Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week ABC Radio National cut eight highly topical programs, including, significantly, the Religion Report. I can tell you that many people in Townsville are very angry about that. The Religion Report has been an important and sensible forum for intellectual debate about the role of religion in contemporary times. It has charted the rise of militant Islam around the globe while also providing relevant and insightful critiques of developments within the Christian and other churches in Australia and overseas. Most recently, the presenter, Stephen Crittenden, bought Dr Anthony Burke and Dr Merv Bendle to national prominence regarding the debate on new terrorism studies in Australian academia. Several years ago, the Religion Report broke the national story about then Governor-General Peter Hollingworth’s earlier alleged mishandling of abuse claims in the Anglican Church.

The ABC must be called to account for the rash and damaging decision to dumb down Radio National and allow the rise of what Ross Babbage calls ‘militant secularism’ to further infiltrate Australia’s national broadcaster. As Toni Hassan, a former ABC journalist, said in the Canberra Times this week:

... there’s no doubt that religion is a terribly important (if little-reported) part of life, lying behind so much of the news we regard as “political” or “diplomatic” or “social”. Where else in prime-time radio or television have you been able to hear the people who matter quizzed about their interpretations of Judaism, Christianity or Islam and the way in which they plan to act on those interpretations? Some of these people will be happy about the decision to axe the program. They didn’t welcome its scrutiny.

The argument that budgetary constraints have motivated this decision simply does not wash. The Religion Report has been covering local and global developments in religious based conflict in recent years and no doubt this has contributed to its downfall. This axing is an indictment of the ABC and a further demonstration of the extreme Left at work there. As well-known media commentator Errol Simper noted in his column yesterday:

The fact is that religion remains a mainstream Australian preoccupation ... It’s one thing to say you don’t have much time for religion. It’s quite another to say religion doesn’t matter.

What the ABC is saying by axing its flagship religion program is effectively that religion does not matter. Clearly, ABC management is out of step with the views and concerns of mainstream Australia. It is failing to live up to the corporation’s charter, which, in section 1, states that it is charged with broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform, entertain and reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community. The Religion Report has carried out this function with distinction for many years. I urge the ABC and particularly the director of ABC Radio, Sue Howard, to rethink this shortsighted and ill-considered decision.