By Situation Theatre 6/9/2018
Since when was promoting genocide not A-OK?
Attempting to win the Pan-Pacific Euphemism Championships 2018, The Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) has described the Sunrise “Hot Topics” segment, in which Pru MacSween literally called for another Stolen Generation, as “inaccurate”.
Eminent Indigenous history Professor McSweeney's noted helpfully: “Don’t worry about the people who decry and hand-wring and say this will be another Stolen Generation. Just like the first Stolen Generation, where a lot of children were taken because it was for their well-being, we need to do it again”.
Bearing in mind the 1997 Bringing Them Home Report described the Stolen Generations as genocide, let’s revisit the Sunrise segment.
ACMA ruled that Channel Seven had “provoked serious contempt on the basis of race” and “contained strong negative generalisations about Indigenous people”.
In response, the network’s news public affairs director Craig McPherson said it was in the public interest to hear this phenomenal level of retrograde, ignorant, offensive garbage.
"The irony is that the very issue the commentators were critical of, that is political correctness preventing meaningful discussion and action, has come to bear with this finding,"
"Its decision is a form of censorship; a direct assault on the workings of an independent media”
He may as well have said “Its decision is a form of spelunking; a direct massage on the sauerkraut of an iceberg” for all the relation his words had to reality.
What’s next, are we going to censor Holocaust deniers? Are we going to limit the free speech of cult leaders calling for mass suicide? Are we going to stop serial killers from their nightly radio show? Are we going to shut down calls for the industrial slaughter of all white Australians? It’s political correctness gone mad!!
Why can’t ACMA just let Channel 7 editors, presenters and guests do what they do best: criticising media regulators using words they don’t understand, pontificating about complex social problems they know nothing about, and offering patronising advice to people they don’t respect.
Like the time Samantha Armytage told Aboriginal people they didn't know how to protest properly.