing racism personally but had been aware of racism occurring at the ABC.

“This response overwhelmingly indicates that racism exists within the ABC workplace, and that ABC staff are subjected to racism from external individuals and organisations in connection with their work,” the report says.

The 171-page report details “obvious and deliberate” instances of racism including:

• derogatory and offensive comments about a person’s appearance and cultural practices
• excluding staff from workplace opportunities or social events due to their cultural or linguistic background
• mistaking someone for a more junior person based on their racial appearance.

Other examples include:

• stereotyping, assumptions and unconscious bias
• not being championed or mentored because you are not in the same cultural group as managers
• not being considered to be impartial in reporting on a cultural group because you are perceived to be from that cultural group
• not having opportunities because you are considered to have been hired to only meet diversity criteria, and your skills are not valued.

Participants – who included First Nations people and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds – described racism being entrenched across the following areas:

• recruitment and pay
• career progression
• through behaviours of bullying and harassment
• in representation across middle to upper levels of the organisation.

This impacts entire lives – not just in the workplace

“This suggests racism is systemic at the ABC – the ABC’s policies and practices disadvantage people who are First Nations and CALD,” says the report. “We emphasise that the majority of participants expressed significant hurt, helplessness and exhaustion around their experiences in the workplace … Cumulatively, these experiences have a profound impact on the self-esteem, and sense of self-worth for participants. This impacts entire lives – not just in the workplace.”

In all, the review team has made 15 recommendations to improve the ABC’s systems and processes. Among them, a call for the ABC, its board, managing director, senior leadership team and all staff to read the report in full “and listen deeply to the grievances of First Nations and CALD current and former staff”.

The review also asks that the ABC commit to being proactively anti-racist, improve diverse representation in ABC management and leadership roles, increase and enhance organisation-wide education and training, and improve recruitment processes and pathways.

In response to the review’s findings, ABC managing director David Anderson issued an apology and committed the broadcaster to accepting in principle all of the 15 recommendations.

“On behalf of everyone at the ABC, I am sorry for any and all racist behaviour and past harms experienced by our Indigenous and CALD employees, either currently or formerly employed,” Anderson told staff on Tuesday. “We all need to do better for our colleagues on our commitment to zero tolerance for racism in our workplace.”

The ABC will also launch an internal campaign to raise awareness of racism and discrimination and to improve the complaints system to make it easier for staff to report such incidents.

“As an organisation and as an industry we must learn from the experiences in the report and commit to work together to do better and rebuild the trust that has been eroded by the actions of some people,” Anderson said. 

Dan Bouchier, chair of the Bonner Committee – the broadcaster’s primary advisory body on issues relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff – described the review as a line in the sand. “We need to do better,” he said.

Mehreen Faruqi – deputy leader of the Australian Greens – said the time for “platitudes and hollow apologies” is over. “Strong action must be taken starting from the top.”

Faruqi said the ABC board “must reflect the diversity of the community if it is to be considered a true national broadcaster”.

She added: “People of colour deserve a respectful and safe workplace and to be treated as equals to white people working at the ABC.”

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