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ABC Never Apologise When Called Out

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The ABC published a video that had additional gunshots inserted into it to try and accuse Special Forces Soldiers of War Crimes. Veteran Heston Russell has been asking for a (deserved) apology for years and if he’d been given one, the ABC could have avoided a multi-million dollar court case.

Now they tout the results of an “independent” review. The person who conducted the review held senior positions at the ABC for decades and is likely still close friends with people who work there. 

The ABC is failing to live up to the standards Australians expect of a $1 billion taxpayer organisation.

The Terms of Reference for the review are so narrow that they likely restricted the review.

The reviewer is an award-winning journalist with a positive reputation. However, when appointing a supposedly “independent” reviewer, it’s important that the reviewer is appropriate in terms of background and experience and that the reviewer has no perceived connection with the organisation they are reviewing.

This reviewer spent decades with ABC-SBS, beginning as a cadet at the ABC in 1979.

The interim report’s recommendations raise integrity as an issue with ABC News, which leads me to conclude that, at best, ABC News is sloppy.

The ABC has blown millions in taxpayer dollars defending its defamatory treatment of Heston Russell and leaves itself open to further scrutiny, yet despite losing the defamation case, the ABC refuses to apologise.

The arrogance here is astounding. Just apologise.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing here today. Mr Stevens, the ABC has continually and arrogantly defied calls to apologise to veteran Special Forces commando Heston Russell. The ABC lost a defamation case to him. You wasted millions in taxpayer money. After that, the ABC has been caught publishing manipulated video with inserted gunshots, claiming it’s Heston Russell. For how long are you going to oppose doing the right thing? Just apologise to Heston Russell; that’s all he’s asked for, from the start. 

Mr Stevens: Senator Roberts, thanks for the question. You raised a series of things implying each of those matters was connected. There are a number of issues you raised that we can separate out and talk in detail about. With the defamation trial that you referenced, they were not the publications that we are talking about today, in the context of the Sunderland review. They are separate publications. 

Senator ROBERTS:  Can you say that again, please? 

Mr Stevens: The publications on which Mr Russell sued the ABC, in the defamation trial that you referenced, were not the publications that were subject to Alan Sunderland’s independent review. They’re separate matters. It’s important to distinguish the difference. 

Senator ROBERTS Did you lose that case? 

Mr Stevens: We did, and we respect the judgement of Justice Lee. 

Senator HENDERSON: Can I ask a clarifying question? That’s not the case, Mr Stevens, because on 30 November ABC lawyers actually produced the helicopter video in the Federal Court. In its defence, the ABC pleaded truth, and said that Heston Russell was the shooter. The helicopter video was absolutely front and centre of these Federal Court proceedings. 

Mr Stevens: Would you like me to respond to that, Senator? 

Senator HENDERSON: Yes. 

Mr Stevens: With respect, the vision you’re referring to was not a publication. It was vision from helmet-cam that was used and utilised in these publications, but they were not a publication in their own right. They came up during legal proceedings in the context of one of the ABC’s earlier defences. 

Senator HENDERSON: That’s not the case, Mr Stevens, because that was published. That helicopter video, those fake gunshots, were published by the ABC on a number of different occasions. I’m sorry to cut in, Senator Roberts, but I can’t accept the way that you’re trying to mischaracterise these proceedings. 

Senator ROBERTS: Did the ABC lose the defamation case to Heston Russell? 

Mr Stevens: Could I clarify, Chair, who I’m responding to? 

CHAIR: This is really not very helpful because you’re both talking at cross-purposes. Let’s let the witness clarify these separate issues, so that we’re really clear about what we’re talking about. Senator Roberts has the call. 

Senator HENDERSON: Yes, I appreciate that. 

CHAIR: We’ll keep with that line of questioning, to minimise this level of confusion. Mr Stevens, would you like to step that out? 

Mr Stevens: Yes, the ABC did not win that defamation trial, Senator. 

Senator ROBERTS: They lost it? 

Mr Stevens: Yes, Senator. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Are you going to apologise to Heston Russell? 

Mr Stevens: The managing director, Mr Anderson, has previously been asked in Senate estimates that very question, immediately after the trial, and was very clear as to the ABC’s position on that. In relation to— 

Senator ROBERTS: What is that position? 

Mr Stevens: I don’t have the transcript with me, Senator Roberts. 

Senator ROBERTS: What’s Mr Anderson’s position? 

Mr Stevens: He’s the Managing Director of the ABC. 

Senator ROBERTS: No; what is his position that you’re referring to now, in terms of— 

Ms Kleyn: Senator, could we please provide that on notice? Mr Anderson absolutely provided information on the record. We don’t have that in front of us. We would like to be able to access that information, so that we give a true account of what Mr Anderson said. 

Senator ROBERTS: Why are you afraid of apologising to Heston Russell? You’ve done him a disservice. Why are you afraid of that? 

Mr Stevens: There’s no means of being afraid or not, Senator Roberts. We’re happy to talk at length about any of the matters in relation to either the defamation trial that you’ve referenced or the very separate publications which were subject to the independent review. I’m not sure whether you’ve had an opportunity to read that yet. The review has been tabled for this committee. The review makes it very clear, and we accept the findings of that independent review. In relation to the specific mistakes, in relation to that review, we have absolutely issued an apology for the video editing errors that occurred. We’re not hiding from that. That apology extends to members of the 2nd Commando Regiment. 

Senator ROBERTS: As I understand it, Heston Russell has done distinguished service for this country and you’ve defamed him. Your organisation has defamed him. All he wanted in the first place was an apology, as I understand it; yet we have spent millions of dollars avoiding an apology. What’s so difficult? 

Mr Stevens: Senator Roberts, in relation to the matters that have been tabled today, in regard to the independent review into our three related stories in Line of Fire, we’re not hiding from the fact that we have apologised for the video errors that have occurred in that. That apology extends to members of the 2nd Commando Regiment. Mr Russell was not named in those publications. The nature of defamation, at risk of stating the obvious, is that we accept the judgement. The judgement came with quite a sizeable amount of costs to Mr Russell. The court does not dictate or call on the other party to apologise. Mr Anderson was very clear in his answer previously in relation to the defamation trial, and the ABC’s position on that. As I said, I’m happy to take you through in detail the ABC’s response to Mr Sunderland’s review. 

Senator ROBERTS: We’ll have that on notice, please. Who signed off on the video of the extra gunshots that were manipulated into it? 

Mr Stevens: Senator Roberts— 

Senator ROBERTS: I know this has been asked before, but I want to know who signed off on it. 

Mr Stevens: As the Sunderland review makes clear, the two publications for 7.30 were subject to robust editorial discussion. As director of news, those publications were referred up to me, and I take full responsibility for signing off on those publications. 

Senator ROBERTS: You signed off on the doctored video? 

Mr Stevens: With respect, Senator Roberts, I’d ask you to withdraw the allegation that it was doctored. The independent review showed that there was no evidence of doctoring. 

Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t it manipulated to have multiple shots when only one shot was on the original video? Surely, that’s manipulation, doctoring—fabricating? 

Mr Stevens: Senator Roberts, as you’ll observe, when you get an opportunity to read the independent review, Mr Sunderland has, in detail, explained how it didn’t occur. I would emphasise that his independent review found, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no evidence that the material was doctored. The editing mistakes were inadvertent. We don’t hide from the fact that they were— 

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me; editing mistakes were inadvertent? 

Mr Stevens: Yes. 

Senator ROBERTS: So there were mistakes made in the editing. What sort of mistakes? 

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, do you have a copy of that report? 

Senator ROBERTS: No, I don’t. 

CHAIR: Maybe we can furnish you with a copy of that report, which may assist you, which was undertaken by Mr Sunderland to investigate these issues. His findings are stepped out in there. 

Senator ROBERTS: Are you saying that it was accidental? 

Mr Stevens: It would probably be beneficial to quote Mr Sunderland, who said in his report: 

I find no evidence that anybody, at any stage, made a conscious or deliberate decision to introduce additional gunshots. 

He went on to say: 

I have found no evidence to support the conclusion that any of this was done at the direction of the journalists involved or on the initiative of the video editor in order to doctor or deliberately distort the depiction of the events that occurred. 

He said: 

On the contrary, what evidence there is suggests it was not a deliberate editorial decision to include additional gunshot audio in order to mislead or deceive. 

Senator ROBERTS: You said a minute ago—unless I’m wrong—that it was a mistake; it was an error. 

Mr Stevens: It was an editing mistake, yes. 

Senator ROBERTS: An editing mistake. In other words, it wasn’t deliberate, but it still happened? 

Mr Stevens: Absolutely. 

CHAIR: We’ll need to rotate the call, Senator Roberts. You have one last question. 

Senator ROBERTS: The Federal Court found that Mark Willacy was combative and overly defensive, and that likely led to millions of dollars being wasted by the ABC on this court case. Now there’s outright proof that the ABC ‘errored’ in its gunshots on the video to make Heston Russell look worse. All the while Mr Willacy was trying to sell his own book about the issues that have caused the ABC all these problems. Why won’t you step him down? What disciplinary action have you taken against Mr Willacy? 

Mr Stevens: Can I clarify? Was that a direct quote from the judgement? 

Senator ROBERTS: Which aspect of it? 

Mr Stevens: You said ‘the judgement’ and then you went on to say something. 

CHAIR: That is an editorialisation, I think. 

Mr Stevens: Was that a direct quote from the judgement? 

Senator ROBERTS: I don’t know if it is a direct quote; that is my understanding. The Federal Court found that Mr Willacy was ‘combative and overly defensive’. That likely led to millions of dollars being wasted; that’s my addition, ‘millions of dollars’. 

Mr Stevens: The court found that Mr Willacy genuinely believed that the publications are in the public interest. The court also generally accepted Mr Willacy’s evidence. 

Senator ROBERTS: As I understand it, the court found that Mr Willacy was ‘combative and overly defensive’. 

Mr Stevens: There are various descriptions in the judgement about the nature of the intense criticism the ABC was under and the ABC’s response to that over a period of time. Mark Willacy is a highly esteemed journalist. We back his work a hundred per cent. 

Senator ROBERTS: So you are not going to step him down? 

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: I have skimmed the recommendations and the conclusions of the independent review by Mr Alan Sunderland, who apparently had 40 years at ABC and SBS. Recommendation 1 is: 

Editorial policies and guidance should be reviewed to ensure the importance of maintaining the integrity of crucial source material is maintained, particularly in investigative stories. 

The key word being ‘integrity.’ It raises questions as to whether there was a lack of that. Recommendation 2 is: 

Training should be reviewed, in particular for non-editorial staff working in investigative areas, to ensure everyone is aware of key editorial principles including the need to maintain the integrity of source material. 

It seems that people are not adequately aware. Recommendation 3 is: 

Editing practices should be reviewed to ensure there is regular, timely and detailed face-to-face contact between editors, reporters and researchers during the editing process. 

Are they inadequate? Are they substandard? Recommendation 4 is: 

When multi-platform stories are being prepared, consistent and equal scrutiny should be applied to all elements of the story across all platforms. 

Was there inadequate scrutiny? Finally, recommendation 5 is: 

News should review the guidance note on interviews and discuss. 

I’ll go into that. The ABC’s current guidance note on interviewing has one short section dealing with the need to take care to ensure that, as far as possible, you are properly reflecting the gist of the person’s position on the key issues being discussed. Mr Stevens, it seems to me that integrity is being questioned here, and, at best, this is an incredibly sloppy outfit. You are at the top of it, aren’t you? 

Mr Stevens: You are correct to reference the term ‘integrity’. I would clarify, however, that Mr Sunderland is referencing the integrity of crucial source material. They are eminently sensible recommendations, and our editorial director can speak to our adoption of all recommendations. 

Mr Fang: The interim report has provided a series of recommendations, which we will obviously go through incredibly carefully. You have read out some of those, which I think is really important. I am happy to go through them again. In relation to source material, what Mr Sunderland is reflecting from his review is that, in the process of doing editing, where there may be a situation, as he has raised in his review, around looking for clean audio, we need to look at our processes around doing that, to ensure that we don’t make this type of inadvertent mistake again. We will review the advice around that very clearly. He also spoke about the training we should be doing at the ABC, including for non-editorial staff. We will have a look at that. Training is a really important part of what we do. We are consistently working with ABC staff about editorial policies and providing guidance, and making sure they are equipped to meet our very high standards. But we will take on board the recommendations of the interim report. 

Mr Sunderland also spoke about, as you have mentioned, editing and the regularity of face-to-face checks. Editing at this time, in this era, is complicated. Our teams are regularly producing a variety of different pieces of material for television, for online and for different video sources. Ensuring that process works in the best possible way will be something that we will look at. 

As you have pointed out, he’s asked us to look at an extension of that, which is really the oversight of multiplatform stories. As you would be aware, we have teams that make stories for multiple programs and multiple outputs. We need to make sure that there continues to be real clarity, and that we look at how we’re ensuring that communication is best handled across those different platforms. 

Senator ROBERTS: The panel from the ABC, the four of you, keep calling this an independent report. Alan Sunderland previously worked as the head of policy and staff development with ABC News, and he was a journalist for 32 years. He began as an ABC cadet in 1979, before spending more than 20 years as an on-the-road reporter with the ABC and SBS. His experience includes five years as political editor with SBS in Canberra. He returned to the ABC and to news management in 2005. When did Alan Sunderland leave the ABC? Could you not find someone who was even vaguely independent of the ABC? Is this an independent report or an insider report? 

Ms Kleyn: I would answer very clearly that it is an independent report. I would have to take on notice the exact date of Mr Sunderland’s departure from the ABC. From memory, it was around six or seven years ago; I am not sure. We can absolutely take that on notice. Mr Sunderland is an independent member of the Press Council. We are comfortable in asserting quite clearly that Mr Sunderland is independent, and he operated independently throughout this review. 

Senator ROBERTS: In 2017, Alan Sunderland wrote, ‘Well, let me try to tell you exactly what’s wrong with it.’ That was in response to calls for ABC reporting to be fair and balanced. Is this really someone who can be trusted to write an independent review of this subject? Who appointed him, and what were the criteria for his selection? 

Ms Kleyn: Mr Anderson appointed Mr Sunderland. Mr Stevens, is there something that you want to add? 

Mr Stevens: A couple of things. Firstly, before questioning the integrity of Mr Sunderland, I’d encourage the senator to read the report in full before forming any judgements about it. Secondly, the fact that Mr Sunderland has made findings against the ABC would undermine any sense that it’s a report free of criticism. 

Senator ROBERTS: Ms Kleyn, what did you learn from this whole episode and the millions of dollars in taxpayer money that have been wasted? That’s why we are here; it’s an estimates session. 

Ms Kleyn: Understood. 

Senator ROBERTS: Money has been flowing out. 

Ms Kleyn: We’ve all learnt a lot from the report. 

Senator ROBERTS: What did you learn? 

Ms Kleyn: I have learnt that we have some processes on which we need to make process improvements. We have five recommendations detailed here. I take those recommendations very seriously. My colleague has just explained how the recommendations have been laid out, and our intention to adopt the recommendations and do what we need to do to make sure these sorts of errors don’t happen again. 

Senator ROBERTS: Bearing in mind witness guide 4.15, what actions will you take as a result of this experience? Without names, because we want to make sure privacy is respected, was anyone’s employment terminated as a result of this? 

Ms Kleyn: I can confirm that no-one’s employment has been terminated. What actions will we take? We will adopt these recommendations. 

Senator ROBERTS: Did anyone leave the ABC as a result of this? 

Ms Kleyn: To my awareness, no. 

Senator ROBERTS: Mr Stevens, did anyone leave the ABC as a result of this? 

Mr Stevens: I have not left the ABC. 

Senator ROBERTS: Did anyone leave the ABC? 

Mr Stevens: No, not that we’re aware of. We can take it on notice. There would only be the need for someone to leave if there was evidence of misconduct on the part of staff. As you’ll learn, in the report there’s no evidence of misconduct. 

Senator CADELL: Going back, you can say that the editor didn’t leave because of this. In answer to the earlier question about the editor, you specifically said you didn’t want to comment regarding the privacy of an employee. By that comment, saying no-one left because of it, you’re saying he or she didn’t leave because of this? 

Mr Stevens: I did say I would take it on notice. 

Senator CADELL: You just said then that no-one left. 

Mr Stevens: To my knowledge. 

CHAIR: To their knowledge. To clarify, every point has been to their knowledge. They said they will take it on notice and investigate further. What I am hearing is that they don’t know of anyone at this point. As I’ve said, Senator Roberts, we need to rotate the call. 

Senator ROBERTS: Ms Amorelli, are you aware of anyone who left as a result of this, or was pushed out or left voluntarily? 

Ms Amorelli: To my knowledge, no. 

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Reality Check Radio

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ICAC, Scott Morrison and Freedom

I spoke to Marcus Paul about a big week in Parliament. As usual the media are up to their tricks while we’re focused on getting freedom back for Australians.

Transcript

Nice to talk to you.

Same here.

Now, of course, I have to ask being that it’s such a big story at the moment, the issue with Jacqui Lambie, did you leak her personal phone number?

I did not. I did not.

Okay.

How can you leak something that’s already been public? Jacqui Lambie published her phone number in 2014, publicly on her Facebook page. She did it again multiple times in 2019 election campaign. Marcus, you cannot leak something that’s already in the public domain. It’s not private if it’s in the public domain. She’s been telling lies because look, this is the way I see it.

Sure.

She came out and savagely attacked Pauline Hanson and was wrong in many aspects. Even before,

Yeah.

That was on Monday after Pauline spoke very well about her anti-discrimination bill. But Jacqui Lambie was public in saying that she was against injection mandates sometime ago, months ago. And then she suddenly changed and became savagely opposite. And here she was savaging Pauline Hanson, and just making, in what many people said, was a complete fool of herself. And here’s what happened. She posted her speech on her Facebook page and her Facebook page overwhelmingly condemned her. And I’m guessing that Jacqui is quite startled by what happened. She’s put her foot in it. And she’s now trying to distract from that mess that she’s created. Don’t blame me. As Jacqui said on Monday, take responsibility for your statements. Jacqui, you made your bed, you lie in it.

All right, well it’s not just One Nation that she’s had a crack at. She’s, she’s wielded the stick towards everybody this week, including the prime minister. She was scathing of Scott Morrison as well. That happened just today after she attacked One Nation.

Well, you know, I don’t know what she said about Scott Morrison, but Scott Morrison has not been telling the truth either. I mean, the man is running around the country, telling people that we don’t have injection mandates in this country. That is a complete lie. The federal government enables the states to have injection mandates because it supplies the health data that the state governments rely on to enforce those injection mandates. The federal government is completely wrong in this.

Yeah.

It’s going against the constitution. We know of people in Airservices, which is the arm looking after the aviation fleet that looks after the politicians aircraft.

Right, yeah.

And they have been told they must get injected. Now that’s that goes against the Australian constitution. Scott Morrison is a marketing man. He’s not a leader. He has been bullied and he’s been bullying people. And some of the state premiers are the same. Annastacia Palaszczuk, Dan Andrews, these people are bullies. They’re not leaders. Leaders get data, listen to people, create a vision and then draw people with them. These people are pushing people. They’re injecting people, forcibly, coercively. These are not leaders. These are bullies and they’re liars.

Alright. Of course, it’s all about vaccine mandates. Now I know that obviously, you’ve, and One Nation have been fighting against them. I was surprised, I have to say, to see Matt Canavan was one of those liberal nationals from the LNP who crossed the floor and he’s been speaking out against the vaccine mandates as well.

Matt’s very astute. He’s a very good speaker. He’s very good with the media. He’s very, very colourful and clever. He does things sometimes and then says the opposite. He, it depends. He’s a bit like Shorten in that Shorten would say one thing in Melbourne and another thing, no, I’m serious. Another thing in central Queensland, when he visited central Queensland with regard to coal. Well Matt’s similar, he’s very, very clever. Look, he’s very intelligent. He’s very astute, but I don’t trust him. But what he’s doing, and I think he’s sincere on this one, but what he does is he pays very close attention to what Pauline and I say, there’s no doubt about that. And he comes out and takes some of our statements, our topics, our policies, because he knows that what we do is we build policies based upon what the people are saying and what people need. We listen to the people. So we’re in tune with the people, and Matt in the National Party, can’t do that because he’s locked into a government that is destroying this country.

Well, it’s destroying itself at the moment because of that.

So what Matt’s done, say what.

It’s destroying itself at the moment because of that,

Yes, it is! It is!

It’s imploding. Before our eyes.

Have you heard the latest question?

Tell me.

Will the death of the Liberal Party be attributed to COVID or to suicide?

Dear oh dearie me.

And it’s the same as with the media. The legacy media, Marcus, is turning into a circus. People don’t trust you anymore. I’m not saying you, I’m talking about the legacy media, you know, and I have a name like, I understand you had a crack at me a couple of days ago, which is your prerogative about Jacqui Lambie. Now Jacqui Lambie is telling, making false statements and false claims in the parliament, and you sided with her without understanding the data. I don’t call people in that position journalists, I call them turnalist. You turn lies into truth.

Well that’s why I did say in my comments that I would speak to you and get your side of the story. And that’s what I do on this programme. That’s why I’m chatting to you now, Malcolm.

That’s right. And I respect you and admire you for that, Marcus. That’s good.

You know, I was-

But there are so many legacy media journalists,

Yeah.

And the media is going down, media’s suiciding because people don’t trust the media anymore

No.

Because the media has become propagandists, become activists.

Yeah. Let’s look at this issue as well. There’s been some speaking of reportage, incorrect reporting that One Nation joined in defeating a proposed National Integrity Commission.

Bullshit! All right! Okay.

Bullshit.

Why?

We didn’t join with the government in defeating anything. There are basically, let’s for the sake of this argument, there are two types of motions. There are the bills that come up and legislation that is introduced largely by the government, because it is the government. That’s what the people decided.

Yeah

They’re introduced as legislation. You can side with the government or go against it. We have said very, very clearly, and we have done it every bill this week, we are opposing the government. We’re not just abstaining, going down the middle of the road. We are opposing the government to put pressure on this government to bring it to heel. Now, then there are other motions which are called procedural motions. Those things change the order of business for the day, and anybody can stand up and move a procedural motion, but they have to have the numbers. Now we then make our mind up on each of those according to the merits of the argument. What happened was that Rex Patrick moved a procedural motion to set aside standing orders and change the order of business to deal with the Integrity Commission Bill from Helen Haines.

Yeah.

It’s not a bad bill. You know, we’re inclined to support it with a couple of changes, but the vote was not on her bill. The vote was on whether or not to start discussing her bill. It was not appropriate for two reasons.

Okay.

First of all, there was other business, standard business in the Senate that needed to be addressed. Secondly, you can’t bring in an integrity commission debate without giving people notice to make speeches. We weren’t prepared.

Okay.

We’ve gotta do further work on it. So we stood up for the Senate and made sure that the Senate continued on it’s stable path. We didn’t wanna cause mayhem on that. And you can’t have an integrity commission coming in in five minutes, but there are certain things, Marcus, Pauline and I have both said that parliament has failed to look after itself. We need an integrity commission, but, we’ve also said we will not have something that puts politicians on display with no factual data and smears them and ridicules them, drags them through the mud, and then no charges at the end of it. I mean, some of these are just witch hunts, and that’s all they are. We’ve gotta have an integrity commission that has some guts, but also has some accountability to it.

All right, so in other words

At the moment, that’s not the case.

One Nation supports a national, federal integrity commission, but not as it’s currently being proposed. And you need more time to mull over if you like, any proposal and put forward any amendments that you might suggest would be a better option.

Correct.

So it’s not just a case, because I get a lot of, I’ll be honest with you and you obviously, the monitoring goes on and that’s fine. But a lot of people that might support this programme suggest to me, “Well, next time, can you ask Pauline why she votes against this? Can you ask Malcolm why they voted against that?” Why do they always seemingly side with the government, Malcolm?

Well that’s complete nonsense. We’ve just, there are two politicians in the Senate right now who are opposing every government bill until Scott Morrison ends the segregation and discrimination that is rampant in this country now in every state.

Yeah.

That’s me and Pauline. There are two other senators. That’s Gerrard Rennick. I’ll name them because I admire them for their courage and their integrity. Gerrard Rennick from Queensland in the Liberal Party, Alex Antic from South Australia in the Liberal Party who are abstaining. They’re abstaining right now, that’s putting a lot of

Well these rebel senators

Pressure on the government.

Well, you’re right. These rebel senators are causing headaches for Scott Morrison and his government.

Well see, it depends what you’re at, whether you’re journalists or turnalist. They’re not rebels. They’re doing their job. They’re revolting from, not revolting, but they’re not complying with dictates from the Liberal Party. Labor Party senators and MPS are gutless. They do not stand up for the people. They just cowtow the line with the Labor Party is pushing. Liberals. Most of them do the same, but some of them have a little bit of guts and courage. Rennick has got lots of guts and courage, and he’s got a lot of integrity, and he’s got a lot of sense. He’s a very intelligent man. Alex Antic is showing the same qualities and they are abstaining. Pauline and I are saying to hell with the government, you have to bring back freedom. It’s more, there are some bloody important bills, Marcus, that are coming up in the Senate. We will vote them down too even though they’re important to us because there’s something much more important. And that is freedom. Freedom is absolutely essential. And this country has gone to the dogs.

All right. Malcolm. You know I love chatting to you.

Mate, I’m still waiting.

Hmm, on?

I’m still waiting for you to bring someone who understands science, and a collection of stories and emotions mate, is not science. I’m happy to explain to you what science is and the importance of science.

I know what science is.

What is it?

Well, it’s a collation of obviously scientific evidence or proof that includes data, as you like to put it, empirical data that supports a point of view. But the thing is-

No, not a point of view.

Well…

You make a point of view based on the data.

Yeah.

It’s done within a logical framework to prove cause and effect.

But anybody can use different science, anybody can use different science to support their own point of view.

No you can’t, because it’s either it’s objective data. That’s the beauty of science.

Yeah.

Up until the scientific method was developed and refined people relied upon the biggest bully, the most intimidating politician, the most power, the money power, the most financial power, the most military power, the strongest people, the most dominant religion. That’s what made decisions. With the scientific method it suddenly became objective,

All right.

Which meant the weakest person in the world could have suddenly put forward an argument, and if he had, or she had the data and the logical sequence that proved cause and effect, they won the day, and that’s freed up people. Science is not just a highly disciplined objective approach to understanding the world and the understanding nature. It is fundamental to freedom. Freedom, and that’s what I started when I started on this campaign 12 years ago, that was, I sat down after 12 months of this and I thought, “Why am I doing this?” It’s something in the gut drove me. And I realised that the number one reason was for protecting freedom and restoring freedom.

Yeah.

That has now been destroyed in any scientific process and the political process.

So I’m just going through a couple of notes here. So Lambie off the Christmas card list, Canavan on it. Perfect. Malcolm, always good to chat. We’ll talk next week.

Same. Thanks, Marcus.

One Nation senator, Malcolm Roberts.

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