Adjudication No. 1175 (September 2002) [2002] APC 30

Adjudication No. 1175 (September 2002)

The Press Council has upheld a complaint by Nick Hammond, a retired Rear Admiral, about a column in The Australian Financial Review, dealing with the employment of former politicians and Defence Department executives by military equipment suppliers after their retirement from official careers.

The Capital Moves column, A defence job 'too soon', followed the appointment of former Defence Minister Peter Reith as a consultant to one such company in early 2002.

Mr Hammond, who had served in the Naval and Defence Materiel divisions of the Department, was named in the column as one of two "precedents" to Mr Reith's appointment. The paper claimed that both these "precedents" had "exploited a loophole in the Department's guidelines on post-service employment", which in turn created the potential for conflicts of interest to arise for the individuals concerned.

Whether or not Mr Hammond did have a conflict of interest in his appointment to a private firm, the Council believes The Financial Review should have allowed him to put his point of view on the matter, and given readers an opportunity to draw their own conclusions.

Just before publication, The Financial Review did indirectly seek comment from Mr Hammond, through an associate who later reached Mr Hammond. There was, at that stage, no response from Mr Hammond.

Mr Hammond complains of several inaccuracies in the piece, as well as what he regarded as a false accusation of a conflict of interest. He wrote to the editor to set the record straight from his perspective, but his letter was not published.

A subsequent letter demanding a retraction and an apology by the Financial Review produced no response to him.

In rejecting the complaint, the paper denied accusing Mr Hammond of having a conflict of interest. It said the column had sought "to canvass the issues surrounding appointments of politicians and senior former defence executives to companies that either have or intend to pitch for government contracts".

It acknowledged, however, that these issues revolved around potential conflicts of interest in the timing of such appointments - a focus clearly reflected in the headline, and in later comments attributed to a senior defence industry manager about "dismay" in the sector at the Reith consultancy.

The Council finds that, as the paper presented Mr Hammond's circumstances as an illustration of a potential conflict of interest, it should have responded to his letter of complaint either by publication of a letter to the Editor or by a follow-up article.