The taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has been heavily criticised for publishing a short film depicting a fictional scenario where mining magnate Gina Rinehart is sickeningly assaulted and killed.
The depiction was aired during a segment of the ABC’s Race Around the World program, a recent reboot of the 1990s series where amateur filmmakers travel around the world filming short documentaries.
In episode six of the program, aired on July 12, participant Kate McGuinness narrates a documentary about a man who practices traditional Scottish stick weaponry.
McGuinness then says: “Because when the revolution comes, will you hide under your bed or will you know exactly how to shove a stick right up Gina Rinehart’s butthole, stirring it round, mixing her guts up nice and smooth, making her into one big sausage roll, to make something outta nothing.”
McGuinness later issued an apology, saying her films were “farcical” and that it was not her intention to promote violence.
“Unfortunately, jokes do not land with everyone. Its purpose was never to be taken literally. I apologise to anyone I’ve offended,” she said.
Group Against Women’s Violence Weighs In
The comments in the documentary, which can still be found on the ABC’s website, have drawn the concern of politicians and groups such as Collective Shout, a grassroots Australian movement against the objectification of women and girls.
“Is it acceptable to publicly encourage Australians to anally rape a woman to death with a stick if you don’t like the woman targeted?” the organisation said in a statement.
“At Collective Shout we don’t believe some women deserve to be protected from threats of violent sexual assault and others do not, based on a hierarchy of popularity. To defend some and not others would make us hypocrites.”
Collective Shout said it was no excuse to say the clip was satire during a national epidemic of violence against women where one Australian woman a week was being killed as a result.
Group supporter Dr. Belinda Carne, who wrote to the ABC regarding the segment, said the violence depicted in the segment was not excusable.
“Whatever the ABC or Ms. McGuinness’s opinion of Ms. Rinehart, it is never defensible in any way to encourage sexual violence against any person, ever,” she said.
“When you broadcast this material, you are directly contributing to a culture of normalising and in my view, implicitly sanctioning sexual violence.”
Labor Minister Calls Program ‘Revolting’
On July 2, federal Labor Health Minister Mark Butler told News24 the segment of the program was “pretty revolting”.
“It is not the sort of thing I think we should see on TV, whether it’s News24, a commercial television station or our public broadcaster frankly,” he said.
“Why do we have to see rubbish like this on our TVs, regardless of who it’s about … This sort of material shouldn’t be on our TVs, I don’t think.”
Rinehart Files Legal Action Against ABC
On July 31, Hancock Prospecting, to which Rinehart is executive chairman, issued a statement saying it had filed legal action against the ABC.
Hancock Prospecting called for the national broadcaster to immediately remove the clip and to publicly apologise, as well as making a comprehensive investigation into how it was allowed to run.
As of the morning of Aug. 3, the clip was still publicly available on the ABC’s online platform, iView.
“Hancock has now formally placed ABC chair Kim Williams, deputy chair Lisa Caffery and managing director Hugh Marks on notice of detailed allegations of serious contraventions of multiple Australian criminal and civil laws arising from the ABC’s publication and continued publication of the material,” the statement said.
The Epoch Times contacted the ABC for comment.
