Source : Perth Now news
Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has called for sweeping changes to the ABC’s editorial standards after the national broadcaster issued a belated apology over a video segment that featured graphic references to violence against the billionaire.
The ABC apologised to Mrs Rinehart on Thursday, 25 days after the Race Around the World episode aired, saying the segment had fallen short of community expectations and that its guidance on violence would be amended.
The four-minute video titled A Very Relaxing Video — which was aired alongside several other sketches on the July 12 episode —broadcast a skit featuring a contestant fantasising about committing an act of sexualised violence against the mining magnate.
In a statement provided to The Nightly on Saturday, Mrs Rinehart’s mining company Hancock Prospecting said it was waiting to see whether the ABC would make “long overdue changes.”
“We wait to see the long overdue changes to the ABC’s ‘editorial standards’. Such editorial standards need to stop sexual violence and torture until death episodes being shown or depicted in any form against any woman on the ABC, including under the pretence of satire or art or any other cloak,” a spokesperson said.
“Satire needs to be funny; what the ABC approved to be aired for 25 days, in its violent torture until death content, was not.”
The mining company called for the revised standards to prevent depictions of sexual violence from being broadcast by the ABC.
“The content shown on the ABC normalised violent torture against a woman till death, and dehumanised an Australian, such that she was worthless and ok to be sexually tortured, should not be and must not be acceptable in our country,” the statement continued.
“This concept that a woman can be regarded as worthless (even if she has contributed hugely to a country), so it’s ok to sexually torture her to death, is not a new concept. It is practised by terrorists and has been practised elsewhere in the world, and must never be regarded as art, or acceptable in our country, even by the ABC.”
The call for change comes after the matter was referred to the ABC Ombudsman, which found that the program did not breach the broadcaster’s editorial standards.
In his apology, the ABC’s managing director Hugh Marks said the broadcaster acknowledged “the episode has fallen short of community expectations”, adding that “the Ombudsman had found that the film did not breach the ABC’s editorial policies.”
Hancock Prospecting said these findings “fail” women and taxpayers.
“The ABC and now the ABC Ombudsman have both stated that this program ‘met the ABC’s editorial standards’! In some ways this is not surprising, as in the last 5 years, the ABC Ombudsman has only found that fewer than 5 per cent of the complaints raised resulted in their finding that the ABC had breached its standards,” the spokesperson said.
“It should not be surprising that these standards need significant improvement, if taxpayers are expected to think it is ok to meet the ABC’s lavish expenditure and ok to have dehumanising content of any Australian woman, such that it is ok to be sexually tortured until death, and other lack of reasonable editorial standards.
“The internal ABC Ombudsman’s decision that the ABC did not breach ABC Editorial Standards fails all Australian women and the millions of taxpayers who fund the ABC.”
