Text of report by Radio Australia on 30 June
An Australian defence lobby group has called for significant extra funding for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s international service, Radio Australia, to promote national security. The Australian Defence Association says opinion polling in several Muslim countries has found ridiculous conspiracy theories about the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States.
The association says conspiracy theories help the spread of bigotry by Muslim extremists. It says the best counter to the views of extremist groups such as Al-Qa’idah is the truth, as offered by respected services such as Radio Australia. However, the Defence Association says Radio Australia is heard much less throughout the region because its best transmitters have been sold off.
(Source: Radio Australia, Melbourne, in English 0300 gmt 30 Jun 04 via BBC Monitoring)
on Jun 30th, 2004 at 19:10
wasn’t it a Senator from down under that pushed all that thru?
on Jul 1st, 2004 at 15:36
Yes, his name was Alston and he’s no longer Communications Minister. But he did great damage both to Radio Australia and the ABC. Let’s hope that this particularly peculiar form of lunacy is now behind them. Now if we could just get ABC’s management off Radio National’s backside…