Chairman of the ABC, Kim Williams, and ABC managing director Hugh Marks have managed to drag our blighted public broadcaster to the lowest depths in its long and less-than-unblemished history. Back in the 1970s, for instance, there were concerns raised over  supposed approval being broadcast for what was then known as ‘pederasty’. In more recent times, there have been millions of taxpayer dollars spent to settle various defamation lawsuits. But most of the more recent scandals have been to do with chronic left-wing political bias, or alleged antisemitism, including such dubious practices as ‘unintentionally’ editing interviews, or tampering with the sound, to give a misleading impression. And of course there have been scandals around personnel, salaries, sackings, and so forth.

But nothing comes close to the disgusting and indeed depraved broadcast of July 13, 2026; the sixth episode of the latest series of the ABC’s Race Around the World.

The idea of the show is that six amateur filmmakers get to travel around the world making short films in ten different countries. (Nice work if you can get it!) It’s a wholesome and worthy enough idea, assuming it promotes decent talent. These short films are then edited back in Australia by the production company Endemol Shine (who also produce shows like MasterChef and Married At First Sight) and who have been commissioned by the ABC to produce this series. One assumes the contract is worth close to if not over a million dollars. The films are then screened before a panel of judges who praise or criticise each week’s offerings. The ultimate winner will get their own project funded and supported by the ABC.

There is no brief for the films: they can be dramas, documentaries, comedies, or whatever the film-maker chooses. The show is rated M, with warnings that it may contain coarse language and sexual references.

That’s putting it mildly, to say the least. Without any prior warning, on episode 6 in a short film shot in Scotland by Kate McGuinness, the narrator suddenly launches into a vile and violent fantasy about anally raping Australian businesswoman Gina Rinehart with a wooden spear and then sodomising, torturing and murdering her in the most grotesque and graphic fashion.

The sexual violence and more importantly the incitement to murder of a named public figure is shocking and extremely disturbing, but above all it is entirely gratuitous. It is completely devoid of any meaningful context, and has zero satirical, creative or comedic merit. It is quite literally unjustifiable in every sense of the word.

The context of this abomination, such as it is, is a dreary and unfunny short film about some silly end of the world scenario in which you can only fight with sticks. It’s boring, it’s dumb, it’s badly filmed, and indeed, the judges were clearly unimpressed.

One of them, Leigh Sales, who has been in newsrooms for decades and should have got up and walked out if she’d had an ounce of feminist integrity, was clearly uncomfortable, referring to the film-maker’s ‘easy, kind of nasty gag about Gina Rinehart’. More significantly, John Safran, once a genuine talent who made his name on the original version of this show, pointed out that there would be legal problems due to the smear. This seemed to amuse the audience and the delight the film-maker.

Yet unbelievably the ABC went ahead and broadcast this horrific incitement to violence, in complete disregard of their own editorial procedures, which clearly state that ‘depictions of violence should: not contain a lot of detail, and not be prolonged. Verbal and visual references to sexual violence may only be included if they are: discreet and infrequent, and strongly justified by the narrative or documentary context.’ And, ‘In realistic treatments, depictions of violence that contain detail should: not have a strong impact, and not be gratuitous.’

In her film, Kate McGuinness literally instructs her audience at length and in detail how to disembowel and murder Gina Rinehart relishing every gory detail. Justifiable? Discreet? Not gratuitous?

In her column this week, Rebecca Weisser looks at how the left are more than happy to denigrate and offend women if they are of the wrong political persuasion. As she writes, ‘Dr Alice Jill Edwards, an Australian lawyer, is the UN’s first female Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Edwards most recent report… should be sent to ABC Chairman Kim Williams, and Australia’s Minister for Women, Katy Gallagher.’

Only a fortnight ago, Britain’s Reform politician Anne Widdecombe was murdered, bashed to death in the most violent manner with a hammer allegedly by a far-left activist. In America, eighteen months ago, Brian Thomson, a prominent healthcare CEO, was allegedly murdered in the street by left-wing activist Luigi Mangione. Many on the left applauded. Only a week ago, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that assassinations inspired by radical left politics have become more and more common throughout the world.

And it is in that environment that Kim Williams and Hugh Marks agreed to broadcast on the ABC specific instructions and incitement for the sexual torture, disembowelment and murder of an Australian woman. They call it satire, apparently.