Grilled about Kyle and Jackie O’s language on their KIIS FM breakfast show at last week’s Senate Estimates committee hearing, the ACMA Chair Neridah O’Loughlin declined to read out comments presented to her by Senator Hanson-Young.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG: I have some questions about what ACMA has done in relation to the Kyle and
Jackie O Show. I will ask this page to be given to the chair.
Senator SHARMA: I didn’t know you were a listener.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG: I’m certainly not.
CHAIR: What do we have here?
Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Some comments broadcast on the Kyle and Jackie O Show in September. These are just a handful… Ms O’Loughlin, I want you to look at this and tell me whether you think you would be able to read it out to us.

The comments were summarised by Hanson-Young, but not entered into the records word for word.

“There are jokes about people being gay; jokes about one of the producer’s Asian housemates; jokes about dating men who are not white; jokes about the sexual and racial profiles of journalists from other stations; and divisive and violent language about women and sex. It goes into vulgar detail about sex acts. There are comments on air that refer to fellow hosts as being ‘an annoying bitch’ and ‘ho’

“There are jokes about overweight women and mental health. Of course, the final point is about a competition where they got female staff to record themselves urinating and then the boys had to figure out whose bits were contributing to that urine. It is vulgar. It is not just vulgar; it is disgusting. It is belittling of women. It is misogynistic, racist, sexist and off.”

O’Laughlin told the Senator she would “prefer not to read them out” because she didn’t think “they were appropriate for parliamentary language.”

This brought the obvious follow up from Hanson-Young, who said:

“You would prefer not to read them out. That is understandable. I don’t imagine there are many children watching this Senate estimates. I assume the audience that watches this Senate estimates session is far smaller than those who listen to the Kyle and Jackie O Show. I understand why you don’t want to read these comments out. They are vulgar, aren’t they?”

O’Laughlin declined to comment on the transcripts saying, “under the co-regulatory framework, complaints need to be dealt with by the broadcaster first and come to us for investigation after that.”

The Senator asked: “I would like to understand today while I have you, because you are versed in this, whether you would consider that the content I have given you falls foul of the code’s decency standards.”

The ACMA Chair replied: “I think it would be unreasonable for us to give you an opinion at the table.”

The Commercial Radio Codes of Practice include two references to the kind of material presented to the Senate committee:

Code 2.2. Program content must not offend generally accepted standards of decency (for example, through the use of unjustified language), having regard to the demographic characteristics of the audience of the relevant Program.

and

Code 2.4. A Licensee must not broadcast a feature Program which has an explicit sexual theme as its core component unless it is broadcast between 7.00pm and 6.00am and an appropriate warning is made prior to commencement of the Program and at hourly intervals during broadcast of the Program.

A full Hansard Transcript can be found here.