Today show reporter Brooke Boney tells Q&A she’s ‘so happy’ Pauline Hanson is axed from Nine
Today reporter Brooke Boney has told Q&A she’s “happy” Nine axed Pauline Hanson over her “disgusting” comments about housing tenants.
Today show reporter Brooke Boney said she was “so happy” controversial politician Pauline Hanson was axed by Nine as her recent comments about social housing tenants are “disgusting”.
“I am so happy to see her gone,” Boney said on ABC-TV’s Q&A program on Monday night.
She said she felt “completely heartbroken” when she saw Hanson’s comments on television.
“I grew up in Housing Commission. To me, I was thinking about all of those kids sitting at home watching.
“All of those people trapped in their apartments, watching and thinking, ‘This is what Australia thinks of us. This is what the rest of our country thinks – is that we’re alcoholics and drug addicts’. And that’s disgusting.
MORE: Hanson ‘couldn’t care less’ about TV ban
What can be done to protect the residents of Melbourne’s locked down towers from further vilification? And what can be to ensure these residents have access to daily necessities? #QandA pic.twitter.com/5u5kLbJz5I
— QandA (@QandA) July 6, 2020
“I’m all for free speech, and I think that people, when they have different perspectives and different opinions, that most of the time it does help drive argument forward or debate forward or policy forward.
“But when you use it to vilify people, or to be deliberately mean and mean-spirited, it’s …. that, to me, is disgusting.
“She says hurtful things about Aboriginal people as well that upset me.”
Boney, a Gamilaroi/Gomeroi woman, was one of four panellists on Q&A on Monday in a wide-ranging program including topics such as COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, cancel culture, alcohol in lockdown and political ethics.
Shadow Federal Minister Environment and Water, Terri Butler, said Hanson had been “a public racist since 1996”.
“She used her first maiden speech to say that we were in danger of being ‘swamped by Asians’ and used her second speech saying we were in danger of being ‘swamped by Muslims.
“We’re not talking about someone who just woke up this morning a racist. Shows have been platforming her. I think it’s a business model. I think it’s all about her.
“She’s got a party built on a brand. The brand is built on her personality. Her business model has worked.”
Ex-Liberal MP Christopher Pyne disagreed.
“I think that Pauline Hanson genuinely believes the things that she says,” he said.
“She’s been quite consistent about it – consistently bad, right? – but she’s been consistent about it.
“I’ve been surprised watching Pauline Hanson over 20-odd years that her views haven’t changed very much.
“There’s definitely a cadre of people who believe and agree with what Pauline says.
“And they’ve been the one party from the non-Labor side of politics that’s actually been quite successful over the last 20 years, One Nation.”
Asked by Q&A host Hamish Macdonald whether programs such as Today “place the ratings over productive public conversation”, Pyne said he did think so.
“Ratings is very much the pre-eminent priority of those kinds of shows, or most commercial television, because they want to sell advertising,” Mr Pyne said.
“So Pauline Hanson does very well for ratings, because she’ll say these kinds of totally inappropriate things.
“Racially profiling people in public housing is absolutely disgraceful, and such a thing of the past.”
In response to a question about cancel culture – the process by which people, events, books or films can be “cancelled” for having offensive or outdated views – Mr Pyne said he wouldn’t back what has recently happened to Civil War film, Gone With the Wind.
In the film’s case, it was removed from streaming platforms by HBO Max because of the character of Mammy, who was a slave and later re-added with a disclaimer in the introduction in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.
Will censoring comedy help to stop the reinforcement of racial stereotypes - or will it further add to the problem by making the stereotypes invisible? #QandA pic.twitter.com/Ii8pKpSVEa
— QandA (@QandA) July 6, 2020
“You can’t actually make a movie about the Civil War in the United States without having black slaves in it,” Mr Pyne said.
“It doesn’t actually mean that you are parodying black people as slaves. It means it’s a proper historic record of what happened.
“I wouldn’t cancel Gone With The Wind.”
However he said some of the modern comedies on the ABC featuring blackface were a different story.
“Because that’s modern, and it’s completely unnecessary, and it’s clearly racially profiling black people in an inappropriate way, and we should know better than that.”
Brooke Boney said she wasn’t necessarily against statues, but if there were to be statues they should include monuments to revered Indigenous people from history like Bennelong, Barangaroo or Pemulwuy.
“I’m not offended by, you know, Redskins or Chicos,” she said.
“I would rather walk into a supermarket and not see racist things on cheese.”
But she said comedian Chris Lilley’s response to criticism of his black face character Jonah From Tonga had been “disgusting”.
She said that instead of apologising, Lilley had released another Jonah From Tonga video.
“He shared it on his personal YouTube channel. He hasn’t come out and said “I’m sorry”. He hasn’t come out and said ‘anyone this is a learning moment for me’.
“I think that’s disgusting.”
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