Page 2736 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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As I said, I welcomed the Canberra Times editorial this morning as well. It is not just the Canberra Times, Madam Speaker. This morning I got a copy of a letter that went from the Meetings Industry Association of the ACT to WIN television. Perhaps the tourism industry is the one that really is affected by the scurrilous things that were said on Sunday night. If we take the other point of view, perhaps the story that Mr Carleton presented on Sunday night will make people so envious of Canberra that we can expect hordes of them to come across the border to live here. If that is the effect, perhaps we ought to be applauding Mr Carleton. Let us look at what the Meetings Industry Association said to WIN. I am going to read only the last paragraph. It says:
If, in the future, WIN TV screens ANY incorrect or unsubstantiated statement affecting the community of Canberra [it] will result in the MIAA advising the Canberra region meetings industry, and through our sister organisations, the tourism industry, that they should examine their advertising and promotions budgets to exclude WIN from future contracts. The black banning of WIN TV from media releases and media briefings would also be put in place. It goes without saying that it will be promoted that other stations should be favoured for viewing, and a black sticker will be distributed throughout Canberra to place over the WIN selection button on the TVs.
Reaction like that is going to draw, and has been drawing, the Canberra community together. If Mr Carleton has done one thing, he has, I think, united this Assembly this afternoon into saying, "Mr Carleton, your report was not only scurrilous; it was false; it was wrong". Perhaps we can go as far as saying that it was unchristian, because how dare anybody blame the 300,000 people who live in the ACT for the ills that have been foisted upon us as a result of the Government we have had for the past 10 years on top of the hill?
It is not the fault of the people of the ACT. The blame is fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the man who said that the recession is over, the man who said that it was the recession that we had to have - and that is Mr Keating and his Government. If Mr Carleton were to turn around and criticise Mr Keating for what he has done, that would be fine; perhaps we would all applaud him. It is not the fault of the people of the ACT, and it is about time that all of us here in this Assembly, as members and as representatives of those people, did what we can in a bipartisan way to make sure that this sort of gutter journalism does not appear on our television sets again.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.16): Madam Speaker, despite the wording of this matter of public importance, I am pleased that the Opposition has brought it forward because I think it is indeed a matter of importance to our community and, of course, also to the Australian community whose capital we inhabit. I think that very few people would disagree that 60 Minutes as a program has made its reputation on sensationalism and on a particularly exploitative and misleading style of reporting. I think it is typical of 60 Minutes that not only do they set out to insult the subject of their reporting but they also, I believe, insult their audiences. They put forward very simplistic proposals and I think they have long since given up any pretence of objectivity. Their report on Canberra was clearly in that mould.
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