A member of the Australian Conservatives party has spoken out saying that the ABC should remove whoever allowed a comedy sketch on Tom Ballard’s Tonightly show to go to air.
Senator Cory Bernardi is criticising the ABC over allowing such explicit language to be used in reference to a member of his party.
The Tonightly sketch aired last week in which Kevin Bailey, the candidate for the Batman by-election was labelled a c***. However, the language was not used in isolation, nor in necessarily particular reference to Mr Bailey but more in regards to the electorate.
Greg Larson, a cast member of Tonightly, used the explicit language in reference to the man that the electorate is named after, John Batman, also, given his record with Indigenous Australians. Mr. Larson went on to say that he believed the electorate should be renamed “Batman-was-a-c***”.
Senator Cory Bernardi said that he didn’t believe things such as the sketch “go to air without being pre-screened” and that someone should be sacked over the mistake. He continued to say that he didn’t believe such language should be seen or heard on TV at any time.
Cory Bernardi also said that he felt no “candidate should be subject to that just because they step into the ring”. The Tonightly sketch supposedly ran following Kevin Bailey’s refusal to give an interview for the show.
The response from Cory Bernardi has received a lot of support with Coalition Senator Simon Birmingham agreeing that someone should lose their job over the incident.
The support, however, didn’t stop there as Mitch Fifield, the Communications Minister, said that although those elected for office should expect to be “criticised and parodied…this ABC segment clearly crossed the line”.
Many other MPs voiced their opinion on the topic with the majority in support of Cory Bernardi and the unnecessary criticism of Kevin Bailey. Mitch Fifield has said that he will be conducting an investigation into the matter and how it managed to get to air without someone checking it.
Many believe that there should be an immediate apology from the ABC towards Mr Bailey and any other politicians offended by the sketch.
The ABC said that they were yet to take any action and would be responding Minister Fifield and Senator Cory Bernardi “in due course”.
Tonightly with Tom Ballard discusses the latest in news headlines every Monday to Thursday at 9pm on ABC Comedy.