Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 3 July this year the Prime Minister was interviewed on the Ray Hadley show on Sydney’s 2GB radio station. He was asked about Channel 10’s Big Brother and responded by saying the program should be axed on the grounds of ‘good taste’. The Prime Minister called on Channel 10 to ‘get this stupid program off the air’. Like the Prime Minister, I watched a bit of television over the winter recess. My viewing included the ABC Lateline program on 18 July, which featured a segment titled ‘Racist Young Liberals not uncommon’. The report focused on the disgraceful behaviour of Young Liberals at the national student conference in my electorate of Ballarat. Among other outrages, the representatives of the Australian Liberal Students Federation are shown interrupting the welcome to country by local Indigenous elder Mr Ted Lovett, a man who normally engenders great respect in our community; loudly chanting ‘We’re racist, we’re sexist, we’re homophobic’; and wearing T-shirts with a photograph of the Prime Minister on the front and an obscenity printed on the back—an obscenity I cannot and would not repeat in this House. According to the report, Liberal representatives have had to be removed from the national student conference for two years running.

Lest this behaviour be dismissed as having no real connection to the Liberal Party, let me refer honourable members to the web page of the Australian Liberal Students Federation. If you visit www.alsf.org.au, you will find that the Prime Minister is no less than the federal patron of this organisation. Alongside a photograph of the Prime Minister is an extract of a recent speech in which he affirms his ‘very strong interest in and support for the ALSF’. The Prime Minister is not just the patron of the organisation; he maintains a strong interest in its activities. Yet he has been silent about the conduct of its representatives that far exceeds the bounds of good taste. There is nothing good or tasteful about humiliating an Indigenous elder invited to welcome visitors to his country—and I cannot tell you how distressed he still is to this day about his treatment by the Liberal Students Federation. There is nothing good or tasteful about bigotry. There is nothing good or tasteful about boorish behaviour that forces security guards to act to protect the safety of others.

Tonight I ask the Prime Minister why he has failed to apply the same standard to Liberal students as he applies to the Big Brother television program. Why is my constituent Mr Lovett still waiting for an apology? Surely it is not because the Prime Minister himself has trouble saying sorry to Indigenous Australians? Why have we heard no prime ministerial admonishment for those who boast that the modern Liberal Party is racist, sexist and homophobic? Surely it is not because the description is accurate.

The Prime Minister came to office promising to lift standards in public life. It is generally recognised that he has not lived up to that pledge. But if he fails to take action against those who espouse bigotry in the name of his party then he can truly be said to have failed. The Prime Minister has chosen to give advice on taste to Channel 10 program schedulers, but he has remained mute in the wake of documented outrages by representatives of his own party.

These young people are not just twits of the lowest order. They are, in the words of Liberal author John Hyde Page, ‘people who will one day become senior politicians in the Liberal Party’. Tonight I am calling on the current senior politician in the Liberal Party to apply his Big Brother standard and get these stupid people out of his organisation, fast.