Victoria’s Public Transport Minister, who banned Sky News bulletins from Melbourne CBD train station platforms, today claimed a controversial interview with a right-wing extremist had triggered a “spike in complaints” — even though Sky management is adamant the interview was never screened on Metro Trains news service.
In a series of confusing statements, Jacinta Allan also claimed she did not say last Thursday, when announcing her ban, that the interview with Blair Cottrell had been broadcast repeatedly.
She said last week: “That interview was not only shown, it was also on repeat rotation.”
A journalist questioned the Minister today, saying: “You said the Cottrell interview was not only shown but it was on repeat rotation.”
But the Minister, who has been accused of censorship, responded: “What you’ve said there is not accurate.”
Ms Allan also said the interview had triggered a wave of complaints after being broadcast on the train station platforms.
“There was spike in complaints about the airing of that particular interview.”
“Metro trains have already publicly indicated that they’ve had some hundreds of complaints on social media about what is broadcast on the city loop,” she said.
Ms Allan’s office has said the decision to remove Sky from CBD loop platforms was “not a ban”.
They have said the decision to remove Sky came amid a broader government review into what is shown on public transport screens.
“And this is also a time to note that last year as part of some work we’ve been doing with our operators, the Andrews Labor government lifted the advertising standards, we lifted the level of the sort of content that we wanted to see put on our public transport assets.
“And so that why, keep taking those factors into consideration, we’ve taken the chance to review all content that is screen on those TV screens. And we’ll complete that review in due course.”
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said today the debate on the issue was legitimate, but urged commentators to steer away from comparisons with dictators which downplayed genuine crimes that had been committed.
“While I understand that there are strong views regarding this issue, Mr Latham’s inappropriate comparison of Jacinta Allan’s decision to Nazi Germany is insensitive, outrageous and needlessly causes further pain to survivors and to their families,” Dr Abramovich said.
“Yes, the debate about pulling Sky News bulletins from public train stations is a legitimate one, and people are entitled to disagree with the government’s stance. However, it’s a gross and odious distortion of history to compare Ms Allan’s actions to Goebbels’s genocidal propaganda.
“We urge Mr Latham to retract his statement and to refrain from such conduct again.”