Page 3177 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 11 September 1991
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The Labor Party is very much behind this. I understand that it has been put up to the Federal Government; but we need the backing of this Assembly to push it, because radio comes under the Federal Government. I think it is very unfair that every other city in this country has ethnic radio, while Canberra has been denied it. Station 2XX does a wonderful job. I commend them on the wonderful job their volunteers do. They work extremely hard. But when we have 80 languages and they have the time for only 30, and some of them get only half an hour a fortnight, it is not enough. There should be a radio station operating 24 hours a day on which somebody can listen to an hour or two hours of their language and their news.
At the moment I feel very sorry for the Croatian community in Canberra, who have very little contact with what is going on in Croatia. The only contact they have is from their friends in Sydney and Melbourne who can listen to their ethnic radio stations and relay to them news that they are able to get and that is at least only a few hours old. I feel that we should be able to give those people that news here. I feel that we should be able to give those people that contact.
DR KINLOCH (12.10): The Residents Rally is very much in favour of an ethnic radio station. May I say to Mrs Grassby that I much admired and appreciated what she had to say. I would like to endorse a number of comments. I know that other people wish to speak on this matter as well, so I will try to be brief. I was getting worried there at the beginning because I thought, "Oh goodness, what about 2XX?". But Mrs Grassby put that point. In working for 2XX over years past I was very aware of the component of ethnic radio at 2XX. I would not want to see that stopped or prevented or limited. They obviously, as a community radio station, should continue with their ethnic broadcasts. But, given the number of languages and the number of ethnic groups, there is obviously a place for a great many hours on public radio or commercial radio.
I would like to go further than Mrs Grassby and argue that commercial radio has a responsibility also for reaching the ethnic community, but I emphasise that we should not leave it in some kind of radiowave ghetto. There should be the community radio, 2XX; there should be the print handicapped radio. They should have components for ethnic communities. We support the concept of the Ethnic Communities Council and those who wish for a separate radio station. What we would want to avoid is something that would wind up as to be seen as meeting only very small minority groups. Those minority groups need their say. I would hope to see it, as with SBS and as with 2XX, spread very widely across the community. So, of course we support this notion.
I had better declare an interest of 30 years working with the ABC very directly. It has been a very important part of my life. I believe that the ABC is woeful in its reaching out to the ethnic community and woeful in the
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