THE ETHNIC BROADCASTER Journal of the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council Spring 2005 Inside: Funding Update AERTP Lives 2005 NEMBC Conference McDonald’s Radio Likely to Incite Hatred Giving New Horizons to our Mind and much more Multiculturalism - A Core Australian Value Ethnic broadcasters are gravely concerned about the questioning of The Ethnic Broadcaster multiculturalism in high places, questioning that goes so far as considering abandoning the policy. They are also concerned at the Spring 2005 selective, if not racist, redefinitions of Australian values, following the tragic and indefensible London terrorist attacks. Some politicians and commentators attacked multiculturalism as dividing the people and the nation, suggesting that it can – and Contents some accuse that it does - harbor hotheads or threats to Australia’s national security and cohesion. 3 Training News They have called for unprecedented measures – many of which have been adopted by 5 Targeted Funding the Government – far in excess of what may be required to meet legitimate concerns of terrorist attacks in Australia. These include detaining and tagging people on Review suspicion, policing what happens in schools, and what people wear. They extend to how people exercise their democratic rights of free speech, free association, and 6 Many Languages, socio-political and religious beliefs. Many Voices Australian citizenship will be harder and take longer to obtain and it can be revoked in 7 AERTP Lives certain circumstances. Add to this statements, by Treasurer Costello and Education Minister Nelson that those, “Who do not like Australia can pack up and go!” One can 8 McDonald’s Radio see accusations of terrorism pointing more threateningly to migrants and non- Australian born citizens and in the first place to Muslims. 10 Likely to Incite Hatred This is an unjustified and unacceptable situation. If unchallenged these measures, and the climate of uncertainty and fear they have generated, would sacrifice what all 12 Giving New Australians cherish most – their freedoms. They would also tend to divide Australians into two classes of residents and citizens, those born here and those born overseas, Horizons to our the latter with less rights. Mind No nation, can sustain unity and progress if its social and legal systems are made to 14 Griffith University discriminate between people on the basis of ethnic origin or religion. Respect for the law is a citizen’s responsibility, as it is the citizen’s right to democratically advocate Research Update change. 15 Station News The White Australia policy for instance, had been “a core Australian value” for the greater part of the last century. 17 Member News: Allegations of breaches of Australian laws should be referred for judgment to Tony Manicaros Australian courts. Conviction should be based on the crime committed not the ethnic 18 NEMBC origins of the alleged perpetrator, and should be served out in Australia. Conference The Treasurer and the Minister for Education should be reminded that Australia Information belongs to all of us – the Indigenous people, the migrants and their descendants of the last 240 years. It is not owned by the government of the day, and that Registration government alone does not determine what “Australian values” are. Conference Partners Multiculturalism is not an abstract notion, or a foreign graft on “the Australian society” but an irreversible fact of life, for which Australia in the richer. 22 Youth Report The critics of cultural pluralism, that is of growing together, respecting and nourishing 26 New & Emerging diversity, would like us to return to a new form of White Australia or at least to place multiculturalism on constant control and surveillance. This would be a catastrophic Communities News course for the nation and its place in the world, especially in our own region. 28 Women’s Surveys Measures to combat terrorism, even the most sensible ones, would prove inadequate if they ignore many of the root causes. Most people and governments in the world, 29 Reporting Suicide and most people in Australia, believe that the invasion and occupation, for instance, & Mental Illness of Iraq is illegal and immoral, and a source of popular discontent and desperate acts of violence. It is wrong to embrace the view and adopt policies that see the real 30 NEMBC Targets issues before Australia and the world as being a war between civilizations and Cheats religions, and not that of poverty, disease, inequality and intolerance. It is also wrong to elevate a belief as the only truth that cannot co-exist with another, whether it 31 CBF Report applies to individuals, groups or nations. In ethnic community broadcasting, we have built one of Australia’s finest multicultural Cover image: The youth ethnic institutions where diversity, tolerance and unity are in harmony. Multiculturalism is a broadcasters of the Multilingual core Australian value and all of us have the responsibility to promote and defend it. Broadcasting Council of the Northern Territory - George Zangalis, NEMBC President Harmony Day. Pg. 5 >>>training & funding news TRAINING UPDATE After having declined to renew funding for In making the funding available to the CBF, the Australian Ethnic Radio Training Project the government said that it wanted the fund the federal government, as part of its 2004 to be coordinated on a national basis. The election policy, promised to provide CBF proposed, and the Training Advisory additional funds for training community Group agreed, that consultants should be broadcasters. These funds would be Aengaged PARTNERSHIP to report BETWEEN on a proposed NEMBC, 3ZZZ structure & THE PULSE available to all community broadcasters. for the fund. While the NEMBC was disappointed that “...the new fund would need to cover the whole the AERTP funding would not be restored, range of community broadcasting, the amount of we appreciated the fact that ethnic money going to ethnic broadcasters would be broadcasters (along with Indigenous much less than under the old AERTP scheme”. broadcasters, regional broadcasters and print handicapped stations) were to receive In the course of discussions as to how the some priority in the new fund. fund should be organised, a number of different approaches emerged. The However it became apparent that because NEMBC favoured what we called a the new fund would need to cover the whole diversity model. Noting the great degree of range of community broadcasting, the diversity in community radio, and in amount of money going to ethnic particular the special and diverse needs of broadcasters would be much less than ethnic and Indigenous broadcasters, the under the old AERTP scheme. This was NEMBC put forward a model with the one of the reasons why the NEMBC was following key features: concerned that the scheme be as cost effective as possible. In particular we were > The bulk of the funds should go to the concerned with the amount of red tape stations, with the proviso that it could only involved in accredited training, and the be spent on accredited training. potential for administrative costs to eat up > That stations should have the right to use such a large proportion of the funds that as the trainer of their choice, so long as the little as half of the total funds might go to trainer was qualified. pay for trainers. > That stations should have the ability to use the curriculum of their choice, so long The government decided that the fund as that curriculum was accredited. should be administered by the Community > That the stations should have the right to Broadcasting Foundation (CBF). The CBF, determine what proportion of their funding in accordance with its normal practice, should be spent on broadcaster training, formed a Training Advisory Group (TAG) to and what should be spent on management help it administer the fund. The TAG training. includeded representatives of all the > That stations should have the right to use national representative bodies for the Registered Training Organisation community broadcasting. The NEMBC (RTO) of their choice, so long as that RTO nominated Darce Cassidy, who has maintained its registered status. extensive training experience with community broadcasting stations in South A different model, which the NEMBC Australia and Victoria, and with the SBS described as the Monopoly Model, had the and the ABC. following key features: TheThe Ethnic Ethnic Broadcaster Broadcaster,, Spring Winter 20052004 - 3 “The report recommended that the maximum grant that a station could get for a broadcaster training course was $1500”. > A very large proportion of the total funding The report recommended that the should go to staffing a “Lead RTO” maximum grant that a station could get for > Stations should only be able to use RTOs a broadcaster training course was $1500. that were part of the community If the course had ten students, and if the broadcasting sector. They would not be RTO charged $50 per student, then a third able to use TAFE colleges, many of which of funds given to the station would go to were RTOs, and many of which could administrative costs. If RTOs were to provide cheaper services. In particular this charge close to a third of the funds would have excluded Batchelor College, an allocated to stations to issue certificates, Indigenous training organistation which is on top of the third of the total amount both a TAFE and an RTO with a long already allocated to administration, then history of training in the community radio close to two thirds of the government sector. funds would be swallowed up in > Stations would only be able to use administration. trainers accredited by a limited number of RTOs In short the NEMBC felt that the Lead RTO > Stations would only be able to use model spent too much on administration, curriculum of a restricted number of RTOs and not enough on the actual delivery of training.