What a stunning performance by Barrie Cassidy on this morning’s ‘Insiders’ on their ABC (of course). Barrie interviewed the Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, who had recently visited a refugee camp in Jordan ahead of Australia beginning to meet its commitment to take in 12,000 (genuine) refugees of the Syrian conflict.
After a quick nod to the Minister’s recent trip and his reflections on it, Barrie then got down to the real issue – was the Amnesty International report accusing Australian officials of paying people smugglers right, and if so, had Australian border police committed a “trans-national crime”? You remember that Amnesty report right? It was a few months ago, it was so patently ideologically driven that the government was able to easily brush it aside, and everyone else has long forgotten about it. But not their ABC.
Barrie was unconcerned about the government taking in thousands of genuine refugees fleeing the murderous conflict in Syria. He had nothing much to say about the government reducing the numbers of children in detention. Even though the Minister drew attention to it, Barrie was not interested either in the fact that people were no longer drowning at sea trying to reach Australia. What he was interested in, very interested in, was the Amnesty International report. No less than six times did Barrie ask the Minister – had Australian officials paid people smugglers?
Not only was this old news, it was news manufactured by an activist organisation. But the ABC has confused activism (mainly of the left wing variety) with genuine news for many years now. After grilling the Minister on this vital point, Barrie soon moved on to the next big issue affecting the national interest – gay marriage.
It really is their ABC.