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

I seek to take note of the minister's statement. What an absolutely laughable, if not tragic, display we've had from the minister today. It was an absolute whitewash of this issue, a pretence that the government had in no way involved themselves in these matters and that they're hands are clean of the absolute chaos that has been unfolding in the ABC and particularly on the ABC board.

When we saw Justin Milne resign as chair of the ABC board and his first interview in response to that, he well and truly belled the cat. He said, 'How on earth can we keep irritating the people who fund us?' That is the crux of the matter here. This government has continued to threaten the ABC with funding cuts, with reviews and with intimidation, and now we know that the Prime Minister was so irritated by particular journalists' stories and reporting that the chair of the ABC at the time resorted to calls to 'sack her' and 'shoot him', referring of course to Ms Alberici and to Mr Probyn. The Prime Minister said there was nothing to see here and that it had nothing to do with him. The Australian people can see right through that. We know that there is a problem with independence on the board of the ABC. It's been spelt out clearly by the former chairperson himself.

The Australian people deserve not only a public broadcaster that is funded properly to deliver the quality programs, news and stories that they've always relied on but their public broadcaster to be free of political interference. The ABC is owned by the Australian people, not by the government of the day. We know of course what this government would do with the ABC if they had their way, because their own national council passed a motion to privatise the public broadcaster. That's what they think of the ABC. Do you want to know what the Liberal Party really think about our public broadcaster? They want to sell it off. Cut its funding, criticise it, undermine its independence and then sell it off: that is this government's plan for our public broadcaster, and it is a disgrace. At a time when politics is viewed so poorly by the public—there's no need to guess why, when you look at the rabble on the government side and the absolute chaos that goes on on that side of the chamber—and at a time when the Australian people are desperate for quality journalism and news that they can rely on, they've always known that no matter what was going on they could rely on the ABC. Yet this government has actively engineered its undermining. They've stacked the board with their mates, they've cut funding and they've initiated reviews to further threaten the independence of the ABC. They still have before this place three pieces of legislation that are a direct attack on the ABC, its journalists and Australian audiences.

Minister Fifield can come in here and give a nicely worded statement about how all of this was going on and he had nothing to do with it. That is absolute bulldust. No-one buys it. The Prime Minister of the day wasn't happy and various ministers of the day weren't happy with stories and reporting coming out of the ABC, so what did they do? They called their mate on the board, who happened to be the chairperson, and said, 'Really not happy about this. What are you going to do about these journalists?' He fired off an email: 'Sack her; shoot him.' That is the disgraceful level of political interference that this government has exerted over our public broadcaster.

We also know that the competitive neutrality review and the three pieces of legislation currently before this place that are designed to cut the ABC off at the knees were introduced because of a deal with One Nation. Why does One Nation want to attack the ABC? The same reason the government does: they don't like journalists reporting facts, they don't like difficult questions coming from the media and they don't like stories that expose their hypocrisy. We know that immense pressure has been exerted on the ABC, because the chairperson himself belled the cat. He said that you can't keep irritating the person who funds you.

Let's get this political interference out of our public broadcasting, let's lock in funding and stop these political games and let's have a proper inquiry that looks at the facts. The government inquiry into itself is an absolute joke. I have a huge amount of respect for the secretary of the department of communications, but he has a job to do—that is, to deliver for the minister of the day—so I have absolutely no faith that the report that is being handed down today will deal with this issue in an honest and transparent way. We should establish a Senate inquiry, as others have said, and we should get that going as soon as possible. The main thing we need to do is restore faith in the ABC by making the board appointment process properly independent—no more PM's mates, thank you very much. We have to stop our public broadcaster from being used as a political pawn and its funding as a political weapon. The Australian people own their ABC. They deserve to know it's funded properly and is free of political interference. It is not owned by the government of the day and it is certainly not owned by the Liberal Party.

Let's be very clear: this government has been out to attack the ABC from the very first day they got into power. When Tony Abbott was Prime Minister he slashed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding to the public broadcaster. This minister slashed millions of dollars from the public broadcaster in the last budget alone. They've introduced legislation to undermine the independence of our public broadcaster, they have set up reviews designed to cripple its delivery service, they have done deals with One Nation and Pauline Hanson to undermine the credibility of the ABC, and their own political party wants to privatise the whole thing. The Liberal Party cannot be trusted with our public broadcaster, with its funding, with board appointments and certainly not with any reviews. This government has proven time and again to be the ABC's worst enemy and the worst enemy of public interest journalism, independence and proper reporting.