First there was Monday’s puff interview with Christopher Pyne to promote his book.
SABRA LANE, 7.30 PRESENTER: There are many titles one can use to describe my next guest: federal minister, Manager of Government Business, fixer, father of four and now author. At 47, Christopher Pyne, the federal Member for Sturt, is a political veteran. He’s been in Parliament for more than 22 years and this week he’s published a memoir covering his life and time in Canberra. It’s called A Letter to My Children. To discuss the book and other political issues, I’m joined by Christopher Pyne, who’s in our Canberra studio.
Minister, congratulations.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE, EDUCATION MINISTER: Thank you, Sabra, and thank you for having me on the show to talk about it. It’s nice to have another subject other than just daily politics to talk about.
Then there was last night’s bizarre appearance by Andrew Bolt, a hard-right culture warrior and the man who was pinged for racial vilification for claiming a group of high-profile Aboriginal people had sought advantage from the colour of their skin. He was there to offer his expertise on the Adam Goodes saga.
ANDREW BOLT: Well, Lewis Jetta did the dance the other day and that only made things worse. Look, why don’t you celebrate Aboriginality with something that’s non-threatening and non-warlike, you know, like Greg Inglis does the goanna crawl after he tries. I mean, that’s not a threatening move. Why this talk of war and why must there be black versus white? I just think playing with racial division like that is dangerous and stupid. This is not a country that is so racially divided you need to exploit it like that and make a symbol of war your expression of Aboriginality.
What’s going on at the ABC’s flagship current affairs show? Is this part of the ABC’s efforts to calm the waters with senior levels of the Abbott government in the wake of the Q&A controversy?
We sincerely hope not.
Lane (Sales, Alberici)? Standard m.o?
I was waiting for Sabra to challenge Andrew Bolt but it didn’t happen.
Bolt, typically, referred to the reconciliation “industry”, while feigning concern about race relations in Australia.
He mentioned, over and over, the 13 year old girl. But failed to mention that it was the police who spoke to her, not Goodes. Goodes identified her to police, but asked them not to press charges.
He also failed to mention that Goodes had visited the girl, explained his view, and horror of horrors, reconciled with her in a friendly way.
It is all on the Guardian web site today.
If Bolt is “balance” then I fear for the ABC.
What about a commentator with knowledge and experience, rather than a white, serial offender bigot?
Of course you don’t want the ABC to “calm the waters with the government”. You want the ABC to maintain its inner urban leftie bias. Having Bolt on is a crime against Prahran and soft focused interviews should be reserved for Gillard, not Pyne.
The ABC is frightened of the rAbbott LNP government. They know they have to tread carefully when the mainchancers, carpetbaggers and NewsCrap hangers on are running the government.