Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

If you're not interested in the debate, leave the chamber.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Hanson-Young, please address your comments to the chair.

These amendments put in place the power of the parliament to disallow the government's intended review to inquire into the ABC and SBS. We know that part of the deal that has been done between the government and One Nation is the competitive neutrality review. This is designed to be a Trojan Horse to undermine the ability of our public broadcasters to do their job—to provide services to the Australian people and to provide quality news and entertainment to the Australian public at the times that they want. We know that this is in the firing of this government and One Nation, because we know that there are bigger commercial players out there who don't like the fact that the ABC and SBS offer such a quality service through things like iview and SBS On Demand.

We know that as part of the dirty deal that has been done between the government and One Nation, the attack on our public broadcaster is held right here in relation to this competitive neutrality review. We know that One Nation doesn't like the ABC. We heard Senator Hanson wax lyrical for minutes upon minutes last night—it felt like hours—about how terribly mean the ABC has been to Senator Hanson and One Nation. Well, boo-hoo. Sometimes journalists write things and say things that you don't like as a politician. Sometimes they cover stories that you don't like as a political party; but that is part of the job. You don't come in here as an elected member of parliament and start using your power on the crossbench to dictate what our public broadcaster should be able to say or not. Of course, what we have is a personal grudge from Pauline Hanson being carried out in this place.