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Cliff Baxter's news story
yesterday concerning the St Vincent de Paul Society generated
much discussion in the Church and wider community. So much heat seemed
to be generated in fact that for the first time in its six or seven-year
publishing history, CathNews removed it's lead story coverage of
our story from its website sometime on Friday afternoon (see separate
story below).
Catholica received
a phone call from Mr John Picot, CEO of the St Vincent de
Paul Society, expressing concern that we had not provided the
Society with an opportunity to comment on the story before it was published.
As we explained to Mr Picot that was not practicable as the story broke
very late on Thursday night and we published it in the wee small hours
of Friday morning. We did express to Mr Picot that we were most happy
to provide the Society with an opportunity to respond with as much prominence,
and as much care in layout and our own editorial commentary, as we had
given to the original story filed by Cliff Baxter. Following below
this editorial introduction is the response provided by Mr Picot and the
St Vincent de Paul Society.
Catholica stands
by it's decision to publish the original story with the prominence that
it did. We are aware from the number of phone calls and emails that we
received yesterday, including from prominent members of the Vincentian
family, and more general knowledge, that the changes being mooted or implemented
in the Society have been generating considerable concern within the membership
of the Society itself. We believe there is a debate to be held on these
matters and as the Society holds a unique public position not only within
the community of the Catholic Church but beyond that, that some of the
issues being raised in the concerns reaching our ears are legitimate matters
for public discussion. We have actually been impressed in the various
communications we have had with the executive of the Society in the past
24 hours, as well as with the union, that there does seem to be a recognition
on both sides of the public aspects that need to be respected in this
debate.
Catholica does
not wish to take sides in this debate but would welcome our pages being
used as a forum where all viewpoints can be aired generously and, if necessary,
in depth, and in a genuine spirit of Christian compassion where all sides
keep in mind the ultimate objective of why the St Vincent de Paul
Society exists — to help the poor, the disadvantaged and
those who do not have much of a voice at the "negotiating tables"
in modern society. Some of the issues presently on the table are difficult
issues involving extensive negotiation between the executive management
of the Society, its paid workforce, as well as its extensive network of
volunteers, as the Society seeks to better position itself to respond
to the needs of the disadvantaged in our contemporary social setting which
is light years removed from what was the case even just a few years ago.
We wish all the participants who have a legitimate stakeholder membership
or association with this most honourable, long-lived and important social
welfare organisation of the Catholic Church our own best wishes. We trust
and hope the issues can be resolved amicably and in ways that end up standing
as an example of how Christians ought conduct themselves when there are
legitimate differences of opinion on how their public affairs ought be
best organised.
 The St Vincent de Paul Society absolutely rejects the comments of the
ASU secretary, Sally McManus.
"On the contrary to 'forcing' employees to sign AWA contracts, the
Society has been one of the most vocal charities in raising concerns about
elements of the new industrial framework" the Society's CEO, John
Picot said.
"The suggestion that the Society is intending to corporatise and
'drive its workers into AWAs' is a complete fabrication by the Union and
is unambiguously rejected by the Society."
"The Society has already commenced a dialogue with employees about
adopting a consultative approach that will see the Society work with staff
to find out how we can improve employee working conditions." Mr Picot
continued.
The ASU is being extremely mischievous in presenting two staff dismissals
as part of such a fanciful drive. The matter is before the Industrial
Commission and it would be inappropriate for the Society to comment other
than to totally reject the ASU spin.
"The Society believes that unions have a contribution to make to
the workplace, but we are very disappointed with the belligerent attitude
the ASU has adopted in the past six months."
"The union's secretary, Sally McManus, has been invited to meet
with me now on two occasions and has ignored the invitation."
"Their behaviour in this matter in my view has been disgraceful
and does nothing to encourage the Society to sit down at the table with
the ASU."
It was also asserted that the Society receives the majority of its funding
from government. In fact, the St Vincent de Paul Society receives less
than 40% of its funding from government with community support providing
the largest percentage of annual income through donations.
"At the heart of the Society's mission is its service to the most
disadvantaged in our community. It would be extremely unfortunate if the
ASU's claims had any negative impact on the Society's ability to carry
out its 'good works'," Mr Picot concluded.
The sudden and unexplained withdrawal of the story from CathNews
on Friday afternoon caused disquiet to a number of participants in this
news story. Was some behind-the-scenes power being exerted, for example,
by the St Vincent de Paul Society on Church Resources, publishers of CathNews?
For a short time we even heard suggestions that there was something incorrect
in the reporting of Mr Baxter and ourselves here at Catholica
in running this story. Unfortunately the withdrawal of the story on CathNews
only reached our attention late in the afternoon and it was only after
office hours that we were able to make contact with the various parties
and try and reach some understanding of what had transpired.
Our first port of call was CathNews itself. Unfortunately both
Fr Michael Kelly SJ (CEO of Church Resources) and Martin Teulan (Chief
Operating Officer) had left for the day. I emailed these gentlemen and
it was sometime before a one-line response was received from Fr Kelly
which read: "Brian you might like to check with the source of
the story who denies she said the things attributed to her by Cliff. Mick".
Naturally this caused concern as it seemed to imply there were deficiencies
on the part of either Mr Baxter or ourselves in carrying the original
story.
In the meantime we checked with the Executive of the St Vincent de Paul
Society. Julie McDonald, Manager of Community and Corporate Relations
assured us that no pressure had been exerted by the Society, or its CEO
or other executive members on CathNews to have the story removed.
Ms McDonald gave us permission to be able to state this categorically
in this report.
Also during this interim period both Cliff Baxter and the editor of Catholica
endeavoured to make contact with the Union and this became more urgent
following receipt of Fr Kelly's email. Cliff was successful in making
contact with Sally McManus, NSW Branch Secretary of the Union, and she
provided this explanation by email:
"Hi Cliff, Your article was good and hard hitting. However Cathnews
ran an article which was just wrong. It said the workers got sacked for
refusing to sign AWAs which isn't true and not what I said, however it
has been attibuted to me; hence Picot's response. I have contacted them
and they have removed the article and I hope publise something I'll send
them Monday."
We are most grateful to both Ms McDonald from the Vinnies and Ms McManus
from the Union for responding to us in a timely and courteous way to our
legitimate concerns. Mr Baxter who is a veteran journalist of long-standing
was considerably distressed by the withdrawal of the story and particularly
by the initial explanation provided by Fr Michael Kelly. The responses
from Fr Kelly have not been blessed with the same qualities. In the interests
of the public record I publish below the sequence of emails between myself
and Fr Kelly:
Friday 5.04pm: To Fr Michael Kelly and Martin Teulan:
"Dear Mick or Martin,
I'm running a rebuttal from the CEO of the Vinnies on Catholica tomorrow
but someone just rang me to say Cliff Baxter's story had been "pulled"
from CathNews. I looked and sure enough it had. Is there some official
explanation I might publish tomorrow as to why the story was pulled from
CathNews? I will be drawing attention to the fact that the story has disappeared
from the CathNews website as that seems to be a significant story in its
own right. To my knowledge I don't think you've ever pulled a story in
this manner in the six or seven years CathNews has been running.
Looking forward to anything you might have to say on or off the record.
Cheers, Brian Coyne"
Friday 5.16pm: Fr Michael Kelly to Brian Coyne:
"Brian you might like to check with the source of
the story who denies she said the things attributed to her by Cliff. Mick"
Friday 5.53pm: Brian Coyne to Fr Michael Kelly:
"Mick,
Unfortunately I can't get on to Sally McManus at the moment as I don't
have a phone number. I have spoken to Cliff though. He sent the story
through to her at the same time he sent it through to me. He has spoken
to the union three times during the day at approximately 10am, noon and
later in the afternoon and there were certainly never any complaints aired
of inaccuracies or requests for retractions or whatever he assures me.
To some extent both the reputations of myself and Cliff Baxter are now
on the line in this matter particularly in that the Vinnies have also
given me a statement saying that they did not seek to have the story pulled
from CathNews. Who specifically contacted you, or anyone at CathNews,
claiming there were inaccuracies? Did you, or anyone at CathNews, check
with Cliff Baxter to asscertain whether there were in fact inaccuracies
and what explanation he might have? Cliff claims to have independent witnesses
to what was said. I look forward to your further thoughts as we try to
get to the bottom of this.
Cheers, Brian Coyne"
In the meantime we then received the email from Sally McManus so I sent
a further email to alert Fr Kelly to this. It read:
Friday 7.04pm: Brian Coyne to Fr Michael Kelly:
"Mick.
The truth now emerges. We have now had an email from Sally McManus praising
Cliff for his story and the accuracy of his quotations. It seems their
complaint was with the interpretations CathNews placed on her words. There
were inaccuracies in the CathNews story it seems NOT in what Catholica
had originally published.
As the withdrawal of the story from CathNews without explanation does,
by implication, and particularly in the Church environment, raise some
credibility about Catholica and Cliff Baxter, particularly following your
own email comment to me, I need to publish some explanation as to why
the story was pulled. I do not want to drop CathNews in the nure over
this but will be publishing what Sally has sent us, and also the earlier
statement the Vinnies provided me with regarding the withdrawal of the
CathNews story so if you wish to make any comment on behalf of CathNews
I would be most happy to publish that as well. Unfortunately Sally's comments
drops CathNews in the poo a bit. I can send Sally McManus's comments through
if you would like to see them before making any comment.
I will be publishing around noon tomorrow.
Cold as hell up here tonight so we've got the log fires burning.
Cheers, Brian Coyne"
At approximately 20 past seven as an afterthought I was in the middle
of sending Fr Kelly the further response below when I received the following
terse response from Fr Kelly to my email of 5.53pm where I asked him two
questions a response to either of which would have been sufficient.
Friday 7.19pm: Fr Michael Kelly to Brian Coyne:
"Really Brian the presumption that I owe you
an explanation of or answer to this raft of questions is preposterous.
When you land in the real world I MAY be ready to talk to you."
Friday 7.32pm: Brian Coyne to Fr Michael Kelly:
"Mick,
A quick further thought. At the very least from a pr point of view I think
you need to say something like "Fr Michael Kelly apologised on behalf
of CathNews that the story had to be withdrawn. No imputations should
be drawn in regards to the accuracy of the reporting of Mr Baxter or Catholica
in this matter".
If you want to run with something like that let me know. I'm not going
to be labouring the withdrawal of the CathNews story. Our main focus in
the morning will be on the statement we have from the Vinnies regarding
what Sally McManus wrote.
I've just received your latest email. Would you prefer I wrote those "real
world" explanations?
Cheers, Brian Coyne"
We have received no further responses from Fr Kelly prior to publication
of this report.
What are your thoughts on these news stories?
You can contribute your thoughts in our forum.
For further information regarding the press statement from the St Vincent
de Paul Society please contact:
Julie McDonald,
Manager, Community & Corporate Relations,
St Vincent de Paul Society
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