ABC boss David Anderson has shared that staff at the broadcaster received threats and abuse over their plan to film a Drag Queen Storytime event as part of their upcoming coverage of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Anderson was appearing before Senates Estimates on Tuesday when he was asked about a recently planned event that was cancelled.
Answering questions from Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson, the ABC’s Managing Director said the broadcaster’s Mardi Gras coverage was not just about celebration, but also an opportunity to tell stories about people in the LGBTIQA+ communities who had faced challenges and found help.
Anderson told the committee that the ABC’s mission was to reflect the Australian community and Drag Queen Storytime events occur in the community, but when the ABC’s content team for Mardi Gras went to create an event as part of their upcoming Mardi Gras packages they faced significant abuse.
“As part of the suite of what we do around Mardi Gras, the content team decided they were going to do a Drag Queen Storytime event, which they put a call out to what was the LGBTIQ community – that they were holding it, and to be part of it.
“That was met with a lot of abuse. The abuse suffered by our staff member as a result of that, and clearly in hindsight, we do not put call outs like that with individuals’ personal details, because the threats that came were death threats as well.
“We’ve supported the people involved with that.” Anderson said.
The broadcaster’s Managing Director said the intention was a simple Storytime event involving children from LGBTIQA+ families.
“It was meant to be fun.” Anderson said, sharing that if the team does proceed with a Storytime event it’s been clear it cannot be filmed at an external venue.
Conservative group calls for broadcaster to be defunded over the Drag Queen Storytime event
Last week lobby group Family Voice Australia has called on the ABC to be completely defunded over their plans to stage a Drag Queen Storytime event.
“It’s clear that the ABC is out of control and nothing other than defunding this promoter of woke and destructive LGBT ideology will fix the problem.” said the group’s National Director Peter Downie.
“Drag queens are not for kids. But try telling this to the ABC which is obsessed with indoctrinating kids into LGBT ideology.”
National spokesperson David d’Lima said the response from the public that caused the ABC to backtrack on the planned event was an example of “people power”.
“Outraged ratepayers have thrown political correctness to the wind, as they spoke up to protect children from gender confusion and have sent the drag queens of NSW into exile,” d’Lima said.
“We cannot allow young children to view cross-dressing as normal or worthy of celebration, and we must enable youngsters to appreciate the natural difference between male and female.”
Family Voice Australia is very disappointed that the taxpayer sponsored Australian Broadcasting Corporation would sponsor and encourage the involvement of drag queens with young children.
“The ABC is out of control, and we urgently need a proper independent inquiry into its conduct as the publicly funded national broadcaster.”
OIP Staff
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