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

There you go. Thank you for filling the silence. Let's also have a look at the Australian newspaper, which captured well what many Australians think about this matter in its editorial last week. The editorial said this in part:

The creative folk at the ABC have this week debuted a new fictional drama with an unlikely plot line and a most surprising twist. In the gripping script, a crew from the national broadcaster's celebrated Four Corners current affairs program receives a hot news tip in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. The message? Grab your camera gear and head to an address in the Perth suburbs. These intrepid truth warriors have absolutely no idea what's happening there. Hell, they don't even know it's someone's house. Without answers to these most basic of questions they judge the story significant enough to race to the scene, where they happen upon a group of miscreant activists allegedly planning to carry out an attack on the home of Woodside boss Meg O'Neill.

The big twist? The ABC expects Australians to believe this ludicrous version of how events unfolded on Tuesday.

It would appear even the national broadcaster, as well practised as it is at flipping two-finger salutes to the notion of accountability, has realised having prior knowledge of a crime targeting the home of a senior business figure is a bridge too far.

This is also what the Australian said in their editorial:

Trust is the bedrock of any news organisation, let alone one funded by taxpayers. If senior ABC staff are contemptuous enough to spin baloney to explain away a damaging incident, what else are… their journalists not upfront with Australians about?

This is what we on this side of the chamber say: we need an open and transparent inquiry in which all of the issues can be examined in public. The ABC investigating the ABC is, quite frankly, laughable. The ABC investigating itself is not good enough. I would actually implore those in the government to back the establishment of this inquiry. Finally start living up to some of the promises of openness and transparency that you made to the Australian people before the last election.