★★★★★ 0/5

Sonia Kruger comments vilified Muslim community

NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal finds comments had the capacity to encourage hatred towards Australian Muslims.

21
Leave a comment

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has ruled Sonia Kruger vilified Muslim people when she advocated for Muslim immigration to be banned.

Kruger made the statement during a panel discussion on Today in July, 2016.

While discussing a newspaper article written by Andrew Bolt, Kruger said she agreed that the columnist “has a point here, that there is a correlation between the number of people who, you know, are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks.

“Now, I have a lot of very good friends who are Muslims, who are peace-loving, who are beautiful people, but there are fanatics.

“Personally, I would like to see [Muslim immigration] stopped now for Australia.

“Because I want to feel safe, as all of our citizens do, when they go out to celebrate Australia Day.”

At the time Nine said the network believed in “freedom of speech and the Mixed Grill segment on the Today show is a place where that happens”.

The Tribunal found her comments had the capacity to “encourage hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims by ordinary members of the Australian population”. But they were not racial vilification, because Muslim people are not a race.

“Apart from that issue, we would have found that both [Kruger and the Nine Network] engaged in racial vilification of the Australian Muslim community, being Muslims living in Australia,” the tribunal said.

It accepted that Kruger and Nine were “acting in good faith without malice and not for an improper purpose” but said it “cannot accept that the remarks of Ms Kruger were ‘reasonable'”.

“She expressed the view that the size of Australia’s Muslim population meant there should be no further Muslim migration irrespective of any other matter. This appears to be unsupported by any evidence or material placed before the Tribunal,” the tribunal said.

Kruger’s comments drew an avalanche of criticism which has arguably impacted her brand with viewers ever since. The day after her comments she addressed the issue.

“I acknowledge my views yesterday may have been extreme. It is a hugely complex and sensitive issue, it’s an issue with no simple answer and it’s an issue that cannot be fully discussed in a short televised segment,” she said.

Source: The Australian, MSN.com

21 Responses

  3. I find the network is at fault, by putting a person who was once a dance instructor , and since an entertainment presenter, into a position that it expects, to represent them as qualified spokesperson.
    Not everyone has the specialised experience to be that diplomatic. She is only guilty of punching above her weight.

    1. The privilege of being on the airwaves doesn’t give someone the right to malign a community. A broadcaster is expected to use their licence with responsibility and standards. Otherwise express it as a private citizen elsewhere.

      1. The ABC, though meant to be impartial, express their own views all the time. Just watch the ‘wooden’ Laura Tingle on every episode on Insiders. Expresses her ‘private citizen’ opinion on there on a routine basis, yet Laura is a ‘reporter'(and meant to be impartial at that)… not a commentator. Good on you Sonia!

          1. Laura is a reporter on 7:30. Not a commentator to scoff and give opinion on Insiders (which is heavily skew to the left) It puts her credibility as an impartial reporter out the window.

          2. She’s actually political correspondent and analyst. In any case TV has been inviting political analysis from correspondents for years. Laurie Oakes, Paul Biongiorno on Meet the Press etc. Where there is imbalance you could raise it through the usual complaints steps. Or switch off.

        2. Whether or not Laura or any other ABC journo maintains impartiality has nothing at all to do with maligning a community the way Sonia had. Two completely different matters.

  6. “She expressed the view that the size of Australia’s Muslim population meant there should be no further Muslim migration *irrespective of any other matter*. This appears to be *unsupported* by any evidence or material placed before the Tribunal,”
    These findings are fair and reasonable – she did vilify a group of people.

    Some of the comments here are shocking. This isn’t an attack on free speech or an instance of over zealous thought policing – it’s an appropriate callout of the danger contained in myopic worldviews.
    The discussion should be about how so much of Australian television (especially morning) fosters and bolsters myopic thinking in their hosts/personalities and clearly, based on these comments, their audiences.

  7. I am eagerly awaiting an Australian court/tribunal to find that the denigrating labelling of many Australians as “white privileged” or “male white privileged” as not also inciting hatred against, and/or serious contempt for, that/those group/s of people. But I think I have more chance of winning Powerball.

    This case against Sonia Kruger and a similar case years ago against Andrew Bolt confirm that freedom of speech is tantamount to dead in Australia – we’re now not much dissimilar to despotic states current and past.

  9. George Orwell wasn’t too far off. Her views would align with many in the community who have concerns about Muslim immigration but the thought police have you silenced should you ever express your fears and concerns.

  10. I disagree with Sonia’s view on Muslim immigration, but I’ve heard a lot worse said by right wing politicians, and no subsequent findings of vilification.

Leave a Reply