None of Their Business:
Talk-back Jocks, friends of "the battler" or bailiffs for "the taxpayer"?

by Steve Mickler

Commercial talk-back radio presenters like to make out they are on the side of ordinary people, the battlers, the underdogs and so on. Radio 6PR's breakfast slot hosts Lee Tate and Dave Christensen, known as Tate and Christensen, fill this bill neatly. Yet when it comes to indigenous battlers, our champions of the down-trodden routinely tend to metamorphose into advocates of something called 'the taxpayer'.

As the following transcripts from 22 May 1997 show, the outcome of this mutation is prejudice and insult. The above pair telephone-interviewed Aboriginal woman Jenny Martin. Jenny, her mother Joan and other members of the family were in the midst of battling to remain in Joan's state housing home in Karrinyup, against a Homeswest eviction order and a bigoted campaign by some locals to kick the family out of the suburb. Prime stuff for any media mates of the poor, we would have thought. But no.

Tate: All right Jenny, what about the claim that neighbours of yours have been subjected to fighting in the street, throwing of rocks, threats, abusive language?
Jenny Martin: Abusive language? Do you know why? Because my sons and my boys cannot walk across the park without getting threatened. They couldn't walk up to the shops without getting threatened.
Christensen: How old are these boys?
Jenny: Fifteen to eighteen.
Christensen: Right. How old are you now?
Jenny: I'm thirty-five.
Christensen: I'm only asking that because um, that might seem a bit of a rude question but you've got five kids, are you having any more?
Jenny: I've got a 14 year-old boy now.
Christensen: Yeah, and you've got five children have you?
Jenny: Yeah I've got five ...
Christensen: [interrupts] Are you having any more?
Jenny: ... disability allowance.
Christensen: Ok but do you intend having any more children Jennifer?
Jenny: Well I don't know, should I? Because a white society cannot tolerate my children. Now should I have children or shouldn't I? How Many Children? (60.0k)
Christensen: Well feel free to have as many children as you can but there are ...
Jenny: Feel free? It's a thing of, shall I have more children or not, because I'm asking a white society, not myself ...
Christensen: [interrupts] Well you need to house them and look after them don't you really?
Jenny: Yeah, I do, I need to.
Christensen: All right, sounds like you've got your hands full there this morning Jennifer, no doubt you have every day.
Jenny: Of course we have our hands full, because at the moment I'm looking after all the children while my mother is in hospital looking after my brother who Homeswest has done a good job of.

Later in the program a listener, Joyce, called in to express her outrage at Tate's and Christensen's line of questioning of Jenny Martin. Here is an excerpt.

Tate: Yeah she does need help Joyce, no question about it. Homeswest has helped them so many times, it's just ahh, and this time they're going to try and get them a property, which is a good thing, I hope they do.
Joyce : [caller] Yeah, well I hope they do ...
Tate: [interrupts] But Joyce look. My job here is to ask the questions that people are thinking about. Let's not hide this under a bushel any longer, let's ask them, let's see how they defend themselves, and then find the answers.
Joyce: It's got nothing to do with you whether she's having any more children or not.
Christensen: Well we're paying for it Joyce.
Joyce: What do you mean we're paying for it?
Christensen: Well who's paying for their housing, probably their clothing and everything else, the schooling? We're Paying For It (22.3k)
Joyce: We should, we put more money into helping people like that ...
Christensen: [interrupts] But Joyce I didn't say she shouldn't have any more children, I only asked if she intended having any more, she, she got the point.
Tate: Thanks for that Joyce. Hazel of Balcatta. Good morning.

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