ABC 'worried' about First Nations staff ahead of Voice referendum

Mr Grant, a proud Wiradjuri man, announced last week he was stepping away from hosting Q+A after becoming the target of racist attacks for speaking about the impact of colonialism during the ABC's coronation broadcast.

David Anderson, managing director of the ABC, told Senate estimates that he was "worried" about First Nations staff leading up to the referendum, following Mr Grant's treatment.

Mr Anderson revealed that the broadcaster received "around 1800" complaints in response to Mr Grant's comments during the segment, including hundreds of racist attacks.

Mr Grant made his exit from Q+A on Monday night, wrapping up the program with a tearful address directed at those who racially abused him.

"To those who have abused me and my family, I would just say - if your aim was to hurt me, well, you've succeeded," he said.

"And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I must have given you so much cause to hate me so much, to target me and my family, to make threats against me."

ABC news director Justin Stevens told Senate estimates that "whilst some people find it uncomfortable to talk about our history and hear First Nations' perspective of that, we did not expect [the segment] would result in what it did".

But Mr Stevens said that the "broadcaster had learnt some really good lessons" from the last few weeks.

"When we have discussions of race, particularly, and when we ask our staff to take part in discussions around this, [we must] put additional support around them," he said.

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Senators took turns on Wednesday afternoon grilling ABC representatives about lack of leadership diversity, and allegations of racism within the workplace.

Mr Grant accused the ABC of "institutional failure", saying the organisation failed to speak out against the racist abuse he had received after being invited onto the coronation coverage as a guest.

Several former employees have also spoken out over the last week about their experience working at the ABC.

In blog post to his Patreon page on Sunday, comedian and former ABC presenter Sami Shah accused the ABC of "being indifferent at best and hostile at worst to the problems of its non-white staff experience".

Former ABC journalist Osman Faruqi also wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that he had been advised against joining the national broadcaster by "almost every non-white person who had worked at the organisation".

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe pointed to the fact that only one of the 17 people that comprise the ABC's leadership team and board is not white. She noted that no one on the team is First Nations.

While ABC board positions were government-appointed, Mr Anderson said that greater leadership diversity was "being considered at a board level", and he would have more to share in a few weeks.

Mr Stevens acknowledged that the ABC is "playing catch up and have been for some time", but said the broadcaster would do "anything and everything to improve culture".

"The thing we would emphasise is that we aren't doing it for the sake of making ourselves feel better, or to be able to sit here in the future and say the statistics are better," he said.

"We are doing it to improve our journalism and the content that we make, and we are doing it because the charter talks about reflecting the country back to itself."

"I think we would fully say we are not where we want to be and we will do everything we can to improve representation at all levels and advance people wherever possible."

Elsewhere in the environment and communications legislative committee, Senator Thorpe used estimates questioning of the ABC to call out her alleged mistreatment in the Greens.

"I think it's really important as a black senator in this place. I deal with racism all the time, but apparently that's okay, it's accepted in this place," the former Greens senator said, wrapping up her questions to ABC representatives.

"So we've got a lot of work to do in this country to rid racism. That's certainly why I left my last workplace."