Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senators Dean Smith, Reynolds, Brockman and O'Sullivan, move:

That the following matter be referred to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report by 12 October 2023:

The conduct of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in relation to the protest at the home of the Chief Executive Officer of Woodside Energy, with reference to:

(a) the ABC's actions in attending the protest;

(b) engagement between the ABC and the protestors prior to the incident;

(c) any collusion between the ABC and the protestors;

(d) the explanations provided by the ABC for its attendance at the incident, and the extent to which those explanations are accurate; and

(e) any other related matters.

By any measure, I think all Australians could not believe what went on last week at the home of Woodside CEO Meg O'Neill in Perth. It was an absolute disgrace. Nearly all Australians condemned the actions of the activists who terrorised Ms O'Neill and her family in their home, their private property. That the Western Australian police were on hand and arrested the activists is a good thing, and we'll now await the outcome of those arrests as the individuals are processed through the Western Australian courts system.

The other disturbing aspect of what occurred, and the reason the Liberal Western Australian senators and Senator Henderson have moved this motion, was the attendance at the scene of the incident by a team from the ABC Four Corners program. There are a number of concerns about this particular set of circumstances. The first one is this: this was at 6.30 am in a suburban street in Perth. I would've thought—and these are seasoned journalists—alarm bells should have started ringing at this point in time. The Four Corners crew, by the ABC's own admission, only knew about the likely protest because they had been advised by the protesters themselves.

This is where it starts to get interesting. The ABC—and, let's remember, the ABC are funded by the Australian taxpayer—claimed they had no knowledge that what was at the address was actually going to occur there or that it was actually someone's house. This within itself raises very serious questions. Quite frankly, it beggars belief that a crew from one of this country's most renowned investigative journalism shows turns up at a residential address in Perth and doesn't ask any further questions. A quick Google search of the address would have indicated that it was a residential address. Like my fellow Western Australian Liberal senators, we all know this part of Perth very well, and, I have to say to you, if I was travelling through the suburbs at that hour of the morning, I'd start to wonder, 'Well, this is all looking pretty familiar—house after house, after residential address after residential address.'