Topics: Pressure building on University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott to quit, Push for a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities, ABC’s doctored audio.
Chris Kenny: Sarah, thanks so much for joining us. Mark Scott says he let the Jewish students down but he did more than that, he let the whole country down by allowing this sort of hatred to fester in his university, scaring sensible people away?
Senator Henderson: Chris, good afternoon and Mark Scott, by his own admission after many months of defending his actions, says he failed Jewish students and staff and so did the university. And so it is a big admission brought about by the Coalition’s determination to see a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities and this was a senate inquiry into the actual bill that we’ve brought forward into the Senate, replicating the bill that Julian Leeser has brought forward. But it is a big admission from a vice-chancellor who really has dropped the ball for many months but also, Chris, I have to say, Jason Clare, the education minister, has also severely dropped the ball. He has been missing in action. If I was the minister for education, I would’ve thrown the book at universities, including ensuring the regulator stepped in and imposed conditions on their registration. We also heard last Friday that Jason Clare had two very brief meetings with the regulator, TEQSA, which shows that he’s has absolutely no commitment to combating antisemitism on university campuses and that’s shocking.
Chris Kenny: Yeah well, this is the point. Let’s have a look first at some of what Mark Scott had to say before the parliamentary inquiry last week:
Mark Scott: “And I’ve read the complaints that have been made to the university and all those shared in submissions to this inquiry and to the special envoy, and the testimonials are heartbreaking and unacceptable and for that, I am sorry. No one should feel at risk, unsafe or unwelcome at any place of learning and no one should feel the need to hide their identity or stay away from classrooms or campuses.”
Chris Kenny: Now the point is here, Sarah, is that he said that, you know, there were plans, there was talk of police coming in to move the protesters off to but he didn’t want to do that. It sounded too disruptive to him. And as you say, the federal minister should have been involved in this. We’ve said all along that state ministers, state premiers, the Prime Minister and federal ministers just haven’t done enough to combat all this sort of stuff. And Mark Scott’s effectively admitted, ‘I don’t want the confrontation’, so he allows people to suffer. He allows hatred to be spread because he doesn’t want a confrontation with the haters. It’s so weak. How can he stay in the job?
Senator Henderson: Well, it is very weak, and worse than that, he defended the encampments as a legitimate form of protest. Now, these were protests which were fueling a vile antisemitic hatred and incitement every single day. Jewish students could not attend university. They could not travel freely through the campus. We had the children chanting ‘Intifada’, and we know what that means, Chris, again, no response from the vice-chancellor. And now, of course, we’ve heard a very different testimony from New South Wales Police, who say they were not contacted by the vice-chancellor when members of the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir were on campus, menacing Jewish students and staff and he did nothing for weeks. He only acted when this all appeared on 60 minutes and on the front page of the Nine papers. And as for the minister, I mean, talk about the Prime Minister speaking out of both sides of his mouth with the minister saying, ‘oh, well, you know, River to the Sea means different things to different people’. It’s been a shocking few months at university campuses like Sydney and it is a woeful example of the weakness of the Albanese government.
Chris Kenny: Well, if you’re weak in the face of hatred, that hatred will fester. It’s so obvious and so many of us have been saying it since October the 8th, and they should be condemned for their weakness. I know some academics are trying to get Mark Scott to resign. He really should resign because it’s a complete abrogation of his responsibilities. I do want to get your thoughts on his old workplace, though, as well, the ABC. We went through in a lot of detail last week the disgraceful, dodgy reporting that’s now been exposed. Here’s a little recap of Heston Russell, the former Commando, showing us how the ABC doctored this video and audio:
Liam Bartlett: Revealing an astonishing difference between the source vision and the version of events told by the ABC’s Mark Willacy, which starts with six rounds of firing. Then the single warning shot becomes six.
Heston Russell: They’ve literally added extra gunshots. I fell off my chair when I saw this.
Chris Kenny: Sarah, you’re all over this. You’re a part of Spotlight’s initial report. This is disgraceful. The ABC pulled it down last week, admitting the error. But we now have reports confirmation that they were advised of this misconduct nearly two years ago, twice in writing, in October 2022 and November 2022, what needs to happen here?
Sarah Henderson: Well, I raised this in the Senate last week and the minister representing the Minister for Communications, her response was pathetic. She said, ‘Oh, we respect the ABCs editorial independence’. What about the obligations under the ABC Act to report facts accurately and impartially? This is a shocking example of journalism gone horribly wrong and the buck does stop with the editor-in-chief, and that is the ABC managing director, David Anderson. What was he doing? How on earth was the ABC authorising for this to go to the federal court? They fought this to the death. They called Heston Russell a war criminal. And yet now we see that they were on notice that they had very substantial allegations wrong and they knew it, and they continued to fight it in the Federal Court and, of course, there was a terrible finding against the ABC about which they will not apologise. It did cost the taxpayer three and a half million dollars, it is really disgraceful.
Chris Kenny: It’s disgusting. We’re out of time thanks for joining us, Sarah, I appreciate it. Senator Sarah Henderson their Liberal, Senator for Victoria.