Brokenshire suspends ABC salaries ‘leaker’
Family First MP Robert Brokenshire has suspended a staff member who passed to the media documents containing ABC employee and salary details.
The documents had been inadvertently attached to a separate Freedom of Information request made by Brokenshire’s office to the ABC in October last year.
The details surfaced when The Australian newspaper last week published the salaries of many of the ABC’s senior and on-air employees.
On Friday, Brokenshire confirmed the information had come from his office.
The MP told ABC Radio this morning the staffer’s suspension took place from today while he sought legal advice on “appropriate disciplinary action”.
The ABC said the staffer – identified by ABC Radio’s Matt Abraham as Rikki Lambert but not named by Brokenshire – had issued a statement identifying himself as the source of information used in last week’s stories in The Australian which detailed names, staff numbers and salaries taken from a list of 4600 ABC employees.
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Lambert is a former Family First candidate and IT specialist at several law firms.
According to the statement quoted by ABC Radio, the staffer said the document he had passed on to The Australian held more information than he realised.
“I wasn’t aware of the depth of information that was contained in the electronic document,” the staffer said.
Brokenshire said his staffer had acted against instructions.
“A year ago I was aware that we had done an FoI request to the ABC and they had sent a lot more information than we asked for,” he said.
“I said to the staffer that I didn’t require the information and said it wasn’t to be used. My instruction was that it was not to be used.”
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When the story first surfaced in The Australian last week the ABC quickly identified itself as the source of the bungle that led to the release of private and personal information.
ABC managing director Mark Scott confirmed the confidential information included data for the last pay cycle for the six financial years to 2011/12, including annual salaries, dates of birth and the name of their superannuation funds.
“The material was inadvertently sent to the office of a South Australian Member of Parliament in October last year in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act,” he said in a statement.
“The request was for simple summary information regarding staff numbers in certain regional areas and at Ultimo from 2007 to 2012.
“The payroll detail was accessed through material embedded underneath a simple one-page spread sheet showing the relevant staffing numbers.”
Scott has apologised to ABC staff for the unintentional release of data.
The Australian’s reporter Sarah Martin, who found the data within the document, confirmed today there was more to it than first expected.
“The document was not a list of salaries – it was a database,” she said.
ABC Radio presenter David Bevan questioned the apparent reluctance of Brokenshire’s staffer to be named as the source.
“He should ‘man up’ shouldn’t he?” Bevan asked Brokenshire.
Lambert did not return InDaily’s calls this morning.
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