The ABC has refused to release five emails sent between former managing director Michelle Guthrie and former chairman Justin Milne, which came to light when both left the broadcaster in acrimonious circumstances in September.
The ABC board sacked Guthrie in late September, just two years into her five-year term. Shortly afterwards, it was reported that Milne had told Guthrie to "get rid" of the ABC's chief economics reporter Emma Alberici in May over a controversial news story regarding the government's now-abandoned tax cuts for large businesses.
It was also reported that Milne asked Guthrie to sack ABC political editor Andrew Probyn, stating "you have to shoot him" because the government had lodged complaints about Probyn's reporting.
As a result of the leaks, Milne resigned.
Guthrie is suing the ABC for wrongful termination, and the whole incident is now the subject of a Senate committee, and an upcoming episode of Four Corners.
Despite some of the contents of the emails already being in the public domain, the ABC is refusing to release the documents publicly.
BuzzFeed News filed a freedom of information (FOI) request for emails between Guthrie and Milne related to Alberici and Probyn last month, but was told by the ABC on Friday that only one of six emails identified would be released.
The other emails contained discussion of "program material", as they related to complaints made about content on the ABC, and were therefore exempt from the FOI Act, ABC general counsel Connie Carnabuci said.
Additionally, some of the emails quoted legal advice from the ABC's general counsel, and confidentiality was not waived, Carnabuci said.
The emails also contained "deliberative material" that was exempt from FOI because "in broad terms the subject matter of the deliberations was the ABC’s editorial policies, its presenters and the management of complaints about its program material", she said.
"They record a course of internal deliberation within the ABC about the most appropriate course of action to take with regard to the subject matter of those deliberations."
She said it was not in the public interest to reveal the discussions because "there is a public interest in the ABC being able to confidentially manage complaints about program material, and undertake deliberations about its editorial policies and about staff matters".
This was the one email the ABC was prepared to release. It is an email from Milne to Guthrie asking for an update on the "Probyn matter" ahead of a reported meeting with then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull on June 15.
Turnbull told ABC's Q&A program on Thursday night that he never asked Milne to sack anyone.
"There is nothing I’ve said to Justin Milne or to anybody else at the ABC that I haven’t said publicly, right? So my concern was about particular examples of really inaccurate reporting," he said. "And so, my affection for and respect for the ABC is so great that I want it to be its best self and to get its journalism right. So that’s my concern."
The ABC refused to release over 22 pages of emails.
BuzzFeed News will appeal the decision.
Guthrie and Milne have both been interviewed for the Four Corners special to air on ABC TV on Monday night.