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Parliamentarians have backed the ABC’s right to ask hard questions after President Donald Trump suggested a reporter’s inquiries about his business dealings were imperilling the Australia-US relationship ahead of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit.
But hard right Nationals senator Matt Canavan broke from the bipartisan consensus to attack the national broadcaster, arguing taxpayer money should not be spent sending ABC reporters to the US in remarks that echoed Trump’s decision to slash funding to American public broadcasters.
Trump accused ABC Americas editor John Lyons of “hurting Australia” when the veteran reporter asked about the president’s business dealings on Wednesday, before the president said he would tell Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about the exchange in a long-awaited meeting between the leaders.
Speaking to the ABC on Wednesday morning, Lyons said: “our job as journalists is to ask questions that the average person would be interested in and I think the average person in Australia would be interested in how is a President becoming so wealthy in office.”
He said he had asked the question respectfully and Trump only reacted negatively when the question turned to whether the president had used his office to enrich himself and his family, Lyons said. “That’s when he unleashed on me and said he was going to dob on me.”
The White House, which has overseen drastic funding cuts to US public broadcasting, has described the altercation as Trump smacking “down a rude fake news loser”. Lyons said he was unhappy to see that description but noted the president had described many other reporters in the same way.
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Housing Minister Clare O’Neil backed Lyons’ reporting, saying: “Australian journalists ask really tough questions ... that’s a part of the really strong democracy we have here in Australia, and I think Donald Trump got asked some of those tough questions.”
“It’s something that we experience every day in the Australian media. So I think the journalists are there to try to keep politicians accountable, and they’re entitled to ask difficult questions,” she told Seven’s Sunrise.
The president appeared to confirm a long-speculated meeting between the nation’s leaders during his exchange with Lyons, saying: “You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you, you set a very bad tone.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will fly to New York on Saturday to attend the United Nations General Assembly where Australia will formally recognise a Palestinian state.
The opposition has consistently criticised Albanese for not securing a meeting with the president since his inauguration in January. The leaders have spoken on the phone multiple times.
“The president and our prime minister enjoy a really warm relationship,” O’Neil said this morning, “They’re working it through and intending to meet.”
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie — also speaking on Sunrise — said confirmation of the meeting was “the scoop of the year” from the ABC, and backed O’Neil’s statement on journalists’ rights.
“There is going to be a meeting between President [Donald] Trump and Anthony Albanese, which is great news,” McKenzie said. “In the home of free speech, there’s nothing wrong with journalists asking tough questions.”
McKenzie’s Nationals colleague Matt Canavan said he was not “worked up” about Trump’s remarks and questioned why an Australian journalist was investigating the Trump administration.
“I don’t want my taxpayer dollars going.... to an Australian journalist to go over to the US and do all this stuff. [The ABC] get a billion dollars a year. Enough is enough,” Canavan told Nine’s Today this morning.
Canavan claimed the ABC had “been spreading lies about the Trump administration”, citing a 2018 report on the president’s ties to Russia. The broadcaster has stood by the report.
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