Prior to his appointment to the ABC Board, Brunton was a fortnightly columnist for The Courier-Mail from 1997 to 2003, a Senior Fellow at the right wing think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, from 1995 to 2001, and a contributor to the conservative literary and political journal Quadrant.
[3] He has also written scathing criticisms of both the High Court's 1992 Mabo v Queensland decision and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
In addition, he enunciated the view that the "secret women's business" of the Ngarrindjeri women during the Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy was a fabrication, and he came to the defence of the murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who called on Muslim immigrants to assimilate into Dutch society and culture.
[5] Then shadow minister Lindsay Tanner described Brunton as an "ideological zealot" with "no background in public broadcasting", whose appointment was a "disgrace".
Ltd,[6] was an organisation engaged in anthropological and socio-economic research, concentrating on native title, indigenous heritage, immigration and environmental issues.