JOURNALIST:
Just one question, Bill Shorten has said that what the Coalition is trying to do is attack the independence of the ABC, do you feel that’s what you’re doing?
TREASURER:
No, look the Government is raising legitimate questions on behalf of the nation about the behaviour of the ABC. It’s perfectly reasonable, perfectly reasonable. I’m still dumfounded at the lack of judgement of whoever it was that thought it was a good idea to put that guy on live TV in front of a million people.
JOURNALIST:
Did Mark Scott’s speech appease any of your concerns?
TREASURER:
Well, I’ll leave that to the Minister for Communications and the Prime Minister. I don’t think it’s a good idea for Mark Scott to be having a very public fight with the Government after the ABC clearly made a mistake.
JOURNALIST:
This individual did speak on other media outlets and has done since, are they allowed if you like, to encourage free speech [inaudible]?
TREASURER:
Look, again, he just shouldn’t be given a platform. But obviously, as I said previously, I’ve had friends that have been in the audience of Q&A and what were they possibly thinking about knowing that he was coming in and then facilitating a question for him. It’s a bizarre [inaudible] problem.
JOURNALIST:
So you’re saying that other media organisations should avoid having him in…
TREASURER:
Don’t give these people a voice, don’t give them a voice. We know what their views are, we’ve got Australians out there fighting to try and prevent these people from running the world. Why do we want to give them a big megaphone here in Australia.