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TV first as NITV broadcasts Indigenous election forum

NITV is claiming an Australian TV first with a special election forum on Indigenous issues, hosted by Stan Grant.

2013-08-23_1127NITV is claiming an Australian TV first with a special election forum on Indigenous issues, hosted by Awaken’s Stan Grant, to go to air tonight.

ALP Senator Doug Cameron and the Liberal spokesman on Indigenous Health Andrew Lamming took part along with Greens Senator Rachel Siewert.

They joined some of the Indigenous candidates including Greens candidate Barbara Shaw, First Nations candidates Rosalie Kunoth-Monks and Ken Leichleitner from the NT, Independent Senate candidate for SA Ribnga Green and the Palmer United Party candidate for far north Queensland, Bruce Gibson.

Stan Grant says “One of the interesting phenomena in this election is the number of Indigenous candidates running for a whole range of parties.”

Awaken Executive Producer Angela Bates says, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues can get swept under the carpet during elections which is why the Awaken Special is an important one.”

The event has given community members and representatives from many Indigenous organisations, including health, legal & education to have their say.

Stan Grant says, “It’s more likely for an Indigenous kid to end up in detention than finish high school. Indigenous men die so much younger than non-Indigenous men. We are still a long way from closing the gap. This forum has given the political candidates the chance to put forward their plans to tackle the big issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.”

This Awaken election special is for all Australians to hear directly from the major parties and Indigenous candidates covering a wide range of views from the NT Intervention, Cape York welfare trial, as well as education, employment and health.

6pm tonight on NITV.

2 Responses

  1. This seems interesting and I hope it’s also played on SBS as well. David NITV regularly rates between zero and 0.3 as a channel. This seems ridiculous to me. Obviously NITV is specifically of interest to Indigenous Australians and I wonder if the ratings system in any way makes sure that Indigenous Australians are proportionately represented in the sample size. Is race taken into account? If 2.4% of the country is Indigenous are 2.4% of Oztam boxes with Indigenous people? If not then given the station is of particular interest to Indigenous people then they are being short changed in the ratings.

    1. It’s a very valid question. NITV has long maintained that a lot of their audience being Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders are not in the OzTAM panel. As we know it is 5 city metro. We do have RegionalTAM as a separate panel but it is geographic not culturally based.

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