Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Peter Beattie is there. I will take that interjection from Senator Macdonald. Peter Beattie comes on and who is it about with? It is the Hon. Peter Reith—'Mr Work Choices'. It is great that Peter Reith is there to try to control the werewolves of Work Choices. Surely, it is good that Peter Reith is there, but I would say to Peter Reith, 'Don't get infected by the post-seven-o'clock lunacy that takes place on Sky News.' We need an ABC that can reflect unbiased, genuine news to the Australian public and can provide unbiased, genuine current affair programs, not programs that say, 'Here we go; let's get stuck into the poor welfare recipient in some of the lower socioeconomic areas in this country.' That is not what we want. That is definitely not what we want!

So while we support this amendment—and I indicate that we are prepared to vote on this amendment now—I just want to indicate that we are not party to the dirty deal that has been done to force the ABC board to face up to all the right-wing extremists around the country or to get after the ABC. All the clones of Senator Macdonald out there, frothing at the mouth, with their aprons on to keep their suits clean—frothing, frothing against the ABC! What good will that do for broadcasting in this country? My view is that it will do nothing.

Again, I say to Senator Xenophon, if you are going to do dirty deals behind the scenes, let's see what the dirty deals are so that if we do agree with one of the amendments we will deal with the amendment. We will deal with this amendment right now. We are happy to deal with that amendment. But we need to know what the implications are for the bill down the track, what the implications are for the ABC, what the implications are for good broadcasting in this country and what the implications are for the people of South Australia, who will get nothing—absolutely nothing—but a talkfest, what Peter Hartcher described as the sinkhole of reform. That was well said.

Paul Kelly said that Senator Hanson was now a more effective and straightforward politician then Nick Xenophon. If it gets to that stage, Senator Xenophon, I have to tell you that you are not doing something right. I do not agree with everything that Paul Kelly says, but these are the comments that he has made tonight.

So there are real problems. We would like to vote on this. We would again say to Senator Xenophon to table all the documentation that he has in relation to the dirty deals that have been done to allow workers to have their rights stripped in relation to what I think is not a lot. That is our position and we would like to vote on this amendment.