Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson was partially correct the other day when, speaking at the launch of Troy Bramston’s new biography of Paul Keating, he denounced the ‘soft bigotry’ directed towards indigenous Australians.

‘Not the least the country’s miserable, racist national broadcaster: a spittoon’s worth of perverse people willing the wretched to fail,’ he thundered, colourfully tarnishing all who work at the ABC with the same ideological brush.