Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young won't say sorry to Ray Hadley
Simon Black
The Daily Telegraph
March 02, 2013 12:00AM
GREENS Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has refused to apologise for an attack against broadcaster Ray Hadley on the ABC's Lateline program - despite the show's presenter Tony Jones defending Hadley yesterday.
Tony Jones and Sen. Sarah Hanson Young on "Their ABC" Lateline.
Ms Hanson-Young accused Hadley of a "horrid" display of "irresponsibility" in his commentary on asylum seekers during her appearance on Lateline on Thursday night.
"Hadley ... went on air saying these people are doing these bad things," Ms Hanson-Young said.
"These people obviously referring to the entire community of asylum seekers on bridging visas rather than understanding that this was one particular incident."
The "incident" she referred to was the sexual assault of a Macquarie University student, allegedly by a Sri Lankan refugee.
Hadley angrily refuted Ms Hanson-Young's claims on his program yesterday.
"Never, in any stage, did I say these people are doing these bad things," he said. "(Ms Hanson-Young) you lied to Tony Jones last night, you lied to the audience of the ABC."
Hadley said rather than "demonising" asylum seekers, he was responsible for removing a group of them from squalid living conditions in a disused office."I'm the one that identified the sort of conditions these people are being housed in and hopefully they won't be housed in them any further," he said.
Yesterday, Jones told The Daily Telegraph he had reviewed the material and found "no evidence of (Hadley) making racist remarks" during an on-air interview with opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison. He also commended Hadley and his team's investigation, stating they "did conduct good journalism in exposing the slum-like conditions asylum seekers on bridging visas are forced to endure".
But Jones said he still had concerns and stressed the broadcaster had a responsibility not to use a single case of sexual abuse to exaggerate the threat posed by asylum seekers in the community.
"To do that would risk demonising the very people he said he's trying to help," he said.
Hadley yesterday demanded an apology from Ms Hanson-Young, who refused to provide it.
"The person who needs to apologise is Ray Hadley," she said. "People are responding to his comments on radio even just this morning, saying that the only good refugee is a dead one."
A spokesperson for Ms Hanson-Young later said the comment about dead refugees was not said on air, but was emailed to the senator's office. He was not able to provide detail on how Ms Hanson-Young had linked the email to Hadley's show.
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