The media’s campaign against media freedom and free speech in Tasmania

Isla MacGregor talk at LWS Kelley-Jay Keen-Minshull

Parliament House Lawns Hobart 21 March 2023

Its not hard to imagine just how gender identity brainwashing in Tasmanian institutions has been achieved especially as most media won’t report on the
rising community opposition to this new state religion. Why won’t media report on the countless media releases put out by children’s and women’s rights groups in Tasmania? Why, because media organisations are captured by workplace accreditation schemes such as ACON or Rainbow Tick whose
content guidelines require journalists to be transbiased in order to prevent the
trans community from being offended, harmed or commiting suicide from
potential impartial reportage of the facts or the evidence.

Before I start, I would like to thank the small handful of journalists who are
here today who manage to report on controversial issues with impartiality and
integrity. I won’t name them in order to protect them from being harassed and
intimidated or reported to their employer for wrong think and re-education at
the Ministry for Truth, better known as the Hobart based NGO Working It Out.

In January last year a small group of people gathered in Tasmania to discuss
the re-etablishment of a Free Speech Alliance in Australia.

Only after last August’s ABC Media Watch and Paul Barry’s scathing attack
on ABC’s failure to report on the Tavistock scandal did we launch the Free
Speech Alliance Australia fb page.

In November last year the Free Speech Alliance Australia ran its first forum at
Parliament House in Hobart ‘Conversion Therapy Laws – risks and harms? A
week or so before the forum Hobart ABC interviewed Greens Leader Cassy
O’Connor who had called on Premier Jeremy Rockcliff to pull the forum. ABC
made no attempt to interview Free Speech Alliance in response and I followed
this up with a complaint to ABC Ombudswoman Fiona Cameron…. I wrote:

‘As the organiser of the forum I contacted the ABC after I heard this interview
and sent them the Invitation to the forum which outlined the facts for them to
report on…. I received no contact from the ABC …. Why would the ABC not
want to interview someone from the Free Speech Alliance Australia about
their very first forum, one that oddly enough a Green parliamentarian has
called to have banned? Is free speech not an issue for the ABC in Tasmania?’

I had on many previous occasions provided contact details for gender dysphoria experts Dr Dianna Kenny and Dr Phillip Morris for ABC to do
interviews with them on the conversion laws issue – to no avail.

While my complaint was not upheld, the Ombudswoman did invite me to
contact her again with any ‘specific complaint’ and that she had ‘taken the liberty of forwarding [my] email to the ABC News and current affairs Editorial
Manager so that [my] advice can be given due consideration as relevant.’

A few weeks ago, six Tasmanians held a protest outside the Hobart Aquatic
Centre against single sex change rooms and toilets now being promoted for
use by any sex. We had put out a Media Release early in the morning. Hobart
Cr Louise Elliott bravely turned up to listen to what we had to say. An ABC
camerawoman turned up and took extensive footage of the protest but ABC
did not contact us for interview and ran no story.

Ben Seeder from the Examiner spoke to Cr Elliott and Jessica Hoyle from
LGB Tasmania, and a balanced and fair report appeared in the Examiner and
Advocate the next day. The sort of report we would normally expect from a
good journalist.

But, also the next day, The Advocate ran an Editorial that had all the signs of
having been written by none other than Rodney Croome. Editor Anthony
Haneveer, assured us he wrote the Editorial, a diatribe titled Trans, gender
diverse face fear, ignorance (Saturday Feb 4th 2023), which was a nasty
attack on the protesters at the pool and riddled with bile and venom.

Haneveer had not spoken to any of the people at the Hobart Aquatic Centre
protest to CHECK HIS FACTS or provide evidence for his wild allegations. I
typical Rodney style, Haneveer weaponised an ideological position in an
attempt to discredit a group of people who have well founded concerns about
the need for facilities that provide for safe and comfortable facilities for girls
and women and for all. The women representing three groups wrote to the
Editor to complain about his diatribe and requested a meeting, a request he
rejected but replied suggesting we write a 150 Word Letter to the Editor. We
submitted a jointly signed Op Ed and as expected, he ignored us.

This is not the first time Opinion pieces have not been published by
Tasmanian print media. Last year Mercury Editor Craig Warhurst rejected
three concise Op Eds from three organisations concerning anti conversion
laws. Not one was published and NO reasons were provided. Why you may
well ask? At an hour long meeting with Craig Warhurs to discuss Mercury
bias, he quietly alluded to the possibility that anything published may ‘cause
harm’ to trans people.

Some of you may have recently seen ABC Hobart and Media Watch doing a
beat up about now former Examiner Editor Mark Westfield. Mark Westfield
was a former advisor to former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and election
campaign manager for the wonderful Kath Deves. Westfield had only been in
the job since 23 January. It was alleged his sacking was because of an
‘alleged’ fake letter he published in Letters to Editor concerning allegations
that a trans identified male had been in the women’s change room toilets at
the Launceston Aquatic Centre.

We all know how people get hounded and sacked in Australia for falling foul of the transmafia thought police. I’m sure Rodney Croome, likely here today, could tell us about his actions concerning Mark Westfield. The story we have yet to see the Examiner publish is about at least two women, have come forward to tell about a man in the women’s change rooms and that this man has been identified on CCTV footage. And again, how another trans identified male was ejected from the women’s change room at the Devonport pool around 2021. What other Editor in Australia has published a Letter to the Editor without fact checking?

According to one comment on a post on The Australian fb about Westfield’s
sacking, the Guardian editor has, among many others, committed the same
crime. But have they been sacked?

The Monday after the Hobart pool protest, C Louise Elliott tabled her Motion
to Council about Council owned single sex facilities needing to be safe and
comfortable for all members of the community. The Motion failed. Yes 9 out of
12 Councillors don’t believe girls and women should feel safe and
comfortable in facilities provided by Council!

But instead of interviewing Louise Elliott about her motion, ABC Mornings
host Ryk Goddard rang his Green Party pal and Deputy Mayor Helen Burnet
to get her in for interview. Louise rang in at the end of the interview and
blasted Ryk, politely, for not asking her for interview to speak about her own
Motion. Ryk has a habit of inviting his pals onto his show to showcase his
virtue signalling to the ABC Queer Department in the hope he might get into
the finals for the ACON Workplace Equality Index awards for promoting
INTERSECTIONALITY at every possible opportunity.

So, off went another complaint to ABC Ombudswoman Fiona Cameron:
My complaint concerns several matters.

Firstly:

Regarding ABC Radio Breakfast host Ryk Goddard’s Breakfast show on
Tuesday 14th February at approx 7.48am with regard to a Motion being put
forward by Cr Louise Elliott and to go before Hobart City Council on 20 Feb
concerning single sex toilets and change rooms:

  • Ryk Goddard, without inviting Cr Louise Elliott on his program to talk about
    her Motion, invited his friend who shares his personal views on this issue,
    Deputy Lord Mayor Helen Burnett , onto his program to express her
    opposition to the Motion.
  • His interview misrepresented Cr Elliott’s motion and included the leading
    question: “Is there fear and confusion about inclusive spaces?”
  • You will hear from the recording of the session that Cr Elliott had to ring in
    on talkback to speak to Ryk about her own Motion.
  • You will hear that she was very displeased that Ryk had failed to contact her first and that the only reason she got on air was because she had to ring in.
  • It is notable that before Ryk spoke to Louise he made the announcement
    that he would “…aim is to address this without causing any harm to the
    community”.
  • Ryk also claimed that he was covering “ideas as they were put to me in
    terms of the motion” without naming who put these ideas to him but which he responded to by interviewing Helen Burnett not Louise Elliott.
  • Ryk spent 3 minutes interviewing Helen Burnett and one minute with Louise
  • Ryk, after hearing Cr Elliott’s response, Ryk has made no attempt to invite
    her on his program to actually conduct a proper interview with her and give
    her the opportunity to actually tell listeners about her motion.
  • Ryk needs to make a public apology to Cr Elliott and in good grace have her
    on his program to let her explain this issue to listeners.
  • The topic is still relevant today as the Motion is to be debated in Council
    tonight and will be covered by ABC later tonight or tomorrow or soon after.

Secondly:

This morning 20 Feb, Ryk Goddard on Breakfast, covered two more issues
that are increasingly being seen as an attempt, not at ‘cultural leadership’ as
Ryk might and some others in the ABC might perceive, but as social
engineering and using his privileged position at the ABC to disseminate his
personal views.

The issues he raised were:

  • Whether the words in the bible had to be changed
  • Whether the name of Macquarie Street in central Hobart needs to be
    changed – following on no doubt from the campaign in Sydney to remove the statue of Governor Macquarie

I have been informed by many former Hobart ABC listeners that since Ryk
Goddard took over the Breakfast show that they have stopped listening and
they want a new presenter.

Thirdly:

Patricia Karvelas interviewed a journalist in the early morning last week on
RN who mentioned the case of the trans rapist in Scotland, but went on to
downplay its influence.

A later interview at peak time was with a political colleague of Sturgeon’s who
only talked about how good she was and how much she was trolled by
misogynists.

There was a follow-up story on The World Today in which only the
independence issue was discussed; the transgender issue was not even
mentioned.

I would like to point out that the media in Scotland and the UK, in the last few
weeks has had massive coverage on the problems plaguing Nicola Sturgeon
over her position on the proposed sex self ID laws which was the main driver
in her decision to resign as leader of the SNP. This coverage has increased
since her resignation yet the ABC persists in not reporting this.

Why?

I should like to conclude that the coverage you mention Josh Scheps on ABC
Radio Sydney gave to Dr Phillip Morris is not an adequate response from you
on the failure of the ABC to give proper coverage to these important issues.
You will be aware that the front page of The Australian this weekend had a
story about findings from a paper just released by physicians working at the
Westmead Children’s Hospital Gender Clinic, an Editorial and two other lengthy articles about this medical scandal.

Yet not a peep out of the ABC.

Why?

Yet again, responding to this, I have had no response from Hobart ABC to my
Media Release below, likely as Ryk Goddard puts it from his ideological
position that any coverage by the ABC on this medical scandal needs ‘to
address this without causing any harm to the community’. I have provided
repeated opportunities to ABC in Hobart to interview medical experts in the
treatment of gender dysphoria as I recognise that it is preferable for a medical
expert to speak to these issues – to no avail. It is more likely to cause harm to
the community if the ABC continues to promote the views of a political lobby
group, ignore international developments, ignore expert opinions and sanitize
and censor these issues.

The ABCs continued compliance with ACON’s directives through the ABC
Queer Department and influence over editorial policy and reportage on these
issues, will very soon come back to bite the ABC.

Likely, in due course, the ABC will be found to be culpable of withholding vital
information regarding child safeguarding and child health and medical
malpractice.

Culpable of allowing the national broadcaster to become the tool of a political
lobby group to the detriment of the children’s health and the public good.

The week after the pool protest in Hobart, there were two protests against
drag queen story time held at the Launceston Library. At the first, Examiner
journo Allison Folette turned up and did a lengthy interview with Jess Hoyle
LGB Tasmania, but nothing appeared in the Examiner next day. The second
protest on the day of the event attracted a bigger crowd. Did the ABC do a
story on this, no, but 3 reporters did attend ‘as observers’ and mingled with
the drag queen welcoming group. Four Tas Police officers also mingled with
the welcoming group and enjoyed themsleves taking selfies. The following
day, the front page of the Examiner ran yet another hatchet job against
protesters against the event, a very biased piece indeed. Having done many
interviews with journalists in Tasmania over the years, I am astonished at the
palpable hostility emanating from some on this issue.

UK journalist Janice Turner wrote in another one of her brilliant articles in The
Times: Trans U-turn is Belated Victory for Free Speech:
….But for years, few American journalists touched this story. Those who
dared, such as Jesse Singal at The Atlantic, endured violent threats and
cancelled work, as trans activists argued it was bigotry even to question the
ethics of transitioning children. At first the issue split down US culture war
lines with Republican states banning hormones and gender surgery for
minors while Democratic California declared itself a sanctuary state to
welcome them in.

Yet slowly, five years after this newspaper, the NYT acknowledged a middle
ground: liberal readers began asking why whole friendship groups of girls
were now trans boys; young women openly regretted hastily approved
mastectomies; lesbians who had been tomboys and gay men who were
“effeminate” boys worried that they had rushed off to clinics. Finally, the paper set its best investigative reporters on to this potential medical scandal to produce long, deep, effort fully balanced reports. Reader comments brimmed with relief that the NYT was finally doing its job.

In response, trans activist staff members signed an open letter to NYT
editors. It said that in publishing journalism questioning “the propriety of
medical care for trans children” the paper was aligning with “anti-trans hate
groups”.

To anyone who follows US media witch-hunts, this was no surprise. In 2020,
the NYT comment editor resigned after commissioning an opinion piece by
Tom Cotton, the Republican senator, calling for the army to quell riots that
were devastating mainly black neighbourhoods after George Floyd’s murder.

Later, in what was described as a “Maoist struggle session”, other writers who
did not accord with an uncritical social justice line were forced out. In short,
faced with demands to curtail broad debate and journalistic inquiry, editors
caved.

But not this time. Instead Joe Kahn replied: “We live in an era when
journalists regularly come under fire for doing solid and essential work. We
are committed to protecting and supporting them.” He added that it was
unacceptable and uncollegiate for journalists to target their own colleagues
on social media.

In response, the NewsGuild (a media union) said Kahn was in effect
forbidding journalists from lobbying for better workplace conditions, since its
trans coverage made certain staff feel “unsafe”. (Extend this logic and a pro-
Palestinian column could be vetoed by a passionate Zionist; indeed, no
newspaper could function.) But in a 150-strong Zoom call, the mass of NYT
reporters told their own union to get stuffed. Journalists for journalism had
won.

On ABC radio this morning the massive crash in ABC radio ratings was
mentioned. Is there any wonder why?

This poster here of cancelled women in Australia today shows the courage of
women across Australia who have been threatened, attacked, vilified or
sacked for speaking out about child safe guarding and women’s rights.
This – is just the beginning.