The Aboriginal Question

The following is taken from http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/CRCC/gambling/notes.html

It uses as it source the Sattler File as quoted on Background Briefing, ABC Radio National, 17/3/92.

Owing to the repeated failure of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal to take action on Sattler, members of the Aboriginal community met the executive of the WA Trades and Labour Council on 17 March 1992. The TLC decided to invite both Sattler and the Sunday Times (in which Sattler has a weekly column) to discuss Aboriginal and TLC concerns. Sattler’s response to the TLC’s invitation was to claim on his program and in his column (5 April 1992) that the TLC had mounted a campaign against him. On Sattler’s progam (31 March 1992), Aboriginal rights campaigner Clarrie Isaacs pointed out that it was significant that Sattler had not taken up the issue of the Louis Johnson murder, even though he had championed the cause of ‘victims of crime’ over the past year. Louis Johnson’s case, however, received subdued attention from The West Australian (nine small stories, only one of which made page three, and no feature articles), and nothing from Sattler. Only the Sunday Times, to its credit, treated the issue as a matter of extreme public importance, and featured it on the front page, with associated in-depth feature articles.

Sattler repeatedly stated on air that all efforts had been made by his producer to contact Bill Johnson, to no avail (see appendix 3). According to Clarrie Isaacs and youth worker Ron Bowman (who accompanied him into the studio), Sattler’s producer admitted after the segment had finished that the ‘Herculean efforts’ to contact Bill Johnson had in fact amounted, in total, to calling directory inquiries twice for his telephone number.

Bill Johnson is adamant that Sattler was simply lying to listeners. Sattler had been told at Parliament House (where both he and Bill Johnson attended the introduction of the juvenile crime bills on 5/2/92) by crime victim Peter Blurton that Johnson was present, after which Sattler gestured his acknowledgment to Johnson.

Sattler’s claims to have made extreme efforts to contact sources was also seen in his on-air interview with WA Attorney General Joe Berinson on 5/3/92, when he accused Berinson of avoiding his calls. Berinson strongly refuted this and was eventually able to extract an apology from Sattler.