Anika Wells calls the ABC's Gina Rinehart torture segment unacceptable, then does nothing

The minister responsible for the ABC has finally weighed in on its fantasy of Gina Rinehart being sexually mutilated and killed, and managed to say almost nothing that costs her anything. Anika Wells, who holds both the Communications and the Sport portfolios, avoided the story for almost a week, then called the segment "unacceptable" as a "personal view," declined to ask the ABC to apologise, and lumped a filmed depiction of a woman being tortured to death in with the "scandals and outrages, valid or not" that she says she has no time for.

For the segment itself and the ABC's defence of it, see our earlier report. What Wells added this week wasn't accountability. It was a careful exercise in sounding concerned while doing nothing.

Wells won't defend Rinehart who bankrolls our athletes

Gina Rinehart is the single largest private backer of Australian Olympic sport, tipping more than $100 million into swimming, rowing, volleyball and more, and paying medal bonuses straight to athletes. The Sport Minister was handed a chance to stand up for the woman who funds the athletes in her own portfolio, against a broadcast fantasy of that woman's murder, and reached for "editorial independence" instead.

Labor turned "Ditch the Witch" into a national reckoning. A torture death fantasy gets a shrug

Labor knows exactly how to summon its outrage over sexism against a woman when it suits. When protesters waved "Ditch the Witch" placards at anti carbon tax rallies, and Tony Abbott stood near them, Labor called it a national disgrace. When broadcaster Alan Jones said Julia Gillard should be put in a chaff bag and dumped at sea, the condemnation was deafening, and Gillard's misogyny speech travelled the world. The lesson, hammered for years, was that words and signs aimed at a woman in public life were beyond the pale.

Now a taxpayer funded broadcaster has gone well past a placard, airing a graphic fantasy of a conservative woman being sodomised and killed, and the same movement has lost its voice. Asked directly whether that was hypocritical, Wells had no answer.

Words cost Pauline Hanson $900,000. A torture video costs the ABC nothing

The double standard has a price tag. When Pauline Hanson told Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to "go back to Pakistan" in a 2022 social media post, Faruqi took her to the Federal Court, which found the One Nation leader had breached the Racial Discrimination Act, a decision the Federal Court upheld when it rejected her appeal. Reports put her legal costs at around $900,000. Words on the internet brought the leader of a political party a court finding and a fortune in bills. The ABC's filmed fantasy of a woman's murder, by contrast, has cost it nothing.

"I wouldn't have time to do anything substantive"

The most revealing moment came when Wells was pressed on whether the ABC should apologise.

"If I spent all my time weighing in day to day on the scandals and outrages, valid or not, in both sport and communications, I wouldn't have time to do anything substantive."

Read it back. The Communications Minister filed a depiction of a woman being tortured to death alongside the daily noise she can't be bothered with. Not a breach of the ABC's charter worth acting on. An outrage, "valid or not," to be waited out. Behind her as she spoke, one of the men appeared to shoot a disbelieving glance at the man beside him.

Hiding behind editorial independence

Wells reached for "the editorial independence of the ABC" at every turn, as if the phrase closed the matter. It doesn't. The ABC runs on more than $1.2 billion of public money a year, set by her government, and the Communications Minister is the public's point of accountability for how that money is spent. Editorial independence stops the ABC from being told what stories to run. It was never meant to be a minister's excuse for refusing to say whether torturing a woman for laughs meets the standards taxpayers pay for.

Even a former ABC chair says defund it

The sharpest verdict came from inside the ABC's own history. Maurice Newman, a former chair of the broadcaster, said it had "lost its way" and no longer deserved taxpayer funding, in comments to News24. "My immediate reaction was it was hateful, disgusting, in breach of the ABC Charter, and quite frankly I couldn't really see where this was satirical," he said. "It's just filthy. It is terrible." When a former ABC chair will hold the broadcaster to account and the minister who funds it won't, something has gone badly wrong.

This is the creator the ABC is defending

It is worth remembering who the minister is going in to bat for by staying silent. The film was made by Kate McGuinness, and News24 has revealed she also posted a video of herself twerking on a rooftop to The Last Post, the bugle call sounded at ANZAC Day services to honour the fallen, in 2021. The clip was reportedly captioned, "In memory of those fallen. Rip the diggers and thanks heaps for your service xxx." News24 reported that the act, alongside her segment targeting Australia's richest woman, seemingly confirmed her far-left position.

What the referral actually delivers

The one concrete step, the referral Wells welcomed as the right thing to do, sends the matter to the ABC Ombudsman. That office is internal and reports to the ABC board, so the broadcaster is reviewing itself, into content it has already declared "editorially justifiable." Hancock Prospecting asked for the segment to be removed and for an apology. The referral delivers neither, and the media regulator has announced no action of its own.

So this is where the responsible minister has left it. The film is still up, the ABC is marking its own homework, and Anika Wells has called it unacceptable in the same breath as telling the country it isn't worth her time.