Eliza Barr: ‘I want to do my job without the threat of violence’

News reporting allows us to communicate to readers about their communities, their government and information that shapes and changes their lives. It is essential to democracy. And it is essential we, the press, can do our jobs without the threat of violence.

• Man charged after alleged attack on photographer

I have wanted to be a journalist for as long as I can remember.

I am passionate about telling people’s stories and I have been fortunate enough to do that in some of Sydney’s most diverse, interesting suburban communities since I began my career in December 2014 as a NewsLocal cadet with News Corp.

Reporters Eliza Barr and photographer Dylan Robinson after the confrontation. Picture: AAP/Joel Carrett

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News reporting allows us to communicate to readers about their communities, their government and information that shapes and changes their lives. It is essential to democracy. And it is essential we, the press, can do our jobs without the threat of violence.

We are fortunate to have freedom of speech in Australia.

We are free to hold diverse political views and to express them. However, freedom of speech comes with responsibility — and sometimes it comes with consequences.

Senator Fraser Anning arrived at the site of the devastating 2005 Cronulla riots — which saw Australians from many places and many backgrounds devolve into horrifying violence — to announce he was running a candidate in the Prime Minister’s electorate of Cook.

He said Muslims and Sudanese people are repeatedly committing acts of violence here against local people.

A video still of the alleged assault of Daily Telegraph photographer Dylan Robinson. Picture: AAP

And Senator Anning can say that if he wants — but he should not be surprised when the media does its job and asks for the evidence.

That is when the mood at this press conference changed.

I was challenged by people in attendance at Senator Anning’s press conference and that is fine. It comes with the territory.

But violence is not part of the package deal for working journalists.

If you have something to say and you stand by it, there should be no reason to attack the people who factually report it.

I have seen some people say: “Well, of course this happened in Cronulla, the place where the riots ripped at the fabric of an otherwise peaceful community.”

I have lived in the seat of Cook for 17 years and this is not the Cronulla I know. This is not the Cronulla I love.

Senator Fraser Anning speaks to the media at Dunningham Park at Cronulla before the alleged assault occurred. Picture: AAP/Joel Carrett

Hatred does not live here anymore. Hatred did not live here in 2005, either — it arrived on the train with people who are racist and very, very afraid of nothing.

I am proud of where I live. I am proud of where I work, as a local journalist in the Shire and St George — home to a diverse community of people who, as the Prime Minister likes to say, are having a go. Having a go at a decent life in which they contribute as neighbours, as residents and as workers in the little world immediately around them.

And I thank my lucky stars every day I wake up and get to report the news, like I always dreamt I would as a child.

I just want my colleagues and I to do that outside the threat of violence.