Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When my late father wanted to say something was unworthy he would describe it as 'drek'. He would have described the ABC TV program At Home With Juliaas 'drek'. The role of the ABC is to raise the standards of broadcasting in this country, and I have to be positive about the ABC and note two programs that did it. Mr Stephen McDonell—the ABC's Beijing correspondent—in a program on Tibetans in Yunnan on Foreign Correspondentreally redeemed the nature of television with the extraordinary report that he produced. Similarly, I want to congratulate Tracey Spring and the people from Compass on the extraordinary program they did on the race riots that took place in Crown Heights. They interviewed Carmel Cato, the African-American man whose son, Gavin Cato, was killed in those riots and also interviewed my friend, Norman Rosenbaum, the barrister from Melbourne whose brother Yankel was killed. The reconciliation that they filmed of those two gentlemen was one of the most moving moments on television that I think you could see. I commend the ABC and Compass for that extraordinary program.