Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this topic when it is starting to get a little late in the day, but I am going to bring the temperature in the room down. I wish to speak on the issue of referring the conduct of the ABC to the Environment and Communications References Committee because I think it is actually a very, very serious issue and one that is worthy of investigation by the Senate committee system. That has been my view from the first moment I heard about this incident. I spoke about this on the evening it happened in an adjournment debate. I think we all, when we heard about this, recognised instantly what a serious incident this was.

I want to read from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance guidance to journalists for dealing with extremists:

The group in question that was being reported on by the Four Corners program has knowingly acted in a way designed to invoke fear, to intimidate, to provoke terror. The group in question released an unknown gas into the Woodside headquarters in Perth, causing the evacuation of all staff. Clearly the ABC knew about this—or they should have known about this. Presumably it was part of the piece of investigative journalism they were undertaking. They knew the track record of this group—an extremist group that seeks to provoke fear, that seeks to intimidate, that seeks to terrorise. They knew that before they sent the film crew to WA.

These individuals, it has now been shown, were at Ms O'Neill's place of residence on the two nights before the morning in question, doing surveillance. One of the key questions I have for the ABC is: was it aware of that surveillance of a private person's home in the middle of the night? If so, what did it do with that information? Then we have the morning in question—early in the morning, supposedly. There has already been one piece of misinformation supplied by the ABC in light of this incident, but this is what we know so far. They received a call in the early morning giving them an address. As my colleague Senator Cash and others have said, as soon as you see an address, as soon as you type it into your GPS, you know that it is a residential area. This is not something that requires sophisticated investigation. This is not something that requires journalistic sleuth work. The second you type it into your GPS, you know it is a residential address. Knowing what this group has done in the past, knowing the kinds of activities they undertake—the fear, the intimidation and the terror they seek to impose on people—and then having the information, the ABC crew was directed to a residential address in the early hours of the morning. Massive red flags should have gone up at that point. I don't think this Senate should accept the idea that the ABC will undertake an investigation into this themselves. I don't think that is acceptable in the circumstances I have just outlined. This group is a radical organisation that has clearly got a track record of invoking fear, of invoking terror and of releasing an unknown gas into a high-rise tower with hundreds of workers in it, causing it to be fully evacuated. They surveilled an individual's home two nights running in the lead-up to the early morning events that have made such prominent news.

On the night of the event, when I spoke in this place, I congratulated federal Labor minister Madeleine King and state Labor minister Johnston for their swift condemnation of this. This is not a partisan exercise. I continue to congratulate Minister Madeleine King in particular for being very clear that these actions are not acceptable in Australia. But it is the right of the Senate, in light of the events that I have outlined, to undertake an inquiry into this at the earliest possible opportunity while the matter is fresh in people's minds, while the information is clear and available—not in six months time after the ABC has done its internal process and whatever will come out has come out. The time to hold an inquiry is while the information is fresh and available and while the people involved can talk about what happened. I really do ask those opposite to consider supporting this referral to a committee. Again, this is not a committee that is controlled by one side of parliament or the other. These are Senate committees that do good work, often in a bipartisan way, and I am personally very disturbed by the actions of the protest group in the first place but also by the actions of the ABC in their approach to these issues.

In reflecting on this, and perhaps in reflecting on my immediate and visceral reaction to the events of that morning, my mind immediately went back to a program on Radio National that I was listening to a couple of weeks before. I happened to be in the car, driving in regional Australia, and I flicked on the radio and one of the few stations I could get was Radio National. I was listening along, and I can't remember which show it was precisely, to an interview with an environmental group talking about this very issue and the lengths that they believed were acceptable to go to in order to achieve their outcome. Basically, the conclusion of the conversation on the ABC was that the ends justify the means—you hear that conversation and then you see these kind of events occurring, like the release of gas in Woodside's headquarter building in Perth.

Woodside is a proud Western Australian company, a great contributor to Western Australian society and to the Western Australian economy—a significant export earner for our state, employing many thousands of Western Australians over a long period of time. It's a great Western Australian success story. I don't know Ms O'Neill well. I have met her a couple of times, and I know that anyone who reaches the kind of position that she has reached will certainly not be intimidated by this kind of behaviour. But this is not the kind of behaviour we want in our country. This is not the acceptable way, no matter what your views are. This is not an acceptable approach to protest. The end does not justify the means. We should not ever accept that the ends justify the means, particularly when it comes to protest and civil discourse, and the very important right that people have to free speech, to state their position on issues and to publicly protest if that's what they wish to do.

This approach not only undermines that freedom of protest but it also undermines why media institutions have guidelines like these; why the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance produces guidelines that assist them in dealing with extremist behaviour so we can preserve those freedoms. If the media does not take this seriously—and the ABC particularly, because the ABC is in a special place; it is the publicly funded broadcaster, it does get its resources from the taxpayers of Australia. If it's not willing to abide by guidelines such as these, to take them seriously and not facilitate extremists by giving them a platform in the way that they seem to have in that early morning last week, then I think we tread a very dangerous path. I commend the motion to the Senate.