Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, President. Senator Abetz, you have earned it today. You had to expect it.

I would like at the outset to express my condolences to those staff at the ABC and their families. Today is a pretty awful day for the national broadcaster. Having not seen, obviously, what Mr Mark Scott has had to tell his staff internally, I can only imagine how people must be feeling. The fact that this was completely unnecessary really just rubs salt into the wound. So, at the outset, the Australian Greens want to put on the record our condolences to those who work so hard for the national broadcaster to provide a service that so many of us—not all, unfortunately—deeply value.

It is good that Senator Abetz has stuck around for the take note section now. During question time earlier, the government provided us a really important lesson in the power of political delusion and self-deception, and I think that they have thrown down something of a challenge to the entire Australian population. Senator Fawcett, when he was in here before, spelled out for us again that the coalition are still denying that Mr Abbott made a black and white commitment to the entire country on SBS—and the knives are also out for SBS, obviously—that there would not be any cuts to the ABC and SBS. They just pretend that it did not happen.

Through you, Mr President: Senator Abetz and other colleagues who are trying to perpetrate this delusion, which you have obviously well and truly absorbed, it makes you look a bit crazy when you just come out and pretend that it never happened, when, obviously, it did. It makes you look a little nuts. I will read in exactly what Senator Abetz said a short time ago, although we do not have the final corrected Hansard proof. When I asked about the some 400 people, nearly 10 per cent of the workforce of the national broadcaster, who have lost their jobs, Senator Abetz said 'Nobody has lost their job'—such extraordinary delusion. Confronted with a national uproar—and I attended huge and very well-attended rallies in Sydney and Melbourne over the weekend—you have frontbench colleagues starting their dopey little petitions. I should say that 'Don't read the comments' is generally considered to be the first rule of the internet, but for Mr Pyne's petition I would say that you could suspend that rule for the purpose of looking at how people have treated Mr Pyne's initiative to start a petition condemning the government for its own policy, which presumably he voted for around the cabinet table. We have got National Party MPs demanding that the cuts not happen in their backyards and Senator Abetz saying it is just not happening and that nobody has lost their jobs.

This is the Liberal approach: that it just does not exist. You would not be wanting to follow Liberal MP advice if you were seeking help crossing the road, would you? Just pretend the traffic is not there. Read the press statement. We have said clearly here in black and white that there is no traffic. I do not expect that this speech is going to pierce the powerful shroud of delusion that coalition MPs—Liberals and Nationals—have shrouded themselves with. Question time, clearly, is not the place where that is going to happen. Press conferences will not do it.

I think the coalition has thrown a very serious challenge down to the people of Australia. You may believe that Prime Minister Abbott did not make a black and white commitment not to attack the national broadcaster. You may believe that nobody is going to lose their jobs as a result. But the fact is that it is pretty bloody obvious to the rest of us that that is exactly what is occurring in front of us. The challenge that you have thrown down is not to forget, as we run towards the 2016 election, that across the multiple fronts on which you have attacked treasured national institutions, asylum seekers, the renewable energy industry and some of the most vulnerable quarters of our population that we will remember the role that you have played in attacking our treasured national broadcasters.

Of course these entities could always be more efficient, and that is nowhere in contention. What has been happening in recent years is that, as the ABC finds internal efficiencies, it has been shifting the way that it delivers content to try and meet the way that people are demanding content, whether that be online platforms or wherever. And now, what we have seen is an Australian government attacking the national broadcaster, not in search of efficiencies but hunting down an entity that you do not believe is on Team Australia—however the hell you conceive of that. This will not be forgotten. This will be remembered, and I think your delusion will be exposed either in this parliament or at the ballot box.

Question agreed to.