Posted by: Tom Elliott | 1 April, 2014 - 4:15 PM
http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/3aw-drive-blog-with-tom-elliott/the-abc-has-an-internal-hatred-of-austra...
Last night I watched Q&A on the ABC.
I haven’t watched Q&A as much as I used to because it’s become a bit predictable, a bit boring and displays the same typical bias week-in week-out, but last night I did watch it and it made me bloody angry.
Last night it was all about human rights, so rather than get four or five Australians who might know something about human rights, Q&A got four people from overseas and one Australian.
The one Australian was Tim Wilson, our newly appointed Human Rights Commissioner.
But the other people on the program were Egyptian author Mona Eltahawy; Somali peace and human rights activist Ilwad Elman; ethics columnist with The Observer in the UK Lucy Siegle; and international director of Human Rights Watch in New York, Kenneth Roth.
That in itself isn’t bad, I think it’s great they’re getting good international guests on these sorts of programs. But then for the next hour, whenever they mentioned Australia it was always in the negative.
Honestly, if you knew nothing about Australia, if you didn’t live here or you had never encountered it before, by the end of that program I reckon you would have decided that Australia was pretty much on a par with Burma or North Korea in terms of what it was like.
- According to the various four foreigners, we are elitist because we have imperial honours that have recently been reintroduced: Yes but all honours are elitist – there is nothing wrong with that. You don’t just reward everybody, you reward the people who do a good job but ‘oh no, that sounds terrible!’
- We are all bigots because we’re having a debate about free speech: Notwithstanding the fact that in the US free speech is a constitutional right. The lone American on the panel decided there was something wrong with us because we contemplated having a debate about a particular issue.
- Apparently we’re all soon to be guilty of hate speak: Speaking out about groups that we don’t like and thereby vilifying them and making them feel bad about themselves.
- And again, when the subject of asylum seekers came up, as it does every week on this program, apparently we are a nation of human rights abusers.
Now, Tim Wilson did a reasonable job trying to stand up for Australia. But he should have done more.
LISTEN: Tim Wilson discusses his appearance on Q&A last night, says he won't be invited back anytime soon http://www.3aw.com.au/displayPopUpPlayerAction.action?&url=http://media.mytalk.com.au/3AW/AUDIO/wils...
The point is this: Australia is not such a terrible place. It is one of the best countries on earth, it really is. And I’m not just saying that as an Australian; I’m saying that because I’ve travelled to lots of places and I can tell you, you don’t have to go very far around the world to realise that we have a very good system.
We also have a very good lifestyle here; it’s a country that accepts people of all faiths and nationalities and by-and-large they get along pretty well, but you wouldn’t know it if you watched Q&A.
I think the ABC needs to have a look at itself about these sorts of things.
Simply slagging off Australia week-in week-out might appeal to a certain audience that thinks that there’s something terrible about being here and ‘we must write outraged columns about it in newspapers like The Age’, but have a look around the world.
You’d soon realise that we are not a country that massively abuses human rights; we’re not a country where people routinely engage in hate speak.
Judging by all the migrants who have made successes of themselves over here, we are not a nation of bigots otherwise why would so many people want to come here?
If you listened to the audience and more importantly, if you listened to the panellists on Q&A last night, you would think Australia was one of the most appalling places.
I think Q&A is full of bias; I think the ABC has an internal hatred of Australia and I think it was on display last night.
And just the question that these people from overseas do not seem to bother asking themselves is ‘why are people queuing up to get here if this is such a terrible place?’
