PETER VAN ONSELEN: New ABC boss Kim Williams’ blunt warning to staff hasn’t stopped Laura Tingle’s latest ‘little rant’. So, who’s REALLY running the show?

This weekend we heard another activist take from ABC’s chief political correspondent Laura Tingle.

The 7.30 reporter used a platform at the Sydney Writers Festival to declare Australia a ‘racist country’. But her self-described “little rant” didn’t stop there.

Tingle went on to suggest that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s new immigration policy has given white Australians ‘licence’ to abuse anyone who looks a little different at property auctions.

Tingle told her audience that she had “a sudden flash of people coming in trying to rent a property or at auction and they look a little different, however you define it, that he actually [Peter Dutton] has given them a license to be abused.”

Talk about a long bow. It is an extraordinary insult, which she would never express against the other side of politics.

Remember, Tingle has form when it comes to voicing it on one side of politics and not the other in her free time.

In a late night tweet during Scott Morrison’s leadership, she accused the then prime minister of “ideological bastardry”.

At least she had the good grace to delete the tweet the next morning.

New ABC chairman Kim Williams has boldly declared that activism is out the window now that he is at the ABC.

Williams said in March that anyone who wants to continue practicing activist journalism should look for work elsewhere.

Will the new ABC chairman follow through on his words and align Tingle, one of his most senior correspondents, so this doesn’t happen again?

Or is Tingle – also the staff-elected representative on the ABC board – simply too senior to follow the rules set for others?

While truth is a defense when it comes to throwing barbs in public, are Tingle’s statements even true? That this nation is racist to the core?

Has she cited data or international comparisons as evidence of her certainty that a country of 26 million people is unequivocally racist? No.

“We always have been,” Tingle apparently said.

Or is Tingle simply reflecting the private musings of her own friendship circle? Her own family even? Or perhaps her own private views, heaven forbid?

Of course not. I suspect she wants to offend others, not herself and the people around her.

Tingle and those close to her would no doubt be offended by even the tongue-in-cheek insinuation that they are a bunch of racists.

And that’s the point.

New ABC boss Kim Williams (left) joins Anthony Albanese at Parliament House as his appointment was announced

The great unwashed Australians who live in suburbs that actually ARE diverse rather than just proclaiming diversity from on high in the nation’s capital also have a right to feel offended by the baseless and blanket insult by Tingle – a paid employee of the public broadcaster that they finance with their tax money.

Australia is an internationally recognized beacon of successful multiculturalism. Compared to the goings on in the world, where racial hatred too often surfaces in violent and unimaginable ways, the people here in Australia have a record to be proud of.

There is always room for a healthy debate for and against new policies of political parties. This also applies to Dutton immigration policy announcements in his budget response speech.

But it must be rational, fact-based and – especially when it comes to taxpayer-funded public service broadcasting – it MUST be balanced and free from personal bias. Especially when the rant comes from the most senior political journalist at the ABC.

Luckily, 7:30 is hosted by Sarah Ferguson – a professional, versatile master of the political interview who is willing to give it to both sides, which she reemphasized in her post-Budget interviews.

Tingle could learn a thing or two from her colleague.