Peter Dutton slams ABC’s ‘rubbish’ reporting on Alice Springs

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has demanded ABC chair Ita Buttrose intervene in the reports from Alice Springs claiming a meeting showcased white supremacy.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Picture: Tara Croser

Peter Dutton has demanded ABC chair Ita Buttrose address what he calls the “rubbish” reporting from Alice Springs that has been aired on the public broadcaster in the past week.

ABC reports in recent days have claimed that displays of “white supremacy” were evident at a community meeting on Monday, where the rolling youth crime wave engulfing the town was discussed by concerned residents, local business owners and Indigenous and non-Indigenous community leaders.

Multiple sources who were ­actually present inside the forum have rejected suggestions that any sentiments associated with white supremacist ideology were expressed inside the meeting.

But the ABC’s Indigenous affairs correspondent, who was stationed outside the meeting, stated: “People were leaving early and streaming out of that Convention Centre in Alice Springs … one resident who was non-Indigenous said the meeting was, quote, ‘a ­disgusting display of white supre­macy’,” the reporter said.

The Opposition Leader said the report was unacceptable and urged Ms Buttrose to intervene.

“I know it’s a really difficult topic to talk about, and it’s an unsavoury subject, but that is the reality of the life that many of these kids are leading up there,” he said.

“(For) … the ABC and others to dismiss it – ‘there’s nothing to see here, and this is just a mob that’s dominated by white supremacists’ – it’s rubbish, and frankly, they’re doing a disservice to everybody in that local community.”

Mr Dutton said Ms Buttrose must “step in” immediately to address the unbalanced reporting, because the public broadcaster is losing “credibility”, adding Australians wanted “independence from their public broadcaster”.

“Telling people what to think is not part of their mandate, and prosecuting political arguments and taking sides on political issues is not the mandate of the ABC,” Mr Dutton told Sydney’s 2GB mornings radio host Ray Hadley.

The mayor of Alice Springs, Matt Paterson, who attended the meeting, has also demanded that Ms Buttrose retract the stories that referenced claims of white ­supremacy at the forum. He told The Australian on Thursday that Ms Buttrose’s failure to act was “a sign of weak leadership”.

On ABC’s political chat show on Wednesday, The Drum, the ­associate dean of Indigenous leadership and engagement at the University of Technology Sydney, Nareen Young, compared the Alice Springs meeting to the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning, which is based on the disappearance of three civil rights workers who are met with hostility by police, residents and the Ku Klux Klan.

“I think the elephant in the room … when I watched that footage of the town meeting that was held … is that if you saw that room in Mississippi Burning for example, Australians would say, ‘How terrible, that’s terrible that happens there,” Professor Young said.

“The vitriol and racism and lack of regard and respect for those people on their land while those people were living off the bounty of it was appalling.”

Drum host John Barron did not challenge Professor Young’s views. An ABC spokeswoman said Professor Young was “entitled to express her views”.

The ABC’s editorial policy states: “The ABC has a statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism.”