ABC baying at the moon
The ABC are now recycling a comment by a relative of a child attacked by a pedophile in Bali. Apparently it’s the government’s fault – Foreign Minister Downer refused to issue a warning about the hotel where it allegedly happened.
The Federal Government had failed to act to protect others after two Australian children were sexually abused in Bali, a relative of one of the victims said today. The woman, who was not named, told ABC television that Australian authorities had offered an “incredibly inadequate” response to her sister and nephew, who was orally raped at a Bali resort two years ago.Presumable Downer also refuses to issue warnings about other risks in travel – like if you don’t take care of your children when in a foreign country they may come to grief, or, when walking down the street in Hanoi you may be accosted by a beggar, or you may trip over the poorly maintained footpaths in Jakarta. The one warning some people need is ‘when in foreign countries – take care and accept responsibility for your own actions’. I don’t hold the parents or relative to blame for this waste of prime time TV as they would be stressed, but certainly question the ABC. Still severely disappointed with Howard’s win, they seek high and low for any murmur of poor government and continually have to make do with this sort of rubbish. Kim Landers tries hard to get mileage but stumbles. (scroll down just a bit)
KIM LANDERS: Senator Ellison even wanted the hotels which didn’t comply to Australian standards of childcare be publicly named on our travel advisories. ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yes, well that would just be simply impossible. I mean, I don’t know if you know how many childcare centres there are in the world, but I don’t, but you can imagine it would be a simply enormous number. It’s simply impossible for Australian officials to check out every childcare centre in the world and draw up a massive list of the standards that they meet or don’t meet, if you reflect on it, that’s just common sense.…common sense – not an ABC issue.
So what we’ve done instead is have a general proposition made available to parents travelling with children that you know, they’ve got to be careful about childcare centres and make sure they check them out properly. I mean, I think, you know, that’s just a common sense way of handling it.End of message.