So as you may have heard by now, Triple J have taken on board the feedback of the overwhelming majority of listeners, and chosen to shift the date of the annual Hottest 100 countdown from January 26 – Australia Day – to the last weekend in January.
It’s a decision that’s not without controversy, and despite 60% of people polled saying that they’re in favour of a date change, the station has already copped some vociferous responses. It’s not surprising, then, that tonight’s Hack program got stuck into the matter.
Reporter Sarah McVeigh spoke to musician Dan Sultan, columnist and former ABC board member Janet Albrechtsen, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Alex Hawke, and Triple J manager Ollie Wards. It’s an interesting half hour, during which McVeigh gets really stuck in to Wards in particular about the motivations behind the date change, and gives a platform to noted conservative Albrechtsen to absolutely slam Triple J.
The main point of contention appears to be the station’s perceived “politicisation” of Australia Day; Wards repeatedly refused to confirm that the station was responding to pressure from Indigenous Australians and their allies to move the Hottest 100 to a date that wasn’t considered by many to be a day of mourning:
The main thing we wanted to do is remove the Hottest 100 from this discussion, and look at the reaction we’ve seen today – that shows that this thing becoming a huge debate and it’s being politicised. […] If we didn’t move the day, it was going to be a political statement.
Wards also confirmed that the 2019 Hottest 100 would be held on the Australia Day long weekend, after McVeigh and a caller pressed him on the convenience of an apparent “easy out” the year after the controversial first date change.
Janet Albrechtsen, who is also a columnist for The Australian, called in to make the ludicrous suggestion that Triple J is trying to “neuter” a national holiday that their countdown has literally nothing to do with.
I think [Triple J] have been keen to, in effect, make a political statement by claiming they’re not making a political statement. By changing the hottest 100 from Australia Day, where it’s sat for many, many years now, they are basically joining up with a small band of other activist movements which are trying to, in a sense, neuter what Australia Day means.
To say that Australia Day is a day of grieving or a day of mourning for Aboriginal people – that’s a one-dimensional characterisation of history.
The whole piece is really worth listening to, if only to hear McVeigh go hard on the guy who’s essentially her boss, making sure he’s held accountable on the station’s research methods, their motivations, and their responsibilities to their listeners. The Albrechtsen stuff, take with as many grains of salt as required (many).
Also: changing the date is clearly the best move possible. 65,000 people were polled, and 60% were for the change. There is no debate. C’mon.
