Sattler states the removal of Aboriginal children was a 'disgrace' and 'it should never have happened', and he is 'sorry' about it. However, he's not about to represent the Report accurately to his listeners, nor to urge them to consider or read it. The first transcript is from 22 May 1997, with Sattler speaking by telephone, on air, to the Director of the Aboriginal Medical Service, Ted Wilkes.

Sattler, introducing his program topics for the day:

Sattler: The report that they were talking about has called for a national Sorry Day ... you're kidding ... on which all non-Aboriginal people will be called on to apologise for past atrocities. Have you ever heard anything more ludicrous and demeaning for the community, and I won't be participating in any national sorry day. I am sorry for what happened, but I didn't do it, and almost every other Australian has been called upon to participate in a national Sorry Day had nothing to do with it either. We hope to talk with Miss Hanson and one of our Aboriginal industry leaders about that. 

Sattler: Forced from their homes, bombed and strafed and subjected to shocking atrocities as Japanese prisoners of war, these were Australian, British and Dutch women, who've had their wartime stories now told, after several books but now, told in a movie called Paradise Road, I've seen the movie, and tell you what, if it doesn't jerk the tears ducts, nothing will. Well this morning you'll meet the man who wrote the story and one of the survivors. 

Sattler: Ted Wilkes is on the line for the Aboriginal Medical Service. Yes Ted, good morning.
Wilkes: Good morning Howard, just ringing up to express my concern about the blase sort of statements you made about not wanting to be a part of celebrating a Sorry Day for the atrocities of the past ...
Sattler: [interrupts] aw, what a ludicrous, what an absolutely over the top loopy suggestion.
Wilkes: Let's explore why I've rung you Howard, rather than let go into saying its a ludicrous suggestion.
Sattler: Well you wanted to know what I thought about it, I think it's a joke.
Wilkes: OK, well let me say this to you. That the atrocities of the past are certainly being very subtly carried out today, and you're one of the people that are carrying them out.
Sattler: Ted, am I taking children away from their parents?
Wilkes: You're certainly not doing anything to improve the reconciliation process with Aboriginal ...
Sattler: [interrupts] No, no, no. The national Sorry Day apparently is all about saying sorry, all of us saying sorry for past actions, right? And it says that the past actions, and the taking away of children from their parents, now I have nothing to do with it, I think it was a disgrace, I'm sorry it happened, but I didn't do it.
Wilkes: Howard, let me say this to you. Aboriginal people today still suffer from atrocities that are committed against them, whether they be someone pointing a gun at them and shooting a bullet, or whether they be someone not allowing them access into things which you take for granted, like nightclubs, like the education system, like the workforce, like the hospitals. That is still occurring today and what we need to understand is that Aboriginal people are at their lowest ebb and we really need people around us, non-Aboriginal people included, to try and help us out of the ...
Sattler: [interrupts] But Ted you want to live in the past all the time.
Wilkes: No we don't.
Sattler: Yes you do.
Wilkes: We want people to recognise that we are a disadvantaged group and we can't pull ourselves out of the disadvantage on our own, we need ... 
Sattler: [interrupts] No, no, no, some of the people who are Aboriginal are disadvantaged, that's the way it is Ted.
Wilkes: No it's not Howard. Every Aboriginal person in this country is disadvantaged. The mere fact that ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Well you don't look too disadvantaged to me when I see you Ted.
Wilkes: You walk with me down James Street and try to get into some of the nightclubs which you take for granted as being able to get into ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Well I wouldn't go to them. Most of them are the pits.
Wilkes: Well that's not the point, the point is that every other non-Aboriginal person, every Aboriginal person in this country is discriminated against because of the colour of their ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Anytime that people have been barred form those places, Aboriginal people, you know whose side I've taken Ted? I've taken the Aboriginal people's side, because there's no way in the world that anybody should be barred from a place based on race.
Wilkes: The blase statement you've made, I don't mind if you've got a statement to make about Aboriginal people, but again I said to you you have a point of view which is distinctly biased ...
Sattler: [interrupts] What do you expect us to all do on national Sorry Day Ted?.
Wilkes: Well, what have we celebrated ANZAC Day for, is that a Sorry Day?
Sattler: That's a day in which we celebrate, commemorate more than anything else, an ultimate sacrifice given by people to defend this country.
Wilkes: If that history has to be recorded and we learn from history?
Sattler: Yes but Ted, on ANZAC Day you actually get to meet some of the people who stood and defended this country.
Wilkes: The learning tool Howard. You're not prepared to use history as a learning tool ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Well, what do you want to do on national Sorry Day Ted?
Wilkes: I'm not supporting it in the concept that you're supporting it. I'm saying ... [Sattler inter-cuts: It wasn't my idea] ... people, we need non-Aboriginal people to recognise that there were atrocities in the past ...
Sattler: [interrupts] I recognise it. It's a disgrace. It should never have happened, and it will never happen again.
Wilkes: and people being shot in massacres ...
Sattler: [interrupts] That's not happening today.
Wilkes: If you listen to some of, aw come on Howard ...
Sattler: What, people are being shot in massacres, where?
Wilkes: Oh come on look it wasn't so long ago that Aboriginal people were being shot at, and OK, the guns aren't there any more, but ...
Sattler: [interrupts] But, but, but, but, but others, non-Aboriginal people too. How many Aboriginal people were shot at Port Arthur Ted?
Wilkes: You try to get a job if you're an Aboriginal person, that ...
Sattler: No, no Ted, were any Aboriginal people amongst the 35 who died at Port Arthur? That was a massacre. 
Wilkes: ... it doesn't happen. You come with me and try to acquire a house in the private real estate, and you see what happens. You stand behind a tree and watch me, and you see if I can get a house with my four children that I've got with me. I'll bet you I can't. I'll bet you if you go in there and the next ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Ted, well I tell you what you do. Here's a challenge for you. You try and get that house and then, ah if, based on race you can't get it, you tell me who refused you and I'll expose them.
Wilkes: You're side-stepping the issue again Howard.
Sattler: No, you ask, you're the one who brought that up, not me.
Wilkes: It's so noticeable, and what's going to happen in this country is that the racial tension is going to get to breaking point, I can tell you ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Yeah I'll tell you why Ted, because of ...
Wilkes: ... what's going on, blood will be let. That's the problem.
Sattler: Well you said that, not me.
Wilkes: You're one of the people that are stirring it.
Sattler: Ted.
Wilkes: It really, really hurts people like me and others who are trying to do the right thing ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Why, because I said national Sorry Day was a joke?
Wilkes: Listen Howard, it might be a sorry, sorry day, but it needs to be done, it needs Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people to work together, to work out how we can recognise that there were atrocities in the past ...
Sattler: [interrupts] I know that Ted. I know that Ted. I've reported on them Ted. They were disgraceful, they should never happen again, and if I've got anything to do with it, they won't.
Wilkes: Well, history is a learning tool, and let's use it in that way. Now if there has to be some sort of recognition in this society today, that the atrocities of the past should not occur again, well it has to be brought forth Howard, now ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Well national Sorry Day won't solve the problem Ted.
Wilkes: What, what will solve the problem Howard? You tell me.
Sattler: The, the, the, the problem will be solved when we stop talking about things based on race. That we go and help all the people who are disadvantaged in this country irrespective of their race and we give equal opportunity and equal consideration to those people.
Wilkes: OK, well you and Pauline [Hanson] get up with some good policies and you might ...
Sattler: [interrupts] Wha, wha, wha, wha, what's wrong with that. You disagree with that do you?
Wilkes: You might have people like me supporting you, but at the moment you've got no policies to try and make people who are disadvantaged like ...
Sattler: [interrupts] What, looking after all people equally, irrespective of race, that's not a policy?
Wilkes: Aboriginal people want to be equal too. Like what I said to you, you follow me around the streets of Perth and try to get into the private real estate market if you're an Aboriginal person.
Sattler: Well I told you Ted, the challenge to you is to let me know who refuses you, OK?
Wilkes: I know that that occurs, and you don't, and you're ignorant and your being a bigot in many more ways than you'll realise mate.
Sattler: Well, it's over to you Ted, right? [Wilkes: OK] Thanks for joining us on the program. The challenge is in your lap my friend. More about that later if you like, uh 2211233 is the open line number and it's open and equal to all people who've got access to a telephone to give me a call. Back after the news.

Sattler's comment 'Ted you want to live in the past all the time' must be compared with his sympathetic promotion of the Paradise Road film, which involved, similar to the stolen generations: 

a) past atrocities against Australians;
b) these Australians being placed in government camps;
c) removal of these Australians from their families and homes, and deprivation of their liberty.

This is clear discrimination in the treatment of two public documents about two histories of injustice and atrocity against Australians. The interests of indigenous people wronged by the removal of children have been sacrificed to Sattler's self-interested campaign against 'the [Aboriginal] industry'. Moreover, this cannot serve the interests of other Australians who deserve to be accurately informed about the issue.

Indeed, if Sattler often claims also to be concerned about the way taxpayers' money is used, that is, a claimed concern for the interests of 'the taxpayer', then given that the HREOC Inquiry was 'taxpayer funded', the interests of taxpayers among Sattler's listeners are not being served by his encouraging them, with distortions and misrepresentations, to dismiss and ignore a report on injustice against Australians that they have paid for. By contrast, Sattler is encouraging his taxpayer listeners to see a movie on injustice against Australians that they have not paid for.

Wilkes raises massacres of Aboriginal people. Rather than condemn them, Sattler generalises massacres and uses the Port Arthur shootings as evidence. However, this is plainly at odds with his own demands that people be treated equally, regardless of race. Massacres based on race then, should not be equated, or subsumed by 'secular' massacres. In other words, Wilkes has identified the discriminatory massacring of Aborigines, that is, how they were not treated equally, but killed because they were Aborigines. Instead of trying to deny the racial specificity of the massacres, Sattler should have described these as 'disgraceful' like he has described the removal of children. But his aim is to render Wilkes' arguments as unwarranted special pleading, and the significance of racist massacring of Aborigines is sacrificed to Sattler's sectarian and petty ulterior interests in castigating whatever 'Aboriginal industry' spokespeople and representatives say.

Later on, Sattler, in taking two callers, continues to counterpose the setting up of link-up and counselling services to monetary compensation -- 'you just can't pass it off with a cheque' (to caller Hilda).   The point is, no-one is calling for only cash payments. Sattler has set up a convenient straw target in order to make out 'the industry' is looking for more 'handouts', and is not looking after the interests of Aborigines. In fact the Report recommends monetary compensation as one of a number of governmental actions.

Moreover, having argued that money is not appropriate compensation for past traumas, Sattler replies to caller Christine's query  'we didn't give money to the ANZACS did we?' with 'well, not enough'. Thus, monetary compensation is indeed warranted for past trauma, and the ANZACS "did not get enough". Fairly clear discrimination here.

Sattler treats an elderly Aboriginal caller, Hilda, who was removed, very sympathetically. He reiterates a number of times throughout the morning that 'it was a disgrace, should never have happened and will never happen again'. However, as above, Sattler creates the false impression that the Report is recommending only either symbolic or cash reparations, and that it is Sattler who is advocating the 'real solutions' of counselling and family re-uniting. In fact these latter are key recommendations of the Report -- numbers 13, 27, 30a, 30b, 31a, 33a, 34a, 34b, 36, 40a, 40b.

Sattler assumes the role of the champion of Aborigines against 'the [Aboriginal] industry'. Thus, where 'the industry' cannot be shown factually to have misrepresented Aboriginal interests, it must be made to appear so anyway. This is quite mundanely, extremely bad journalism; bereft of facts and information about a government Report which is the focus of discussion and thoroughly deceitful.

Let's go back to Sattler's promotion of the film Paradise Road to complete the comparison of his treatment of past injustices against Australians. [the following week (27 May 1997) - 11.00 am]
Segment begins with 20 seconds of choral music, no talking ...

Sattler: [with music continuing in background] Dulcet tones, aren't they? They are the dulcet tones of a group of, well, in the original version, the real life version, very brave women who put up with incredible barbarism I think you could call it from their captors during World War Two. They were a group of people, I should let them sing for you a bit more than I should speak, so let's just listen a bit. This is from Paradise Road, a movie which you mustn't miss. 

Sattler: And I tell you what, after a while, they'll make you cry, the movie will make you cry. Hard bitten people like me even had a sort of tear-duct working overtime. But joining me in the studio, now and I'm really pleased that she is here because she's one of the stars of Paradise Road and she's our own because she's an Australian, Penny Hackforth-Jones joins us. Hello Penny, how're you going?