A Liberal senator has slammed the ABC for a biased radio news report which said that Australians with right-wing political opinions present a “threat from within” by running for local council.
Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick gave a scathing assessment of a segment aired on Friday with reporter Isabel Moussalli and featuring City of Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill, Linda Scott from the Australian Local Government Association, and Dr Rachel Busbridge from Australian Catholic University.
“The ABC should not be smearing people running for local government. Listen to this drivel from the ABC,” Senator Rennick said on Tuesday.
“They are literally saying anyone with right wing views shouldn’t be running for local government this year.
“And of course they interview left wing politicians and academics only. No balance whatsoever.
“They start off talking about the attempted assassination on Trump forgetting that it was a left-wing nutter that pulled the trigger.”
The segment began with Mr Greenhill saying that there was a “real issue” in his area with “a group of conspiracy theorists, far-right conspiracy theorists”, but did not elaborate on their views other than to say they were against far-left propaganda books in libraries and LGBT extremist events.
Ms Scott, who is also a City of Sydney councillor, also claimed without evident that “when you’re an elected representative and a woman, you do face more threats. The security threats have worsened”.
Reporter Ms Moussalli then segued to the next guest by saying: “That threat can also come from within”.
“We are definitely seeing more people who are members of the far right and extremist groups running for local government,” Dr Busbridge said.
“That’s Rachel Busbridge, a senior lecturer in sociology at the Australian Catholic University, who researches local government and culture wars. She points to a rise in tension and conspiracy theories around the pandemic as one reason for this rise. She also notes extremist groups across the world are using a strategy to go local and target council elections,” Ms Moussalli explained.
Dr Busbridge then noted that one of the reasons for increased controversy around local politics was because local councils were taking on bigger and more divisive issues, and admitted that sidelining any type of community group has the potential to “escalate their gripes”.
