Pity The Children, Not Chooks

Sun Herald

Sunday June 19, 2005

SALLY LOANE

IF ever there was proof that we live in an Australian version of The Truman Show, it was the kerfuffle over the ABC television program Outback House. Or, how the tale of one rooster with a (temporary) gammy leg and a dead lamb caused more outrage than the sight, over on the Ten network's terminally banal Big Brother, of a man exposing his penis and rubbing it against the head of a young woman.

Ho hum, that was just another sex act on TV. Performed by another bunch of inarticulate nobodies whose idea of expressing themselves humorously is to unleash a torrent of f-words. Chill dude. Only a stitched-up housewife would think it was uncool. Show me something over which we can really work ourselves into a lather of moral outrage, such as a man kicking a rooster and suggesting he might eat it. Or the death of a lamb after it failed to respond to a shepherd's attempt to keep it alive.

The response to the first episode of Outback House flooded onto its website this week. Emails, hundreds of them, from viewers expressing frothing levels of disgust and outrage. Shocking. Unforgivable. The ABC ought to be ashamed. Critics couldn't find enough words to express their horror as the ABC was accused of barbarism and unethical treatment, wanton animal cruelty and calls for producers to be prosecuted. On and on it went. The RSPCA was also inundated with complaints, sparking an investigation into the allegations.

Over at Channel Ten the penis rubbing scene only attracted "a couple" of complaints, said the publicist. Funnily enough, she said, an incident in the first BB several years ago when house mates stirred up some chooks attracted more viewer anger.

Let's not beat around the bush. Animal cruelty is not on, and deserves tough punishment. But you can hardly level that at Outback House. While the scenes of a bunch of amateurs in charge of a mob of sheep, many of them lambing ewes, understandably angered farmers who have been unjustly criticised by the media for their animal husbandry, it wasn't intentional cruelty. Stupidity, yes; cruelty, no.

Let's keep things in perspective. It's a TV show, stuffed with producers, camera crews, vets, doctors, shrinks and animal experts. Some lambs died. A chook got a sore leg.

I'm glad we have laws to protect animals and it's good to know the RSPCA is doing its job, but I was jolted into reality by a school counsellor who rang me.

"I just wish," she said, choking on angry tears, "people would get as outraged and authorities would get as busy investigating the reports when children get kicked by adults."

Last year the Department of Community Services received 185,000 reports of child neglect and cruelty in NSW. Each year about 20 children die at the hands of adults. There's a bit of a headline when it's reported. Hardly anyone is moved to publicly express shock, horror and disgust. We save that up for reality TV.

Terrifying logic

AFTER labelling her colleagues on the left of the Liberal Party "political terrorists" the steely Victorian lawyer Sophie Panopoulos blithely said that we should think about the meaning of the words. Well, I hope I'll never have to rely on her grasp of English in a court of law, because the dictionary defines a terrorist as someone who fights using armed violence. Last time I saw Petro Georgiou, Judi Moylan and Bruce Baird arguing for more humane treatment of detainees, I didn't see any guns or weapons held to the head of the Prime Minister.

These are perhaps the gentlest Liberals of the modern era, and I've never heard them even raise their voices in anger as they articulate their principles. Panopoulos might want to reflect on her own position within the Liberal Party, as one of the so-called "ginger group" that's been pushing for tax reform. Would she describe herself as a political terrorist for agitating for change to party policy? Perhaps for Panopoulos, terrorists only reside in the wet faction. She, of course, as a thrusting tax reformer from the right, would call herself a freedom fighter.

© 2005 Sun Herald

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