Speaker 1: This is the Media Show with Jack outing Hello and
Speaker 1: welcome to the Media Show. I'm Jack Houghton, and we
Speaker 1: have a packed show tonight dissecting Donald Trump's war with
Speaker 1: NPR newsrooms, and we sit down with journalist Chang Lay
Speaker 1: to hear about the three years she spent in a
Speaker 1: Chinese prison. But first, the ABC has some major problems
Speaker 1: to address this week. There has been blunder after blunder,
Speaker 1: followed by self indulgent productions, the spreading of intentional misinformation
Speaker 1: and just pure activism. And we'll get through it all,
Speaker 1: but I have to lead the show with this absolute shocker.
Speaker 2: I think the other thing that's probably really important to
Speaker 2: regional communities is that they have a local member who's
Speaker 2: there when their electorate is, for example, flooding. So I
Speaker 2: went through this earlier today. I went and checked. So
Speaker 2: on Wednesday afternoon, there was a sixty three year old
Speaker 2: man in Moto that's near Tyree, that's in Allison Penfold's
Speaker 2: seat the National He died on Thursday morning. The body
Speaker 2: was recovered of a thirty year old Amanu thirties in
Speaker 2: Rosewood that's in her seat as well. On Thursday afternoon,
Speaker 2: that's when we had the press conference from the Nationals
Speaker 2: in the Hall. Just to go over that timeline. A
Speaker 2: sixty year old woman died in her car near Coffs
Speaker 2: Harbor in this flood. That's in pact Conahan's seat of Kauper.
Speaker 1: I think the.
Speaker 2: Important thing is that when you're in our position, it's
Speaker 2: also still your job to be a local member and
Speaker 2: represent your communities, to be there for them.
Speaker 1: That was ABC reporter Claudia Long, falsely alleging that Conservative
Speaker 1: MPs had abandoned their flood ravage communities. She also rattled
Speaker 1: off the details of these poor people who died in
Speaker 1: the floods, turning their stories and the pain of their
Speaker 1: families into ammunition for a cheap swipe of politicians she
Speaker 1: clearly dislikes. So was the allegation true? Not a word.
Speaker 3: It's pretty grim when the ABC or anyone's playing politics
Speaker 3: with a flood and of course, in your case, the
Speaker 3: deaths of residents.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Look, I can't tell you how hurtful the comment was.
Speaker 4: I was actually had been in Wingham morning talking to
Speaker 4: businesses that have been flood affected, and I had intended
Speaker 4: to continue on to some houses. I got a phone
Speaker 4: call to hear that this journalist I've never met her.
Speaker 4: In fact, I've never heard of us until yesterday, had
Speaker 4: not even bothered to call me before making these sorts
Speaker 4: of comments, while you know I've been hard at work
Speaker 4: and as his pat in the electorate, we live here,
Speaker 4: we know people affected.
Speaker 1: Didn't even pick up the phone to check, and how
Speaker 1: did the ABC respond well? In typical fashion, the communications
Speaker 1: team put out a vague statement apologizing, but you wouldn't
Speaker 1: believe the terminology they used to distance their reporter from
Speaker 1: the blame. On the Insiders episode broadcast on the twenty
Speaker 1: fifth of May, and EBC panelists made comments inferring the
Speaker 1: two Nationals MPs Allison Penfold and Pat Conahan, were not
Speaker 1: in their electorates during the recent New South Wales floods now.
Speaker 1: Notice how they don't say an ABC journalist made the allegation.
Speaker 1: Insiders is a show with panelists from all over the media.
Speaker 1: A panelist could be from nine from seven or even
Speaker 1: News Corp. It isn't an accident, it is an intentional
Speaker 1: use of language to shield their reporter from scrutiny. Joining
Speaker 1: me now to discuss is Sky News contributor Louise Robertson
Speaker 1: Managing editor at The Australian, Darren Davidson. Louise, let's start
Speaker 1: with you. Thanks for joining us here on the panel.
Speaker 1: An absolute shocker, And we were talking before the show
Speaker 1: about the reaction from Alison and followed the National MP
Speaker 1: that had this allegation against us. Very heartbreaking that she
Speaker 1: had to endure that kind of attack on her and
Speaker 1: her character by this reporter, and then this reporter hasn't
Speaker 1: really said anything about it since no.
Speaker 5: I think this is an abject failure on so many levels, Jack,
Speaker 5: I mean, I really feel for Alis and Penfold the MP,
Speaker 5: because now she's had a week where she's had to
Speaker 5: justify what the ABC did or try and explain it
Speaker 5: away to locals when all she wants to really focus
Speaker 5: on is rebuilding her community. And she was not Mia.
Speaker 5: There's photographs of her on social media with muddle over
Speaker 5: it because she's literally been in the thick of it.
Speaker 5: She was caught in the floods herself. She couldn't get
Speaker 5: down to see the daughter of a man who died
Speaker 5: in the floods. So you know the fact that her
Speaker 5: interview with Peter where she said it was heartbreaking. I
Speaker 5: totally sympathize with her for that and the way the
Speaker 5: ABC has tried to paper over this by not addressing
Speaker 5: the issue and not issuing a proper you know, I
Speaker 5: would say a proper apology for their behavior and the
Speaker 5: behavior of the reporter just shows it's another basic standards
Speaker 5: fail by them. Our ABC, taxpayer funded ABC, any other
Speaker 5: government department wouldn't get away with this.
Speaker 1: It's a really good point, Darren. Other statutory bodies that
Speaker 1: have these kind of responsibilities that the taxpayers fund, there
Speaker 1: would be an outcome. And I think that the public
Speaker 1: does need to know is being done about this, what
Speaker 1: kind of fact checking happens before these very severe allegations
Speaker 1: are made. And I would like to see the reporter
Speaker 1: go on to insiders and to do a correction, and
Speaker 1: that is what they would and Media Watch would expect
Speaker 1: anyone else to do in a situation like this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, Jack that I'd expect the same of the
Speaker 6: Australian as well, and often do make those kind of demands.
Speaker 6: I mean, Alison Penfold rightly, rightly feels very angry and
Speaker 6: furious about this, and I don't really blame her, you know,
Speaker 6: to accuse an elected official of abandoning her community during
Speaker 6: a tragedy like this. It's quite a serious allegation and
Speaker 6: it's just a basic failure of reporting. And to then
Speaker 6: have the ab spinners in their pr communications department claim
Speaker 6: that the reporter was a panelist, and to try and
Speaker 6: fudge it like that, I think just doubled just down
Speaker 6: on the mistake, and it makes it makes it even worse.
Speaker 6: It's really disingenuous and ultimately just a rose trust in
Speaker 6: the ABC's journalism between them and their shows and their
Speaker 6: reporting and their audience and the public, which is not
Speaker 6: a good thing for them and not a good thing
Speaker 6: for everybody more generally. You're just a roads trust in journalism.
Speaker 1: More generally, I think, yeah, Well, plenty more blunders at
Speaker 1: the ABC to get through, though, because it has been
Speaker 1: an absolute shocker for news director Justin Stevens, who, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is too incompetent to run a newsroom. The
Speaker 1: network was relentlessly mocked when it posted a video of
Speaker 1: Karmala Harris on the Gold Coast, which turned out to
Speaker 1: not be Karmala Harris. Now, let's bring the panel back
Speaker 1: in Louise. This one's on the more harmless side of it.
Speaker 1: But it goes back to standards that this woman had
Speaker 1: I think one identity characteristic in common with Karmala Harris,
Speaker 1: and they've lasily just published that. Yeah, massive problem and.
Speaker 5: It stayed up for what twenty five minutes on Instagram
Speaker 5: I think, until someone will Actually.
Speaker 1: The comments were very fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, this poor woman being slandered saying she
Speaker 5: was Kamala Harris, the sort of high priestess of word salad.
Speaker 1: In fact, no one wants to be compared, but in
Speaker 1: fact she was.
Speaker 5: I believe it the Balmel Pavilion a few days earlier,
Speaker 5: legitimately with the whole Secret Service caval cat, which is
Speaker 5: a bit of a giveaway that a former United States
Speaker 5: VP is actually in town. But again, yeah, it speaks
Speaker 5: to the sort of lack of rigorous fact checking in
Speaker 5: the fact that nobody looked at that photo and went,
Speaker 5: hang on, this is a woman carrying a bag with
Speaker 5: the lanyard may not be.
Speaker 1: Really doesn't look at it.
Speaker 5: No, let's put their pictures side by side.
Speaker 1: Would No, it's not actually Darren, let's bring you in.
Speaker 1: What do you make of this mistake?
Speaker 6: It might seem like a silly mistake, but you know,
Speaker 6: I think it reflects a deeper issue, which is kind
Speaker 6: of a lack of editorial care, which we're kind of
Speaker 6: seeing consistently here as a pattern. And it might be
Speaker 6: a small mistake, but accuracy matters even on the really
Speaker 6: small things. It just shows how seriously an insm takes
Speaker 6: its responsibility to report the facts. And again, you know,
Speaker 6: no apology, just a lack of consequences at the ABC.
Speaker 6: And again that seems to be a pattern that we
Speaker 6: keep seeing time and time again. And you know, you
Speaker 6: don't see the same thing I think at the commercial
Speaker 6: media outlets. If we make a mistake, and from time
Speaker 6: to time we do, we do our best to correct
Speaker 6: it quickly and inform the audience about that. And you
Speaker 6: know ours are pretty good at calling that out and
Speaker 6: making sure that everybody knows about it. And that's fair enough,
Speaker 6: But it doesn't seem to be the case at the ABC.
Speaker 6: There are no consequences when it makes these mistakes wherever
Speaker 6: they're big ones or small ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said. But now to the third egregious error
Speaker 1: by the ABC recently, which Chris Kenny actually picked a
Speaker 1: part in his show, which was the blatantly false assertion
Speaker 1: that fourteen thousand babies in Gaza were dying from starvation, a.
Speaker 7: Worst case scenario of what malnutrition not deaths could happen
Speaker 7: to children if more food is not supplied or the
Speaker 7: war is not ended over a year, and that is
Speaker 7: reported as fourteen thousand babies being about to die in
Speaker 7: forty eight hours. It just made no sense at all,
Speaker 7: Yet the claim ran globally, it was widely reported as fact.
Speaker 7: Here in Australia, journalists, media organizations, bloggers, activists and the
Speaker 7: United Nations ought to be condemned. They ought to be
Speaker 7: disgusted by their own gullibility.
Speaker 1: Well another apology by the ABC, but who even reads
Speaker 1: those apart from us Luise, it's basically justselves going through them.
Speaker 1: The situation in Gaza is obviously horrific and there's these
Speaker 1: massive humanitarian issues. I don't think it helps either side
Speaker 1: to either embellish the numbers, fabricate the numbers, and to
Speaker 1: walk away with a false depiction of what the reality is.
Speaker 1: That's right, and this assertion that there's fourteen thousand, that
Speaker 1: is a big number. And as Chris Kenny points out,
Speaker 1: anyone who's reasonable, a reasonable objective operator covering this conflict
Speaker 1: should look at that and say, okay, how could you
Speaker 1: possibly get that number? And where alleging fourteen thousand babies
Speaker 1: are on the brink of death, there are moments away
Speaker 1: from dying. Just there's no common sense at all going
Speaker 1: on at the ABC, or even worse, it's activism.
Speaker 5: Well that's the thing. So it's a very emotionally charged statistic,
Speaker 5: isn't it. I mean, who could not fail to be
Speaker 5: moved by the fact that that many babies would die
Speaker 5: in what forty eight hours? This part of them fact
Speaker 5: doesn't actually make sense physically, but you know, again it's
Speaker 5: about outrage, not informing, and there's no clarification, no proper clarification,
Speaker 5: any sort of sorry or oops type thing is sort
Speaker 5: of shoved into that website broom covered, I would call it,
Speaker 5: which perhaps we are the only people are actually looking
Speaker 5: at it. I don't think the ABC high management or
Speaker 5: indeed ABC viewers on a regular basis are probably looking
Speaker 5: at and thinking, hmm, they're meant to be factual and accurate.
Speaker 5: Something's gone very wrong here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and where has it come from? I mean, Darren,
Speaker 1: it's basically is it just the Hamas Health Ministry, which
Speaker 1: is you know, it gets a lot of quoting from
Speaker 1: these figures and there's no way to really check them.
Speaker 1: We know that there is issues with information coming out
Speaker 1: out of this conflict. To me, it is very problematic
Speaker 1: when you have a very expensive national broadcaster that is
Speaker 1: putting this kind of misinformation out there and taking a
Speaker 1: very long time to correct the record, a very long time.
Speaker 1: It's not a situation where this is the next day
Speaker 1: after Chris Kenny pointed it out, it's several days down
Speaker 1: the line. They always try and kind of do everything
Speaker 1: they can to avoid apologizing. They had no choice in
Speaker 1: this situation.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Look, I mean, as Louis said, it's a very
Speaker 6: sensitive story and errors like this only inflame the situation
Speaker 6: even even further. And as you've pointed out as well, Jack,
Speaker 6: I mean, there's there's no serious data to back up
Speaker 6: that number, and that source should be questioned. But unfortunately
Speaker 6: that source that you've mentioned there gets a lot of
Speaker 6: air time and and it gets credibility that it doesn't deserve.
Speaker 6: Chris Mitchell and the Australian in the media section has
Speaker 6: been really good on this one, just pointing out that
Speaker 6: journalist should be you know, should question that source a lot.
Speaker 6: In a more rigorous way than they have been and
Speaker 6: just to report what they say unchecked is a seriously
Speaker 6: flawed approach to journalism. Look, no question of the situation
Speaker 6: out there is dire, but you know the Australian fact
Speaker 6: checked it, the Wall Street Journal fact checked it, and
Speaker 6: as I said, it's not supported by any serious data.
Speaker 6: And and you know, even an apology after that doesn't
Speaker 6: really make a lot of difference. It's it just undermines
Speaker 6: the credibility of the ABC's coverage of international affairs, which,
Speaker 6: as you've reported the show again, you know this is
Speaker 6: a pattern that we've seen time and time again.
Speaker 1: Well, as you can see, there are so many errors
Speaker 1: going to air on the ABC that we don't even
Speaker 1: have time enough time on this show to dissect them all.
Speaker 1: It is that bad and you pay for this. Also,
Speaker 1: have you ever noticed that every error always seems to
Speaker 1: adversely impact only one side of politics. We don't seem
Speaker 1: to get many corrections about staff lodging false accusations against
Speaker 1: the Teals. The false allegations only ever seem to be
Speaker 1: directed at Conservatives or Israel. Something to think about. So
Speaker 1: Justin Stevens, who is responsible for all of this, you
Speaker 1: pay him five hundred and fifty six thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year to run this news room and in return, the
Speaker 1: ABC producers hard hitting content like this is sport to
Speaker 1: a toy out of different taxes. How I, Dana, how
Speaker 1: would you describe Laura Tingle?
Speaker 8: Smart?
Speaker 9: Tough, dedicated, hard working, relentless, won't take any crap from anybody.
Speaker 7: Laura is both wonderful and terrifying, formidable, formidable and formidable.
Speaker 1: Well what do we make of that? I mean, essentially,
Speaker 1: you've got Laura Tingle there featuring in a news package
Speaker 1: on seven thirty about how great Laura Tingle is and
Speaker 1: how amazing the ABC is. It's just self indulgent at
Speaker 1: a time where it's just been completely just ever ridden
Speaker 1: content flowing out everywhere, and they just they love themselves
Speaker 1: so much it's nauseating.
Speaker 5: I felt like I was watching the Academy Walls or something.
Speaker 5: Maybe the log is that's what you expect, that sort
Speaker 5: of you know, self indulgent content to be on those
Speaker 5: sort of a ward show, but not on a news
Speaker 5: program which we're paying for.
Speaker 1: As you say, yeah, I agree, and quickly. This one
Speaker 1: isn't as much an error as it is blatant challenge propaganda.
Speaker 8: The approval of Woodside's Northwest Shelf will mean that floods
Speaker 8: are going to be worse, that fires are going to
Speaker 8: be worse, that droughts will be more intense.
Speaker 1: The Federal government has signed off on an extension of
Speaker 1: Australia's largest oil and gas project until twenty seventy.
Speaker 8: Australia cannot keep approving big climate bombs.
Speaker 1: A climate bomb? How very scientific? The ABC did not
Speaker 1: challenge a word of Sarah Hanson Young's absurd statements, and
Speaker 1: by doing this the journalist is elevating unscientific gets you
Speaker 1: gibberish and making viewers think that every word is true. Now,
Speaker 1: climate science is extremely complex and for a sorry can
Speaker 1: I redo this? It's two stumbles? Ah, okay, just whenever
Speaker 1: climate bomb? How very scientific? The ABC did not challenge
Speaker 1: a word of Sarah Hanson Young's absurd statements, and by
Speaker 1: doing this the journalist is elevating unscientific gibberish and making
Speaker 1: viewers think that every word is true. Climate science is
Speaker 1: extremely complex and forecasting is linked to macro analysis of
Speaker 1: emissions not hindered by geographical restrictions. Hans and Young is
Speaker 1: not someone who understands this, and her rhetoric about a
Speaker 1: single gas operation making floods or bushfires worse is utterly
Speaker 1: false and mathematically impossible. And anyone using the phrase climate
Speaker 1: bomb is not a serious person. But the ABC loved
Speaker 1: the grab so much it ran it right at the
Speaker 1: start of that package, not a word of pushback and
Speaker 1: not a shred of science. Well, Darren, let's go to you.
Speaker 1: I mean, the ABC, I do thing has got a
Speaker 1: problem with rhetoric and hyperbole around the climate change issue,
Speaker 1: but to climate bomb, I mean, does it get any
Speaker 1: more petulant than that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, theater and I think by you know, as you said,
Speaker 6: running it so prominently, that only endorses it. And look,
Speaker 6: the approach we take at the Australian is these are
Speaker 6: really complex issues and you know, to be sort of
Speaker 6: just focusing on the headline and not getting into the
Speaker 6: complexity of the issue only misinforms the public and that's
Speaker 6: not a good thing, I think, you know, and the
Speaker 6: result from that is kind of fear and misunderstanding, misinformation,
Speaker 6: not actually really understanding what is a complex scientific issue.
Speaker 6: And yeah, that's it's it's not great. Unfortunately, as I
Speaker 6: said earlier, there's this continuing pattern only undermines the ABC.
Speaker 6: You know the trust, the trust that the public have
Speaker 6: in the ABC's.
Speaker 1: Journalism, well, said Darren Davidson. Louise Roberts, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today a quick break, but when
Speaker 1: we return, we sit down with journalists Chang Lei, who
Speaker 1: shares details of the three years that she spent trapped
Speaker 1: in a Chinese prison. She was a rising star at
Speaker 1: the China Global Television Network until one day she disappeared
Speaker 1: without a trace. Australian Chinese journalist Chang li was working
Speaker 1: her dream job in Beijing in viewing business giants such
Speaker 1: as Bill Gates and athletes like David Beckham. But one
Speaker 1: day she breached an embargo on a government press release
Speaker 1: by just seven minutes and everything changed. She was detained
Speaker 1: by secret police for one hundred and fifty four days
Speaker 1: in the most harrowing conditions imaginable. Her fans just suddenly
Speaker 1: noticed she was gone from their screens. CGTN deleted all
Speaker 1: trace of her from their website. The face of their
Speaker 1: newsroom was deleted overnight, but despite their best efforts, she
Speaker 1: was not forgotten. Her story is one of resilience and
Speaker 1: the extremes of government overreach, and she has bravely relived
Speaker 1: this in a documentary for Sky News and her upcoming book,
Speaker 1: Chang Lee, a Memoir of Freedom. And we are very
Speaker 1: very fortunate to be joined by Lay on the Desk
Speaker 1: tonight to discuss her book and of course a documentary
Speaker 1: which we were able to watch together last night and
Speaker 1: it is a must watch situation, Jack, and thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us. Now you've written in your book something
Speaker 1: that I think is really interesting somebody that has gone
Speaker 1: through this situation, you still clearly have a very deep
Speaker 1: love for China, and you describe yourself as a cultural schizophrenic,
Speaker 1: kind of dancing between Chinese culture and Australian culturelessly, seamlessly.
Speaker 1: Tell me a bit more about that.
Speaker 9: I think because I came at this critical age of ten,
Speaker 9: I had absorbed a lot of what it meant to
Speaker 9: be Chinese and then picked up wonderful things that come
Speaker 9: with being Australian. And it's just been wonderful to share
Speaker 9: the best of Australia with Chinese people and vice versa.
Speaker 9: And I thought I was doing that in my job,
Speaker 9: increasing understanding, bridging the the gap, and then it turned
Speaker 9: out that that was my sin because I was communicating
Speaker 9: too much, sharing too much, And now I'm a bit
Speaker 9: wary of things like national borders and getting too patriotic
Speaker 9: without seeing the downsides.
Speaker 1: The warning sides that come along with it. And I
Speaker 1: do want to talk about the arrest and this phrase
Speaker 1: that you know what it tricked me? I think when
Speaker 1: I first heard the phrase house arrest, because I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: she'd be in a unit, potentially her own unit, and
Speaker 1: cole bracelets and ankle bracelets, should be able to go shopping.
Speaker 1: That's not at all what it was. It was a
Speaker 1: situation where you were guarded in person by two people
Speaker 1: staring at you twenty four hours a day, unable to
Speaker 1: literally move for upper of thirteen hours without getting permission
Speaker 1: to even scratch your face. What was that like?
Speaker 9: So, to give an example, to go to the toilet,
Speaker 9: I would be sandwich between the two guards. I would
Speaker 9: have to say request permission to go to the toilet.
Speaker 9: That would say permission granted. I would stand up and
Speaker 9: then immediately one guard backs her way towards the toilet.
Speaker 9: One follows me, and I am staring at the guard's
Speaker 9: shoes as I shuffle towards the toilet. I take off
Speaker 9: my pants in front of them. I do my business
Speaker 9: in front of them, and they stand there watching, and
Speaker 9: then we shuffle back and do that for sleeping, for showering,
Speaker 9: for every time I thought about my kids, I was
Speaker 9: in floods of tears, and they watched that. And if
Speaker 9: I was so tired because I couldn't sleep at night,
Speaker 9: I close my eyes for a few seconds. Open your eyes,
Speaker 9: and if I had my arm inside the covers, they
Speaker 9: would wake me. Take your arms out. I would be
Speaker 9: woken at six thirty each morning, and everything was done
Speaker 9: at a certain time. I didn't see anyone else. I
Speaker 9: couldn't talk to the guards, but later on as I
Speaker 9: got to know them, and I didn't make trouble for
Speaker 9: them because I felt sorry for what they had to do.
Speaker 9: Sure for their four hour shifts to watch me, like
Speaker 9: imagine the boredom and also the fatigue, even though they're
Speaker 9: taking turns standing and sitting, but still the nothingness of it,
Speaker 9: and they had to wear masks while I didn't, And.
Speaker 1: Or for what what was?
Speaker 9: How was I going to bust out of this situation
Speaker 9: with these thick steel doors electronically closed, and monitors and
Speaker 9: secret police and as in special police and guard dogs.
Speaker 1: They gave me too much credit. I'm not Jason Satin. Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot in the book there's I guess, different different
Speaker 1: calibers of spying. I guess that they're looking at But
Speaker 1: to me, it looked like a form of psychological dominating.
Speaker 9: Absolutely intimidation.
Speaker 1: And the party is wide. Yes, we're watching, We're always watching.
Speaker 1: And there's one scene in the documentary which took me
Speaker 1: back where it had the re enacting of you falling
Speaker 1: asleep and there's this person with a mask just kind
Speaker 1: of hovering over you.
Speaker 9: Yeah, she was always very close to my face.
Speaker 1: Six months there. You did that for six months before
Speaker 1: you were then moved into the group area, which had
Speaker 1: different dynamics.
Speaker 9: That's right, but it was mostly for one psychology. It
Speaker 9: was mostly better. I think even the Chinese government decided
Speaker 9: that six months was the maximum that a person could take.
Speaker 1: It surely reaches a threshold of torture. It is it
Speaker 1: is with them having that plausible deniability of well know,
Speaker 1: we haven't harmed her, we haven't touched her. They've moved
Speaker 1: so close to you, yes, and it invaded your very consciousness.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, and they make you feel you can't go anywhere
Speaker 9: you don't have any help, You're desperate, and signing confession
Speaker 9: is your best way out.
Speaker 1: How do you stay sane in that situation?
Speaker 9: I was lucky that once I started getting embassy visits,
Speaker 9: I could try to describe how I was feeling, which
Speaker 9: was I mean, the mental state was definitely worsening for
Speaker 9: a few months, and the embassy kept lobbying for better conditions,
Speaker 9: even things like allowing me to use a bit of
Speaker 9: dental floss or giving me moisturizer, or getting me a
Speaker 9: support top because bras weren't allowed. All of that, and
Speaker 9: the opening the top windows for fifteen minutes but the
Speaker 9: curtains were remaining closed.
Speaker 1: All those things add up to it allows I guess
Speaker 1: to compartmentalize the day and break it up.
Speaker 9: And also I was lucky enough to get some books
Speaker 9: once they discovered that I wasn't a spy and they
Speaker 9: didn't have much to interrogate me for, but they had
Speaker 9: to keep me there and didn't want me to go
Speaker 9: really insane and be harder to manage. So I would
Speaker 9: get this trip feed of books.
Speaker 1: And you moved from this to some more group prison.
Speaker 9: Situation freedom paradise, as I'm.
Speaker 1: Called that freedom paradise, but reguards there were still things
Speaker 1: such as you know, signs on the doors, and you
Speaker 1: mentioned this in the documentary. The ultimate crime was to
Speaker 1: disparage the party.
Speaker 9: That's right. And I said to Ben Fordham on his
Speaker 9: show that if we had that in Australia, you know,
Speaker 9: Sky News would very little material to run.
Speaker 1: Well, it's the warning signs, right, Yeah, I guess you know.
Speaker 1: There is a broad problem of political prisoners in China,
Speaker 1: and something that is very disturbing is your story is
Speaker 1: just one story. I shudder to think how many people
Speaker 1: are actually in this state over.
Speaker 9: There, especially the Chinese citizens.
Speaker 1: Especially Chinese citizens, is they.
Speaker 9: Don't have the embassy visits, so they have no voice,
Speaker 9: they have no contact with their families, and they're kept
Speaker 9: there for years.
Speaker 1: And you're doing a bit of work for Australians abroad
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 9: Trying to trying to raise awareness, trying to get political change,
Speaker 9: and just keep reinforcing the idea that it is not
Speaker 9: okay to take individuals and use them for the state.
Speaker 9: But for countries like China and Russia and Iran, I
Speaker 9: think it's perfectly okay, and even some of its citizens
Speaker 9: think the state is overriding and it is okay for
Speaker 9: the small cogs of the wheel sacrificed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the loss of individual identity. And I guess
Speaker 1: when you talk about being schizophrenic culturally and linguished in that,
Speaker 1: I am not in the values not but from a
Speaker 1: values point of view, there is such a different cultural
Speaker 1: upbringing and because you did spend from as you said,
Speaker 1: ten years old, growing up in Melbourne, you've had that
Speaker 1: sense of individuality probably instilled in you at such a
Speaker 1: young age. Absolutely, that is probably something they're trying to
Speaker 1: stamp out.
Speaker 9: Yes, and it takes a very brave Chinese person and
Speaker 9: a very original thinker to rebel against the years and
Speaker 9: years of constant brainwashing in doctrination that you cannot be different,
Speaker 9: you cannot defy the state machine, and all you can
Speaker 9: do is lie to yourself, go along with it and
Speaker 9: try to act live a lie basically like all the
Speaker 9: other people.
Speaker 1: When you did finally get out, and I have to say,
Speaker 1: there was a moment when you were embracing Penny Wong,
Speaker 1: and I do think that she's obviously she did a
Speaker 1: lot to get to that level. She did, so you
Speaker 1: must have a pretty strong bond with her for doing
Speaker 1: that for you. What was it like to reunite with
Speaker 1: your children.
Speaker 9: Oh, just think of my life before, which was up
Speaker 9: here and then crashing into this abyss and I just
Speaker 9: kept falling and then suddenly shooting back into the light,
Speaker 9: into happiness, warmth. And I used to I used to
Speaker 9: do this, you know, to replicate some sort of human affection.
Speaker 9: And I used to think, when I get out, I
Speaker 9: am going to speak to everyone. I am going to
Speaker 9: smile to any living creature that I see. I am
Speaker 9: going to you know, put a piece of grass in
Speaker 9: my mouth, just to be close to nature because I
Speaker 9: was so starved of it. And you know, I can.
Speaker 9: I still talk to every cab driver that I sit
Speaker 9: in the back of and really revel in human connection
Speaker 9: because you don't always get that.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm really glad that you're such a resilient person
Speaker 1: that you were able to get through it with that attitude.
Speaker 9: All those Australians helped me come on. I'm deeply, deeply grateful,
Speaker 9: and it says a lot about who we are that
Speaker 9: we care for this strange woman that is stuck in China.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well, Changla, thank you so much for sharing
Speaker 1: your story here on the desk, So make sure that
Speaker 1: you watch Changlai's documentary this coming Tuesday, and then the
Speaker 1: very next day and Wednesday. Her new book, A Memoir
Speaker 1: of Freedom is also out and you can pre order
Speaker 1: that already. And Chang Lai, thank you so much.
Speaker 9: For joining us.
Speaker 1: Thanks deck a quick break. But when we return, inside
Speaker 1: the NPR funding scandal in the United States, welcome to
Speaker 1: stars and gripes. And this week there are more activists
Speaker 1: pretending to be journalists and it has led to a
Speaker 1: rather tense standoff between the NPR newsroom in the US
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump.
Speaker 10: NPR has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Trump administration,
Speaker 10: alleging the president's efforts to defund them is a violation
Speaker 10: of the Constitution. Trump has accused MPR and PBS a bias,
Speaker 10: signing an executive order for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting
Speaker 10: to stop funding them. PBS says it's preparing to take
Speaker 10: legal action against the administration as well, but has yet
Speaker 10: to file a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: When journalists think that they are constitutionally entitled to your
Speaker 1: tax dollars, they are just proving how out of touch
Speaker 1: they are. A president doesn't need a reason to cut
Speaker 1: funding from wherever he wants. But when you have a
Speaker 1: completely captured organization like NPR, which is one hundred percent
Speaker 1: filled with activist journalists, why wouldn't a president intervene? The
Speaker 1: last thing tax dollars should ever be used for is
Speaker 1: activism and politically motivated smears. Feel free to start a
Speaker 1: private company and do whatever you want. That's freedom, but
Speaker 1: the people shouldn't be forced to give you a cent. Now, predictably,
Speaker 1: NPR is now pretending to be extremely balanced, and in
Speaker 1: this interview with their CEO Catherine Maha.
Speaker 11: The White House and some Republicans in Congress, as you
Speaker 11: well know, have accused NPR of promoting a liberal bias.
Speaker 11: Beyond that, the former NPR editor Uri Berliner, he accused
Speaker 11: the network of having what he called a lack of
Speaker 11: viewpoint diversity. How do you respond to those critiques?
Speaker 10: Well, I, first of.
Speaker 12: All, I'll respond by saying, we're a non partisan news organisation.
Speaker 12: We seek to be able to provide a range of
Speaker 12: different viewpoints in terms of who we bring on air.
Speaker 1: The stories that we tell.
Speaker 12: Were buttresses in this effort by the fact that we
Speaker 12: have two hundred local newsrooms across the country.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the CEO is politically neutral. I wonder how
Speaker 1: she would explain this tweet. Then from twenty twenty, let's
Speaker 1: bring in Sky and News contributor Kosha Gata Court caught
Speaker 1: with a Biden hat in twenty twenty, on the very
Speaker 1: day that America went to cast their vote, advocating for
Speaker 1: Joe Biden to win the race. It doesn't scream neutrality
Speaker 1: to me. It certainly doesn't. Jack Wait to be as always.
Speaker 1: And she was in a hearing on Capitol Hill not
Speaker 1: too long ago where a lot of her tweets were
Speaker 1: put up and she had to explain them. And she's
Speaker 1: very smart.
Speaker 13: She knows what she's doing, and she sort of acknowledged
Speaker 13: all of them and then tried to say, well, you know,
Speaker 13: that's my personal opinion. It doesn't affect how I perform
Speaker 13: as an executive, and you know all those tricks in
Speaker 13: the book. But I think you're absolutely right. I call
Speaker 13: this First Amendment convenience. Where they try to use that
Speaker 13: and levy that to defend against anything, whether it's the sector,
Speaker 13: the university sector, etc. That the current administration is going after.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 13: There's nothing in the constitution that mandates tax dollar allocations.
Speaker 13: But yet we do see this judicial activism where these
Speaker 13: arguments are getting favorable review from different judges, and everything's
Speaker 13: running up to the Supreme Court. So I would not
Speaker 13: be surprised if something along those lines happens here, even
Speaker 13: though this argument is obviously absurd.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and this whole notion that the CEO of
Speaker 1: a very large media organization can literally endorse a candidate
Speaker 1: but then say, oh, that's my personal profile, although you
Speaker 1: use that profile to tweet about work, and then all
Speaker 1: your staff see it, so they all know what the
Speaker 1: boss likes. Everybody knows what the boss thinks. Surely then
Speaker 1: that must proliferate through the newsroom.
Speaker 13: It absolutely does, and there's all sorts of people who
Speaker 13: analyzed the stories at NPR DOS or whether it's the
Speaker 13: ABC here, BBC in the UK. It's not nobody's fooled
Speaker 13: by it.
Speaker 1: We know it.
Speaker 13: And I think this is the first time that you're
Speaker 13: seeing somebody actually push back and talk about defunding them,
Speaker 13: which I think is a wide open argument available to
Speaker 13: the right side of politics in every country. But for
Speaker 13: some reason, nobody wants to really go in and take
Speaker 13: this issue on by the jugular, but we're seeing it
Speaker 13: now with this administration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good, take their money, Take every scent of text
Speaker 1: dollar funds from In my opinion, now the media is
Speaker 1: running a major campaign to back in Harvard in the
Speaker 1: funding to speak with Donald Trump, and the argument has
Speaker 1: similarities to the NPR one that these institutions are somehow
Speaker 1: entitled to your money. But on MSNBC they let slip
Speaker 1: what it's really about. Watch the guest grin and speak
Speaker 1: with glee about the fact that some races are being
Speaker 1: openly discriminated against when it comes to admissions.
Speaker 14: There are no seats left for Americans, and you combine
Speaker 14: that with the critic of race based admissions. This is
Speaker 14: about really these institutions, Chris trying to build a student
Speaker 14: body that reflects not only the diversity of the country,
Speaker 14: but the diversity of the world, and Trump stoking a
Speaker 14: particular kind of grievance because people like him, their children
Speaker 14: can't seem to get into Harvard like they used to.
Speaker 14: They can't get into the Columbias and the Princetons like
Speaker 14: they used to. They're having difficulty getting into the Lehighs
Speaker 14: and the Williams like they used to. They believe they
Speaker 14: possess these institutions, and so by virtue of their particular
Speaker 14: positions of power, they are trying to in some ways
Speaker 14: capture them.
Speaker 1: Once again, how brazen do you have to be to
Speaker 1: openly admit that on national television now kosher? The reason
Speaker 1: that some people are not getting in as easily into
Speaker 1: these universities is because there's well documented open discrimination against
Speaker 1: certain races, including Asian Americans and of course white Americans.
Speaker 1: And the whole point of this funding the speak, the
Speaker 1: reason why the left is so rile up is because
Speaker 1: they're asking for accountability on one of these points, and
Speaker 1: then obviously how many spaces are going to people from
Speaker 1: foreign countries taxpayers of funding that? To a degree, it's
Speaker 1: a completely legitimate question, which I cannot believe the level
Speaker 1: of dishonesty that some journalists are deploying to look at
Speaker 1: it one hundred percent.
Speaker 13: I think a lot of them just can't, honestly and
Speaker 13: genuinely can't get their arms around the issue because they've
Speaker 13: been trained for half a century to believe that this
Speaker 13: is some kind of entitlement for them, and there is
Speaker 13: a structural injustice, and you know, we need many, many
Speaker 13: more centuries in the opposite direction, favoritism to one group
Speaker 13: over another, to write these past sins. That is what
Speaker 13: they believe, and that's where they speak it so clearly
Speaker 13: and openly, as you say, unabashedly. This issue is also
Speaker 13: very very interesting because similar to the last one, it
Speaker 13: is this administration willing to fight dirty and to take
Speaker 13: on institutions that are very politically lopsided, very much into
Speaker 13: setting up activism and enabling that from their student base,
Speaker 13: defying the Supreme Court ruling that came down and said
Speaker 13: they were engaging discriminatory practices with the Asian Americans as
Speaker 13: you mentioned in white Americans, and they've been kind of
Speaker 13: defying that, not covertly but obertly in their practices. And
Speaker 13: the one mechanism that the federal government has is money,
Speaker 13: So that's what they're trying to do that you are
Speaker 13: not no longer necessarily entitled to billions of dollars of
Speaker 13: taxpayer dollars American tax payer dollars and taxixem status and
Speaker 13: all of these things. And that's where this is really
Speaker 13: hitting a flashpoint now this issue. He's making an example
Speaker 13: of Harvard specifically, and it's going to be very interesting
Speaker 13: to see this story continue to unfold.
Speaker 1: And Kosher, I've found it absolutely extraordinary that you've got
Speaker 1: all these left wing journalists who are actually taking the
Speaker 1: position of defending one of the most elite and privileged
Speaker 1: institutions on this planet in its position that you would
Speaker 1: think that they would want that funding returned to local
Speaker 1: schools that are struggling in impoverished areas. It is extraordinary,
Speaker 1: and I think incoon assistance from an ideological point of view,
Speaker 1: that they want this money to go to Harvard, to
Speaker 1: this privileged place, rather than probably being better spend in
Speaker 1: the education system elsewhere.
Speaker 13: So Republicans are rejoicing at the strategy of theirs. They're like, yes,
Speaker 13: please go and defend Harvard.
Speaker 1: Shout from the rooftops.
Speaker 13: Defend Harvard, because that is going to really play well
Speaker 13: with the constituency that they lost that they used to have,
Speaker 13: working class Americans that have completely shifted from the Democrat
Speaker 13: Party to the Republican Party in the last four or
Speaker 13: eight or even twelve years, slowly and then rapidly. And
Speaker 13: as you say, this is one of the most wealthy
Speaker 13: institutions that epitomizes elitism, and there is this class divide
Speaker 13: that's only been widening in America, and in recent times
Speaker 13: they have fifty two billion dollars in their endowment fund
Speaker 13: that they enjoy capital gains on tax free so on
Speaker 13: and so forth. So this is not consistent ideologically with
Speaker 13: where the party's roots were, as you mentioned, and it's
Speaker 13: also not smart politically. And I think the other side
Speaker 13: of the I was really enjoying this because they have
Speaker 13: no way but to win on this issue.
Speaker 1: We'll moving on now because Michelle Obama is doing a
Speaker 1: podcast circuit and she is really tackling all the big issues.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I get in the bed, I'm freezing, yes, And
Speaker 3: other times it's like, oh my God, take my skin off.
Speaker 15: He's like, the change of temperature is wild for any
Speaker 15: woman anytime, and especially it's a.
Speaker 3: Battle with a partner, right because he's always cold, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, do not touch. And sometimes I wake up
Speaker 3: hot and I'll wake him up. Did you touch the thermostat?
Speaker 3: Did you touched the thermostat? Didn't you?
Speaker 1: He's like it did not.
Speaker 3: Swear to God, he now knows. He's afraid of the thermostat.
Speaker 3: I said, I don't care what you do. Do not
Speaker 3: touch anything in this room.
Speaker 1: Kosher compelling stuff, isn't it.
Speaker 13: She has invented a whole new genre called throwing shade
Speaker 13: on Barack Obama. Like every single episode, there's something we've
Speaker 13: heard about how marriages can have a bad decade. We've
Speaker 13: heard about how she was angered that people have to
Speaker 13: leap over her to shake her husband's hand because he
Speaker 13: was only commander in chief for eight years and now
Speaker 13: he's some kind of weakling who can't handle the cold,
Speaker 13: is what she's intimating there. I don't think he would
Speaker 13: appreciate this. And it's really really interesting, not only because
Speaker 13: it's not interesting to your point. The podcast is not
Speaker 13: doing well, even though she's somebody who has been successful
Speaker 13: with her previous podcast and her book, this one is flailing.
Speaker 13: And then on top of that, it's sort of like
Speaker 13: she's giving off this some kind of anger or just
Speaker 13: resentment in her marriage that she's had to one of
Speaker 13: the most powerful men on planet Earth. And I don't
Speaker 13: think people find that very relatable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really weird stuff, but we love to see it.
Speaker 1: Koschha Goatta, thank you so much for coming on sharing
Speaker 1: your insights. We're going to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: when we return. Media Watchdog columnist Jared Henderson joins us
Speaker 1: on the desk. Welcome back, joining me now is he
Speaker 1: does each and every week as Sky News Australia's media
Speaker 1: watchdog columnist Jared Henderson, thank you for joining us on
Speaker 1: the desk.
Speaker 16: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to have a quick listen to John
Speaker 1: Lyons because we talk about him a little bit on this.
Speaker 1: We do a bit a little bit on their show
Speaker 1: and he's doing some interesting reporting. Let's have a look
Speaker 1: you and.
Speaker 17: World Food Program is appealing for food supplies to be
Speaker 17: upscaled immediately to address the hunger crisis. There America's editor
Speaker 17: John Lyons, how's the latest from Washington?
Speaker 18: Ehud Olm has said, what is it? If not a
Speaker 18: war crime? How can a serious person representing the Israeli
Speaker 18: government spell it out in such an explicit manner that
Speaker 18: we should starve Gaza, that there should be no supply
Speaker 18: basic fundamental humanitarian the many of these children barely had
Speaker 18: any food or water or medicines. The BBC recently reported
Speaker 18: six babies freezing to death.
Speaker 1: But Jared I thought that he was now there Washington.
Speaker 19: But it had been the Global Affairs editor that's now
Speaker 19: gone to Laura Tingle and he's the editor America's He's
Speaker 19: gone to Washington to, as he said, translate the Trump
Speaker 19: administration to US people down here. But what he is
Speaker 19: in Washington talking about Gaza, which is not really his area.
Speaker 19: If he were talking about the US administration's policy, that
Speaker 19: would be different. For most of this interview, which went
Speaker 19: on for a long time, he only spoke about Gaza.
Speaker 19: But he's a long long way away from Gaza. But
Speaker 19: I mean in a sense, he's always been hostile to
Speaker 19: the Israeli government, has been hostile to the Jewish community
Speaker 19: in Australia. I suspect that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 19: he was moved across to the Americas. But over in
Speaker 19: the Americas or in Washington, DC, he's still talking about
Speaker 19: Gaza and Israel.
Speaker 1: Well, it's definitely their ABC, And this next scrap will
Speaker 1: prove that. Some of this puff piece they've done about
Speaker 1: Laura Tangle. Laura, what preparations are you making for turning
Speaker 1: your attention from Australia.
Speaker 12: How are you preparing for it?
Speaker 1: Will?
Speaker 20: I suppose it would be easy to say it's going
Speaker 20: to be completely different. But I want to do for
Speaker 20: the world what I've done for Australia, which is the
Speaker 20: world ready for this? But I mean I want to essentially,
Speaker 20: I mean, particularly at seven point thirty. You know, I
Speaker 20: don't see myself as a newsbreaker, you know, I see
Speaker 20: myself as an explainer.
Speaker 1: Jared, is the world really this person has tickets on themselves.
Speaker 1: I want to do for the world what I've done
Speaker 1: for Australia and is the world ready?
Speaker 19: But also she's going to explain the whole wide world
Speaker 19: to Australia. So there we've got John Lyons in Washington
Speaker 19: translating the Trump administration for US mere mortals, and Laura
Speaker 19: Tingle traveling the world translating the world, explaining the world
Speaker 19: for us.
Speaker 1: It's so absurd. How would we know about the world
Speaker 1: where that she legitimately thinks she's probably one of the
Speaker 1: best reporters in the world. Oh, I'm sure she has.
Speaker 1: I think that's the only thing I can take away
Speaker 1: from that.
Speaker 19: It's a plumb job. I mean, no one's mentioning they
Speaker 19: had a sort of celebration for leaving last night, but
Speaker 19: no one's mentioned that Laura Tingle said this was a
Speaker 19: racist country, or that she said that the Coalition government
Speaker 19: under Scott Morrison was guilty of ideological bastardree. These things
Speaker 19: are forgotten anyway. She's now up around the world. She
Speaker 19: won't be saying those things anymore because again she's been
Speaker 19: sort of promoted upwards.
Speaker 1: I believe she Collpeter Don him dangerous or that's right dangerous,
Speaker 1: and that's as you're going into an election. Someone's supposed
Speaker 1: to be impartial. Is she going to do that for
Speaker 1: the world. I don't know if the world are necessarily
Speaker 1: the world's up to Let's move on, because we've noticed
Speaker 1: that the ABC has a particular way that they introduce
Speaker 1: guests who are a little bit more on the conservative
Speaker 1: side of the spectrum. Let's have to watch.
Speaker 21: Australia spends about fifty six billion dollars each year on
Speaker 21: the nation's defense, but a new report from the think
Speaker 21: tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says that amount doesn't
Speaker 21: match the current threats to Australia or even the future threats.
Speaker 21: Justin Vassi is Asby's executive director and full disclosure. He
Speaker 21: also worked as a chief of staff and advisor to
Speaker 21: former Liberal ministers including Malcolm Turnbull, Maurice Paint and George Brandison.
Speaker 16: Let's get the latest from the ABC's National Affairs correspondent
Speaker 16: Jane Norman and Mark Kenney, a former doyan of the
Speaker 16: Canberra Press Gallery and now a professor at the Australian
Speaker 16: National University. Thanks both of you for joining us on
Speaker 16: ABC Radio National.
Speaker 1: It's all very well to do that with the disclaimers,
Speaker 1: but do they do it when there are teals affiliated
Speaker 1: people or these so called influencers that keep getting a
Speaker 1: kid getting a run, who have got paid sponsorships with
Speaker 1: other politicians.
Speaker 19: And the ABC never I don't think they should have,
Speaker 19: but they never said that Kerry O'Brien was once worked
Speaker 19: for Golf Whitlam or the Berry Catteridy, once worked with
Speaker 19: Bob Hawk. And here we've got Mark Kenney. Now, Marke
Speaker 19: Kennie's first job was to work for a socialist left
Speaker 19: or a left of center labor politician. So he's a
Speaker 19: former labor political staffer out of South Australia. Now that's okay.
Speaker 19: I know a problem with that. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 19: former political staffer on the coalition side. But what you
Speaker 19: find is that anyone who's on the coalition side is nominated,
Speaker 19: like you know, be wary of this because this is
Speaker 19: going to be biased. But if you comrade Kenny, that's
Speaker 19: all okay. I mean, he's just telling the truth. And
Speaker 19: not only that, he is the Duan of the press Colory.
Speaker 19: I don't know how he got that position, but anyway,
Speaker 19: he's the Lurry Oaks or the Michelle Gratton of the press.
Speaker 9: Guy.
Speaker 19: I never noticed that when he was there. But all
Speaker 19: I'm saying is it ought to be balanced. If you're
Speaker 19: going to say, look, be weary this guy used to
Speaker 19: work or this woman used to work for the coalition,
Speaker 19: you got to say, well, be weary, this guy used
Speaker 19: to work for labor.
Speaker 1: But they don't do that definitely, And that's the thing,
Speaker 1: the lack of equality around how they do it. And
Speaker 1: we could hash out whether it's appropriate to give somebody
Speaker 1: your disclaimer politically all day. We can talk about the merits,
Speaker 1: is a bad telling, is a bad radio, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But I have noticed that you get people, you know,
Speaker 1: Hannah Ferguson that that influencer who thinks she want to
Speaker 1: thinks the word influences a sogynistic so she'd real IQ
Speaker 1: on that one. But this person goes on to the
Speaker 1: ABC and is not told to be somebody who is
Speaker 1: in partnership with a legraspender. Yes, right, so there are
Speaker 1: direct cases where the audience is getting very, very one sided.
Speaker 19: Well, it's the other side of the lack of viewpoint diversity.
Speaker 19: You've got a lack of viewpoint diversity and you've got
Speaker 19: a lack of equality and how people are introduced now,
Speaker 19: I mean, I think we should read the report from
Speaker 19: our own views about it.
Speaker 1: We're not stupid.
Speaker 19: We can work out where people come from. But the
Speaker 19: ABC now seem to think that if if you've got
Speaker 19: a coalition background, this has got to be nominated, which
Speaker 19: is one of the reasons why they have why there's
Speaker 19: so many of their panels are completely lacking in balance,
Speaker 19: because why.
Speaker 1: Would you go on it as the token conservative?
Speaker 19: Well no, and many don't. And that's why Q and
Speaker 19: A panels have been so so unbalanced for many times,
Speaker 19: because many many conservatives won't go on another's like me
Speaker 19: aren't invited.
Speaker 1: So luckily now we've got Laura Tigo to explain this,
Speaker 1: explain we wouldn't know what to do with that it.
Speaker 1: Jared Henderson, thank you so much for joining me. That's
Speaker 1: all the time we have for this evening. But up
Speaker 1: next is news, then then s