Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to express concern regarding a recent episode that was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation titled 'Women of the Revolution' which profiled women in Iran who support the Islamic regime and its supreme leader. The episode platforms supporters of the ayatollah whom the ABC interviewed at the direction of the regime. The issue is the conditions under which this story was told and what those conditions made it impossible to report—and whether Australians were given a clear enough picture of either.

Just two lines into the program's online piece, the ABC makes the incredible claim that, for every Iranian woman that is fighting for freedom and dignity, there is one who supports the ayatollah and the strict observance of Shia Islam—50 per cent. The ABC must explain how they verified this conclusion. I'm telling you that many in my diaspora back in Melbourne will be asking the very same question—and around the country, for that matter. It is very hard to understand how anyone could be sure about the views of a people who are killed for speaking out based only on interviews permitted by that regime.

The report was rife with superficial detail, such as the description of the eyebrows of a woman instructing very young girls on combat tactics. Little information of substance was provided by the ABC, but the woman in question is pictured wearing military fatigues and holding an AK-47. The ABC's journalist did include some critical views by women who had protested, defied oppression and oppressive hijab laws and suffered under the brutal January crackdown, where tens of thousands of people were murdered. But those stories were shared only via a message, separate from the ABC's managed tours of Tehran. Unsurprisingly, elements of the report which do draw on the journalist's time in Tehran read as little more than a puff piece for the ayatollah, raising serious questions as to whether this conditional access provided any value at all.

In a liberal democracy, journalists are generally free to travel, to investigate and to speak with whomever they choose. But, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, that freedom simply does not exist. Access is controlled. Movement is controlled. Information is controlled. Journalists have been imprisoned, tortured and killed by the Iranian regime for reporting the simple truth. The ABC produced this episode under conditions that were imposed by that government. The ABC journalist was restricted to Tehran, and she relied upon a translator from a government authorised media company. When journalism is done under such conditions, editorial judgement is fundamentally compromised. When a government controls where a journalist, or journalists, can go, who translates their conversations and which media companies they may work with, it shapes not just what is reported but what can be reported.

Consider also the rallies themselves. Many experts on authoritarian regimes and states have long documented the use of a state mobilised crowd to project an image of popular support. Whether those attending these rallies did so freely out of genuine conviction or under other forms of pressure is precisely the kind of context that the viewers needed to know about, and that context was largely absent.

My concern is not that the ABC interviewed supporters of the regime. My concern is whether sufficient weight was given to this reporting having occurred within an environment that was carefully managed by an authoritarian government with a clear interest in shaping international perceptions. There was no analysis of the impact of the regime's restrictions on its reporting, and this rare access delivered little more than the transmission of a state approved narrative, I hate to say.

This is not, though, to be clear, criticism of the journalist, who was working under very difficult and tough conditions. But it is a call for greater editorial vigilance and greater transparency with audiences when reporting from environments where access, movement and information are tightly controlled by the state in question. The ABC occupies a very privileged position in Australian public life—one that I proudly support and would love to continue funding. But with that privilege does come a responsibility to ensure that audiences are not only informed about what they are shown but also given a clear understanding of what may be hidden from view. That is the standard of journalism worthy of a national broadcaster. It is a standard that, I think, all Australians have a right to expect.

I wanted to speak about another matter that has been in the media domain for some time, following on from a speech that I gave in the Senate with respect to the nuclear submarines and AUKUS. A constituent recently wrote to me with a very simple and sharp suggestion: perhaps there is some merit in better informing the electorate about why Australia has a submarine force, why Australians excel at being submariners and why nuclear power. And I thought that was a good question and an excellent idea, so tonight I want to draw on the work of one of Australia's most distinguished submariners, Commodore Bob Trotter, and I want to unpack some of the questions that were put to me by this constituent.

Most Australians would be surprised to learn that we have operated submarines since 1914. HMAS AE1 and AE2 completed the longest ocean voyage ever made by a submarine, sailing from Barrow, in the United Kingdom, all the way to Sydney. AE2 became the first submarine to penetrate the Dardanelles, entering the Sea of Marmara, in Türkiye, and opening the way for Allied submarines to attack Turkish supply lines from the rear. Very few Australians know these stories. Even fewer know that Fremantle was once the second-largest submarine base in the world and that submarines operating from there played a decisive role in defeating Japan, not through battle but by cutting off its fuel supply. So it is important to understand that submariners and submarines have been a very crucial and critical part of our military's DNA for over a century.

Australians have proven themselves as being outstanding at it. Admiral Colvin, who served as chief of naval staff, once said that Australians are 'never mere copyists'; we absorb knowledge and tradition and blend it with something strictly our own, and the result is unmistakeable. Our submariners have proved him right time and time again. Our Collins class submarines regularly exceed global performance standards in conditions more demanding than those faced by any other conventionally powered submarine force. In exercises, our boats have repeatedly outperformed far larger and better resourced allied vessels. Our submariners carry the motto of HMAS Platypus, 'Nothing Too Difficult'.

This brings me to the technical question that I am most often asked about: why nuclear powered, and what does that actually mean? Nuclear powered submarines are not nuclear armed. That is something that we need to be very clear and careful about in this conversation. The reactor propels the vessel; there are no nuclear weapons. What the reactor provides is freedom—freedom from the single greatest constraint facing every commander of a conventional submarine in the world. Every conventional submarine runs on a battery, and every command of such a boat watches that battery percentage constantly. To recharge, the submarine must rise to periscope depth and run its diesel generators, a process called snorting, which is a very noisy, vulnerable moment. Technological advances mean that the moment a submarine rises to snort, it can be detected via satellite. In the age of missiles and network systems, this is a truly unacceptable risk for our sailors and submariners.

A nuclear submarine has none of these constraints. It can remain submerged and undetected for the entire duration of deployment. This dramatically improves the chances of a mission's success, but, above all else, it avoids placing the men and women of the Royal Australian Navy in a danger that is unnecessary now that nuclear propulsion is available to us. For a nation whose area of maritime interests stretches thousands of kilometres across two oceans, endurance and freedom of navigation are not luxuries; they are the difference between a submarine force that can truly protect Australia and one that is fundamentally limited in where it can reach and how long it can stay.