Page 4179 - Week 13 - Thursday, 27 November 2014
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MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo—Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Corrective Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for Sport and Recreation) (11.48): I appreciate Mr Hanson making this all about me. But this is not about me; it is about the ABC. It was a real shame that we did not hear anything from Mr Hanson engaging in the substance of the issues impacting on the ABC.
There was no engagement from Mr Hanson on the issue of the impact on women’s sport, a very significant casualty of the cuts we have seen to the ABC this week. There was no substantive discussion about local impacts. For heaven’s sake, even Christopher Pyne has had the gumption to stand up against the cuts in South Australia. But Mr Hanson instead simply chose to give a speech which, if I had given a similar speech—and I would endeavour not to—the glass jaws on the other side of the chamber would have been taking points of order right through, with the sort of language and personal reflections we saw in that speech. That is the way it is in this place: those opposite dish it out all day but do not really like it when it comes back at them.
Nonetheless, what I want to do is to focus on the ABC today, because that is what this motion is about, and to reflect on the importance of the national broadcaster, the very significant impact it has in this country in terms of culture, on its popularity and the significant contribution it makes to people right across Australia but particularly, from an Assembly perspective, to our local community, who are so very engaged by the ABC, with its obviously ongoing significant ratings underlying the fact that the Canberra community values the ABC very highly.
For Mr Hanson’s benefit, I will make reference to the fact that the Greens have in fact made a number of public statements on broader public service cuts. On 1 April 2011 we issued a press release entitled “Gillard’s Public Service cuts shortsighted”. Whilst I will not go into the whole press release, because that would be unnecessary, I simply correct the record. Mr Hanson should improve his research skills. Similarly, on 9 May 2012 the ACT Greens issued a press release: “Greens oppose Labor and Liberal public service cuts”. I note that Mr Smyth also made similar comments yesterday, but the facts simply point to the furphies that the Liberal Party are bringing to this place, saying that the Greens have not made equal comments. We have made equal comments and the online record reinforces that.
It is disappointing to see these cuts that are being made to the ABC and SBS, with all the negative flow-on impacts both here in Canberra and elsewhere. We have seen over time that the Liberal Party does have a dislike for the ABC. The infamous letter that Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells sent to her Liberal Party colleagues back in 2006 talked about her dislike for the ABC and its apparent “pro-left and anti-conservative agenda”. There clearly is a perception in the Liberal Party that this is the case. She went on to talk about a whole range of things, including her dislikes, and said:
A culture at the ABC that promotes trade union protest action in platforms ranging from news bulletins to programme guest books and a “left-wing” take on matters such as the war on terror, the Middle East conflict, counter-terrorism legislation, immigration policy, indigenous affairs, Christianity and the monarchy.
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