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The World on the Box - SBS Television

Malcom Fraser.

Malcom Fraser dicussing the ABC and SBS.

Created:

1994

Date Added:

26 June 2002

Source:

Making Multicultural Australia

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

--

Length:

21 secs

Transcript

MALCOLM FRASER
Prime Minister 1975-83

The objection to the SBS as much as anything was that it should be the ABC. But the ABC had had this overall responsibility within its Charter and had never given effect to it. And again it's nonsense to say that they didn't have the money because it's a question of their priorities. If they'd given it any kind of priority, they could have shoved some money in the direction of that kind of programming.

CONTINUATION OF INTERVIEW AS TEXT

But they never had except in the rarest of occasions. And I think the Chairman of the ABC came to us with a later proposal that they should handle it all. But it was a very half-hearted affair. And by that time anyway the Government, I think, had decided. And I'd certainly decided that the ABC would never give justice to the objectives.
And the very fact that the sorts of opposition to multiculturalism had arisen from different parts of the Australian community and in parts of the Liberal Party and in the Parliament, made me all the more determined that we were going to create structures that could not have their heads chopped off or could not be pushed into the corner and starved. And that meant that you had to set up a separate organisation and that of course is what we did.

Interview for Making Multicultural Australia, 1994.