Topics: ABC strike, social media ban
Chris Kenny: In Canberra is the Shadow Communications Minister, Sarah Henderson. Sarah, on our program last night, we showed a lot of your press conference in Canberra yesterday where you made that brilliant point that the ABC staff were hijacking a national broadcasting institution to promote their own message. It’s outrageous, obviously, in breach of their charter obligations. But no word from ABC management about taking any action against that?
Senator Henderson: And also, Chris, no word from the Minister for Communications because this obligation to report the news impartially and accurately is embedded in the law under the ABC Act. It’s a very important provision, Section 8, I know it very well, as you do, which requires journalists to meet the very highest standards. After all, the ABC receives more than $1.2 billion every single year from the taxpayer and Australians rightly expect the very highest standards from the ABC. And yesterday we saw news presenters on various programs hijacking the ABC with their union-led messaging which was really disgraceful.
Now I don’t have an issue with ABC journalists prosecuting their case. They’re obviously in a dispute with ABC management. I was very disappointed to see the decision they made to go on strike, but it is so improper for them to be using ABC airwaves to prosecute their case, and I would say even to spread misleading and even false information about the nature of the pay dispute, given a 10 per cent increase is on the table, plus a bonus. And so, I think the whole saga just shows again that the Albanese government is failing all Australians by not holding the ABC to the highest standards.
Chris Kenny: Look, you were so spot on. I mean, they have a right to strike. We might disagree with it but they have a right to strike and certainly if they have industrial action, they’ve got the right to call a press conference and try and tell other media about it, but what they don’t have a right to do is to use our public broadcaster for their own campaigning. Have a look at this:
Michael Janda: Like many of our viewers, a lot of ABC staff are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living, and we’re asking for a pay rise that will help keep our heads above water.
Unbelievable that they would do that. And we’ll see where all that ends up. I noticed the Managing Director, Hugh Marks, was just calling for more government funding. That was his solution, not looking for efficiencies at the ABC, just getting even more government funding…
Senator Henderson: Sorry to intervene on that. I do think that Mr Marks has taken a pretty strong stand and he also extended the definition of emergency broadcasting. So that is, of course, exempt from the strike but his view was that if there was a very major incident, either internationally or in Australia, that would require ABC journalists to be called back to work. So I think he’s been pretty tough and so I will back him in on this occasion, and I hope that toughness continues in all respects, including complying with the ABC’s charter.
Chris Kenny: Well, good on you, you back him in, I reckon he was weak. I reckon he sounds like he’s running a staff collective and he wants to try and keep them all on side. We’ll see how he goes. I’ve got to get your thoughts on this US case where Meta and YouTube have been found liable for a woman’s social media addiction. What are the implications for social media and the legal framework in this country?
Senator Henderson: Well, Chris, there have been a couple of cases now in the United States which have found that these platforms are delivering to children addictive technology which is causing enormous harm. And we, of course, are very concerned about the online harm for children in this country. And Labor’s solution is the social media ban. We certainly did propose that initially but I’m very concerned about how it’s been rolled out. That was meant to be properly enforced. It was meant to give parents, people, peace of mind but there are so many gaps in the legislation and we don’t even know how many accounts have been shut down.
The Prime Minister made an announcement in January. It was 4.7 million accounts. But the platforms are saying something very different but this is a real wake up call. So, I would say to the minister and to the Prime Minister, what is the government going to do to protect young Australians online? Because a number of platforms are excluded from the ban but more broadly, the safety of the content is not being addressed. Because we know that many young Australians are circumventing the ban. There are many loopholes. Age verification is not working, and so I think this really does give rise to a real wake up call for the government. They must do much more.
Chris Kenny: Yeah, a lot of talk, a lot of evidence that that ban is not working. Most people support the aims but it doesn’t seem to be working. We’ll follow up on that with some more guests next week. Thanks so much for joining us, Sarah, I appreciate it.