Former Today show presenter Brooke Boney has told the federal racism inquiry she was forced to leave the media industry after receiving “menacing” threats, including the doxxing of her email and home address.
Ms Boney said the public backlash she received for voicing her perspective on changing the date of Australia Day was one factor in her decision to walk away in 2024, although the harm she experienced from racism accumulated over many years.
“I wasn’t trying to impose my view on anyone else, I was just offering another perspective, not trying to shout over the top of everyone saying, ‘I’m right and you’re wrong,’ it’s ‘this is an alternative view that some Australians hold,'” she told the hearing in Naarm/Melbourne.
“I received threats, physical threats, and I think some of the things that happen when you’re a broadcaster and you have an obligation to being public-facing every day … is that people engage with you in a way that feels quite personal.
“Sometimes that extends to showing up physically where you are and sometimes it means that your account details get doxxed, so your email accounts and where you live.”
She said it was “absolutely terrifying when those threats are realised”.
Ms Boney said racism was forcing First Nations people to weigh up the cost of speaking up, leading to fewer perspectives in public debate.
“Repeated exposure to racism, including in response to doing that work, has contributed to my decision to be less vocal on issues where I might have otherwise contributed to public discourse,” she said.
“That withdrawal is in and of itself a public harm … Silence should not be the price of participation.”
Narelda Jacobs called for anti-racism training in newsrooms. (ABC: Compass)
Network Ten journalist Narelda Jacobs told the inquiry news coverage in Australia often perpetuated negative stereotypes.
“When talking about Indigenous people, stories will often use our vision of squalid living conditions, communities littered with rubbish, Aboriginal people in handcuffs, camping out in a park.
“Such is the entrenched racism in the media. I have been complicit.”
Ms Boney said media reporting on issues like youth crime often relied on “racial narratives” which depicted Aboriginal children as “symbols of disorder”.
“Racism doesn’t require an explicit slur. It can operate through disproportionate images, unverified claims, crime reporting without trend data and portraying a whole group of children as a threat.”
Narelda Jacobs said the current system of media regulation provided very little accountability for outlets that are “spouting hate and racism”.
“There are no consequences. If you do lodge a complaint, it’s seen by those media organisations as engagement that fuels their purpose.
“And they continue publishing articles or opinion pieces because … it sells.”
She said she had long experienced racism in the industry but it became “acute” during the 2023 Voice referendum.
“‘Both sides-ism’ meant I was forced to platform disinformation because for every yes we had to give air time to a no,” she said.
“Networks make it a priority to train reporters and producers on their legal obligations but they don’t undertake anti-racism training.”
SBS/NITV national Indigenous affairs editor John Paul Janke said he had witnessed “an alarming escalation of online racial slurs, of delegitimising First Nations history and expertise, coordinated online pile-ons, and sustained abuse aimed at First Nations voices”.
He said NITV was forced to leave X (formerly Twitter) after a barrage of racist abuse directed at its reporting and its staff.
“Racism is being left in plain sight. It’s amplified by social media algorithms and tolerated by platforms and publishers that have both the capacity and the responsibility to do better.”
Athletes ‘fighting for fair go’ on and off the field
Earlier in the day, the inquiry heard elite sporting organisations were not culturally safe for First Nations athletes and their complaint procedures not fit for purpose.
Former Olympic boxer Marissa Williamson Pohlman told the inquiry Indigenous athletes carried the load of racism both on and off the sporting field.
“I’m not only dealing with the racism I experience whilst I’m trying to be an athlete in the arena, but also the systemic failures that are going on for me and my family outside of sport,” she said.
“I don’t think that I’ll ever actually get to witness myself what I could have become as an athlete because all my energy has been wasted on fighting just for a fair go.”
Marissa Williamson Pohlman says she has experienced racism in and out of the ring. (ABC News: Patrick Stone)
Ms Williamson Pohlman, the first Aboriginal woman to represent Australia in Olympic boxing, said she had frequently been on the receiving end of racist slurs during her sporting career.
She also said a Boxing Australia official had called her home coach and threatened “repercussions” if she carried the Aboriginal flag at an Olympic Games qualifier in Solomon Islands.
“Institutions celebrate Blak excellence when it is convenient, but abandon us when it matters most,” she said.
“So it’s all good when I put some deadly artwork on the uniform, but cultural safety and practice is another thing.”
Ms Williamson Pohlmann said she had faced many roadblocks trying to pursue complaints against former national head coach Jamie Pittman.
Mr Pittman is currently employed as Boxing Australia’s acting high-performance manager, despite having withdrawn from the Paris Olympics after admitting to sexual misconduct.
Ms Williamson Pohlmann wants an independent investigation into the organisation.
“Through my trials and tribulations I’ve come to understand that sporting federations investigate themselves,” Ms Williamson Pohlmann said.
“Sport Integrity Australia, despite their name, they can only investigate individuals, not the actual organisation.
“The National Sports Tribunal can only take complaints if the federation agrees to it. So they’re all just looking out for each other.”
The ABC has contacted Boxing Australia for comment.
‘You’re not in our shoes’
Representatives of Melbourne football and netball club the Fitzroy Stars told the hearing they had experienced racism at the hands of competitors, coaches and umpires, with little recourse.
Esme Bamblett says racism complaints must be adjudicated by people with lived experience. (ABC News: Patrick Stone)
Club president Aunty Esme Bamblett said racism complaints should not be adjudicated by all-white sporting tribunals and must include people with lived experience.
“You can’t be impartial [if] you don’t know what it feels like to be an Aboriginal person,” she said.
“You don’t know what it feels like in this country to be an Aboriginal person who has racism directed at them. You don’t know because you’re not in our shoes.”
Torres Strait Islander and former AFL executive Tanya Hosch told the inquiry the responsibility of dealing with racism should not be placed on those who experience it.
“I can’t think of a single workplace that I have worked in where I haven’t experienced racism and depending on your circumstances in that workplace, [it] drastically impacts your ability to stand up to it,” she said.
Ms Hosch said it was “beyond disappointing” that few state and territory government departments across the country had accepted the committee’s requests to appear in person.
“It would seem to me that governments of all persuasions are seeking to avoid fronting up to this conversation for fear that they may be politically wedged.”
She said the federal inquiry was “one of the few glimmers of hope” among the “ongoing assaults of racism”.
Independent senator and committee member Lidia Thorpe said the AFL and NRL had both declined the committee’s requests to appear.
The parliamentary inquiry into racism, hate and violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was announced in the wake of the alleged terror attack on an Invasion Day rally in Perth in January and a violent neo-Nazi attack on Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne last August.
The final report is due to be tabled in parliament by the end of the year.