Sattler's... 'Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish'

Without doubt The Sattler File, which has been broadcast on various radio stations in Perth since the mid-1980s (but predominantly Radio 6PR), has attracted more criticism than any other program in recent times. Anyone connected with Aboriginal affairs in WA will be aware of the degree of anger and loathing for this program and its host from Aboriginal people themselves. This feeling is shared by their supporters and sympathisers, and by many others in the community who are simply 'turned off' by racist prejudice.17 Since 1989 Sattler has been the subject of 19 individual complaints to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal for comments by himself or callers to his program relating to Aboriginal people and culture. These account for over half of the total of 34 complaints from Western Australia about racial or ethnic discrimination on electronic media received by the ABT between 1989 and 1992.18

Distaste for Sattler's brand of broadcasting is, however, not limited to those who are specifically sensitive to the way Aboriginal issues are treated. A market research study commissioned by 6PR itself in 1990 found that a sample study group believed Sattler was 'arrogant, rude, dogmatic' and that he 'deliberately sensationalised issues'. He was seen to express 'predetermined views', on many issues, about which he was also 'not well-informed'. His manner of delivering his comments to callers with whom he disagreed was likened to 'a slap in the face'.19

The anger of many in the Perth Aboriginal community towards Sattler was noted by Commissioner Patrick Dodson of the RCIADC, in his Regional Report of Inquiry into Underlying Issues in Western Australia.20 The federal minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Robert Tickner, has also strongly criticised Sattler for 'promoting the most outrageous myths and stereotypes about Aboriginal people'.21

Aboriginal people interviewed as part of the research of the RCIADC into underlying issues, expressed strong beliefs that Sattler's program is responsible for promoting racist attitudes towards Aboriginal people. His treatment of issues such as government expenditure on Aboriginal programs, sacred sites disputes, and juvenile delinquency, was seen to solicit and support the most bigoted and misguided comments from callers. This has the effect of reinforcing an impression that the average non-Aboriginal Australian has little sympathy for the circumstances of Aboriginal people which, whether or not it is truly the case, does nothing to improve relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Here are extracts from two typical calls, which occurred when Aboriginal rights campaigner Clarrie Isaacs was a studio guest on The Sattler File:

Caller: Well the ones I've met [Aboriginal people] have always only ever been on benefits. I'd ask Mr. Isaacs, is he on any form of benefit? That would be the first question. And secondly, if he wants to be the President of an Aboriginal nation, let's take them all off benefits and see how many of them would like to stay with him.

The other call:

Sattler: Yes Pat?
Caller: Um Clarrie? I have met, up in the north, some fantastic Aboriginals. Um, I am proud to call them my friends. But the way the city type of Aboriginal behaves, I think they are colour prejudiced, not us, not the whites.

A consistent theme running through Sattler's treatment of Aboriginal issues, and one which he frequently verbalises, is that 'all Australians should be treated equally'. The inference in this otherwise egalitarian principle is that Aboriginal people should not be entitled to special government assistance programs, because this is 'unequal treatment'. This theft of democratic rhetoric callously exploits a genuine sense of fairness within broad sections of the white community, but does nothing to cure the same community's historic blindness to the realities of colonialism, thence to extend the hand of equality towards Aboriginal people.

In 1990 Sattler was found to have contravened the rules of the Australian Journalists' Association (AJA) by the WA branch of the Association, by virtue of the on-air comments he made (previously mentioned in the Introduction) about the deaths of three Aboriginal children who died during a pursuit by police in Perth. This finding was subsequently overturned by the AJA's Federal Executive.22 The following is a transcript of the comments, made on 4 April 1990 during a preview of his program on the Peter Newman Breakfast Show:

Sattler: Well I say good riddance to bad rubbish. That's three less car thieves. I think, they're dead and I think that's good.

An angry meeting of over 100 Aboriginal people at the WA Aboriginal Media Association (WAAMA) on 6 April called on the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal to suspend Sattler from broadcasting and to carry out an inquiry into his comments. In a formal letter of complaint to the Tribunal, endorsed with 85 signatures, WAAMA's Director, Dennis Eggington, wrote:

These comments have distressed and outraged a great many Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in our community. Some have commented that it is the worst breach of journalistic ethics ever, not to mention the callous absence of common decency. Apart from the enormous pain these sort of statements cause family and friends of the children that died, they also have the effect of inciting racial hatred given that people in Perth were becoming aware that those who died were Aboriginal. The reference to people as 'bad rubbish' is strikingly similar to language used by racists to describe the ethnic minorities that are the objects of their hatred, for example the Nazis called the Jews 'vermin'.

Although Howard Sattler did not identify the race of the children involved in the tragedy the intent of his comments are no less deplorable and the effects no less dangerous and distressing.23

Some sense of the outrage and anguish of the Aboriginal community after Sattler's comments can be gauged in the following statement, made to a special hearing of the RCIADC into media treatment of Aboriginal people in WA (30 May 1990). The oral submission, by a family relative of one of the dead children, is quoted here verbatim:

And the family was, like the rest of the Aboriginal community -- were very concerned about the statements made in the media as to reference to the deceased being considered as bad rubbish. I attended a meeting at an Aboriginal organisation to discuss the issue of the media comments on the comments -- sorry, I'm just very -- I'm very angry because I've known that kid for so long and also as a part of my family network that those sorts of comments are being made about a human life. And I know that the rest of the Aboriginal community themselves are also very angry about it. And something definitely needs to be done in terms of those particular comments.24

Beyond causing personal pain to the family and friends of the children who died, Sattler's comments, in my opinion, were also likely to incite racial hatred. Within hours of the comments, it became well known in Perth that the children who died were Aboriginal. But more to the point, a reference to people (children) as 'bad rubbish', broadcast to the general public of a community which traditionally over-protects and sentimentalises its children, hardly makes sense unless these particular children are understood as aliens, not part of society, not even human but 'rubbish'. Listeners would not expect to hear someone wishing their own sons or daughters dead, no matter how prodigal they may have been. Sattler did not need to identify the three dead children as Aboriginal, simply because the logic of the situation required that this was understood a priori. In Perth in this period, the image of 'three kids in a stolen Commodore' presumes them to be Aboriginal unless stated otherwise.

In fact, news media did not headline the non-Aboriginality of white offenders at this time, whereas they had regularly referred to the race of Aboriginal offenders; for example, a month before Sattler's comments, appeared a now-notorious (and unfounded) headline in The West Australian -- Aboriginal gangs terrorise suburbs (28-2-1990). In this climate, a commercial radio announcer who promotes his show by inviting listeners to gloat with him over the deaths of children does not need to use labels to identify the target; such an outrageous stance cannot apply to 'our' children, so the likely effect of the comment is to incite listeners to a perfectly simple and well-understood reaction to a familiar scenario -- racial hatred against Aboriginal people.

The ABT received a total of 10 complaints against Sattler's comments. He claims he did not know (at the time) that those killed were Aboriginal people. But this claim is a red herring. Instead of confining the argument to whether or not he knew something in the privacy of his own head, which can never be resolved, it is necessary to analyse Sattler's effect as a broadcaster in the public domain. Here, it is clear that the Aboriginality of the children in question was well understood, not least by Aboriginal people themselves who heard the broadcast. Sattler claimed that Aboriginal people were out to 'gag' him, and indeed Eggington and others had made no secret of their wish to have Sattler removed from the airwaves.

But on 6 August 1990, the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal cleared Sattler of charges of gratuitous racial vilification in this case, finding that although his comments may have been 'offensive to some listeners' they were 'not of such a nature to constitute a breach of the RPS 3 [Radio Program Standard 3]'. The ABT found no evidence that Sattler was aware that those who had died were Aboriginal juveniles at the time he made the comments.25

Sattler is not the only Perth radio broadcaster to have attracted criticism for treatment of issues involving Aboriginal people. Peter Newman of 6PR, Eoin Cameron, Gary Shannon, John K. Watts and Barry Martin have also been the subjects of either complaints to the ABT or of critical analysis. Nor are the print media exempt -- The West Australian was (unsuccessfully) reported to the Press Council for the 'gangs' story mentioned above. In my opinion, Sattler's comments were clearly made as part of a long history of widespread anti-Aboriginal media pressure, against which the regulatory authorities have proved to be completely powerless.