On Wednesday the ABC’s Lateline broadcast a story on the management of the Aboriginal-controlled Nyangatjatjara College in central Australia. Lateline enthusiastically told us of the possible waste of millions of taxpayer’s dollars and the summary sacking of an eminently qualified Aboriginal principal after three short months in the job.

The story hung on the words of the ex-principal, who said that she and the communities serviced by the school and students were “utterly devastated” when she was sacked; that management at the College was inept and corrupt and the College was really only a cash cow for its parent Aboriginal Corporation.

The whole show was apparently run by a mysterious white-fella, who had the temerity to refuse to make his personal income and assets public knowledge.
On that basis, it sounds like a good story and one that should be told. It’s a pity that a different set of facts get in the way.

In May 2004, before the principal was sacked, she complained to the Northern Territory’s Anti-Discrimination Commission that she been unlawfully discriminated against by the CEO of the College on the grounds of age, sex and race. The Commission held seven days of hearings at Yulara and Alice Springs in 2005.

Witnesses for both sides gave oral evidence, there were extensive interlocutory proceedings and written applications and submissions were provided by the complainant and the College. The Commission produced its 33 pages of Reasons for Decision on 28 June 2006. ABC News Online had previously reported on the matter in September 2005 though this too seems to have been missed by Lateline.

Unfortunately for the Complainant and Lateline, there is considerable variance between the evidence given under oath by her and her witnesses to the Commission and her story as told by Lateline.

To follow are just some of the errors in Lateline‘s story:

– Lateline says that the Complainant was sacked after three months – the Commission’s record shows she was sacked after six months and within her probation period;

– Lateline states that the Complainant was sacked when she “…started asking questions about the school’s finances and how millions of dollars in Commonwealth funds were being spent”. Neither the Complainant or her several witnesses said this in the Commission and it wasn’t put to the senior Commonwealth education bureaucrat called by the Complainant;

– According to Lateline “After just three months at the school (the Complainant) was told…that Aboriginal women couldn’t manage and she was sacked”. In evidence led by the complainant to the Commission she said she was told by the College’s CEO at the start of her employment in January 2004 that there was a “…perception here that Aboriginal women can’t manage” and, as accepted by the Commission, this was told to her not as a belief of the CEO or the executive of the College, but as a widely-held but erroneous perception in the community.

The Commission dismissed all of the Complainant’s claims against the CEO and the College and had serious concerns about her credibility, finding that “ … the Complainant was generally an unconvincing and unimpressive witness in chief and under cross examination. She was guarded in her answers, responsible for very long delays in answering even the most simple of questions, and appeared to contrive her answers to suit her claim.”

The Commission also found that the CEO and executive of the Aboriginal Corporation were justified in having misgivings, sufficient to warrant the termination, about the Complainant’s management style and that the executive’s unanimous decision was “firmly grounded in her managerial and administrative shortcomings.”

It looks like Lateline has fallen for the old “losing litigant” story – your case gets thrown out of court so you run to the media – who gleefully beat up the shortcomings of the other side with hearsay and unsubstantiated rumour and take the failed litigant’s allegations at face value.

Running an independent school in remote areas of the NT would never be an easy job and, thanks to Lateline’s sloppy journalism, the good work being done by the Aboriginal men, women and students at Nyangatjatjara College just got a lot harder.