The first federal member of parliament of Palestinian Arab descent has called out SBS’s decision to continue referring to Palestine as the Occupied Palestinian Territories as the public broadcaster claimed its staff had no problem with its decision.
In a statement in the House of Representatives on Thursday, Basem Abdo, the Labor member for Calwell in Victoria, said that SBS’s updated editorial guidance, reported by this masthead on Wednesday, goes against the government’s historic step of recognising the State of Palestine and flies in the face of its stated role of fostering multiculturalism in Australia.
Basem Abdo speaks in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“SBS, a multicultural, multilingual national public broadcaster, no less, an institution which Australians are rightly proud of, which considers itself home to Australian multiculturalism, which is meant to be promoting and contributing to our social cohesion, has actively chosen to pursue a hardline editorial approach – an interventionist, activist approach,” Abdo said.
“Multiculturalism is more than just cuisine and costumes. If multiculturalism stops at the buffet table, then it’s not inclusion – it’s performance. The news should be as it is.”
While SBS journalists are permitted to qualify that Australia recognises these areas as the State of Palestine, a September 22 editorial style guide update from the broadcaster, seen by this masthead, does not allow them to refer to it as that in editorial copy, or without qualification.
The term Palestine is permitted in specific contexts, such as a direct quote where a person self-identifies as being from Palestine, in official names such as the Palestine national football team or Palestine Olympic Committee, or in historical references to the area known as Palestine before 1948.
Mandi Wicks, SBS’s news and current affairs director, denied claims of disquiet among staff over its updated editorial guidelines on Wednesday while fronting a Senate estimates committee hearing.
“I have checked in with all the senior editorial leaders of our news and current affairs division, and while we have ongoing, everyday editorial conversations with our staff, we actually have not had the suggested overwhelming negative feedback from our staff in relation to this,” Wicks said.
“We keep talking to them about the fact that this is a situation under constant review, and we expect to continue to change and evolve that language,” Wicks said, in response to questions from Senator Mehreen Faruqi, the Greens’ deputy leader.
