Peter Dutton calling the ABC and the Guardian ‘hate media’ rings alarm bells for democracy

In front of a crowd of party faithful last weekend, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton referred to the ABC, Guardian Australia and other news platforms as “hate media”. The language was extreme, the inference being these outlets were not simply doing their jobs, but attacking him and his side of politics because of ideological bias.

Speaking at a Liberal Party campaign rally in the Melbourne western suburb of Melton, Dutton said:

Forget about what you have been told by the ABC, The Guardian and the other hate media. Listen to what you hear [at] doors. Listen to what people say on the pre-polling. Know in your hearts that we are a better future for our country.

Melton is in the Labor-held seat of Hawke, which the Liberals believe they can win.

Dutton provided no evidence to support his accusation, for the good reason that there has been nothing in the ABC’s or Guardian Australia’s coverage of Dutton that could remotely justify it.

By a process of elimination, the “other hate media” to which he referred can only be The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, given the News Corporation mastheads have been unflagging in their support for him throughout the campaign.

What has been common to the campaign coverage by the ABC, Guardian Australia, The Age and the SMH has been close scrutiny of both sides and both leaders.

The three newspapers in particular have put renewed resources into independently fact-checking claims made by both Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and have caught out both men telling falsehoods.

The broadcast news media on the whole have played it straight, except of course for Sky News after dark, which has been as relentlessly pro-Coalition as their News Corp newspaper stablemates.

Beyond these professional mass media platforms, there have been clearly partisan social media influencers working on both sides, as well as a range of podcasters, but none of these has been guilty of hate speech towards Dutton or anyone else.

The inescapable conclusion is that Dutton equates scrutiny of him by journalists with hate speech.

This is where his attitude becomes dangerous to democracy. It comes straight from US President Donald Trump’s playbook, where the professional mass media are “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”.

It is designed to play not just on people’s longstanding distrust of the news media in general – though not of the ABC – but on some voters’ sense of grievance at the way governments have treated them.

This worked for Trump in the United States, but it became obvious early in the campaign that any association with Trumpism was a strong political negative in Australia, particularly in the atmosphere of alarm generated by his tariff war.

Dutton then took pains to distance himself from Trumpism, and at the Liberal launch in Western Australia his face was a picture of alarm when Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, whom he had appointed to the Trumpian-sounding post of shadow minister for government efficiency, used the slogan “Make Australia Great Again”.

But it is typical of his incoherent campaign that at the start of the last week he should be echoing the Trumpian view of the media in such extreme terms, creating even more instability. In an ABC interview, his shadow minister for finance, Jane Hume, refused to support him, saying “that wouldn’t be a phrase I would use”.

It also raises legitimate questions about how Dutton would treat the media should he become prime minister. For example, if a media platform refused to obey his wishes, or provide him with coverage of which he approved, would its representatives be excluded from prime ministerial access?

Not long ago, such a proposition would have been inconceivable, but Trump banned the Associated Press (AP) from presidential access because it would not obey his instruction to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. A federal judge later found the ban violated the First Amendment, and ordered AP’s access to be restored.

It is very improbable Dutton would even try to impose his will on the commercial media in Australia, especially the newspapers.

In fact, Guardian Australia has turned his remark into a fundraising opportunity. It emailed subscribers with the subject line “A note from the ‘hate media’,” comparing Dutton’s language to that of Trump, and asking for financial support to keep holding figures like Dutton to account.

But his potential to punish the publicly funded ABC is another matter.

From statements he has made during the campaign, it seems certain the ABC would be in for more funding cuts and an investigation into its operations of the kind Trump has launched into America’s National Public Radio.

Read more: What would – and should – happen to the ABC under the next federal government?

Coalition prime ministers going back to John Howard have had a hostile relationship with the ABC. Howard stacked the ABC board, and the panel that nominates its members, with ideological mates.

In the eight years from 2014 to 2022, under the Coalition governments of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, $526 million was cut from the ABC’s budget.

During that time, there was also a series of inquiries into the ABC, set up to satisfy politicians with a beef against the ABC, notably Pauline Hanson.

The day after Dutton’s “hate media” statement, the ABC’s 4 Corners program revealed he failed for two years to disclose he was the beneficiary of a family trust that operated lucrative childcare businesses when he was a cabinet minister.

This is unlikely to improve his view of the national broadcaster. He may even see it as more hate. In fact, it is just good journalism.

Denis Muller and Nicole Chvastek will discuss this further on their Truth, Lies and Media podcast on Wednesday April 30.