Former Liberal MP turned Outsiders host Ross Cameron has been sacked from Sky News for using racist terms to describe Chinese people on his late night cable and free-to-air TV show.
"If you go to the Disneyland in Shanghai, on any typical morning of the week you'll see 20,000 black-haired, slanty-eyed, yellow-skinned Chinese desperate to get into Disneyland," Cameron said.
The controversial right wing host's comments made on Tuesday this week were picked up by Sleeping Giants Oz, an online group that has been pressuring Sky News advertisers to withdraw their ads for the last few months.
The comments began to go viral on Twitter on Friday once shared by former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane.
Part of me doesn’t want to give this any attention, but this is nasty even by the low standards of Sky News and Outsiders. Ross Cameron and Rowan Dean: don’t complain if you’re called racist and bigoted. That describes your program accurately https://t.co/tozHGAjsUx
"This is nasty even by the low standards of Sky News and Outsiders," Soutphommasane said.
Others soon began criticising Sky News for allowing the show to go to air.
Hey @SkyNewsAust here's more for your HR paperwork when you sack Rowan Dean and Ross Cameron and then press OFF on their show because nobody of value will watch now. https://t.co/6WewCXDTy5 @jiehyunglo #racism #australia #dumbblokes #auspol https://t.co/KGFIiyJJRJ
I think that @SkyNewsAust need to outline their response to @RossCameron4 talking about “black haired, slanty eyed yellow skinned Chinese” on air on #SkyNews. This is totally unacceptable racism. The man should be taken off air. @lenoretaylor @bencubby have you seen this? https://t.co/bJ2lY7Q4U0
Hey @SkyNewsAust. I believe you owe people of Chinese origin an apology after these despicable and disgraceful comments by your talent. Furthermore, you need to take immediate action to ensure such behaviour is not repeated. #auspol #mediawatch https://t.co/T2Y7eXpdFl
Some were shocked, but not surprised that such words were being used on national TV in Australia in 2018.
What does it say about Australian media where I can hear my race described as “black haired, slanty eyed, yellow skinned Chinese” on national TV and feel zero shock? All-white TV panels already discuss black people like specimens and our broadcasters use the “N” word regularly.
Sky News has removed the podcast of the episode from its feed.
Sky News then tweeted that Cameron had been sacked.
Statement from Sky News Chief Executive Paul Whittaker regarding Ross Cameron.
"I have today advised Ross Cameron that his contract with Sky News has been terminated," new Sky News CEO Paul Whittaker said in a statement.
"This language is totally unacceptable and has no place on any of our platforms, nor in modern Australian society."
Outsiders, hosted by Cameron and right wing columnist Rowan Dean, originally only aired once a week on Sundays to follow ABC's own politics show Insiders, but recently the show moved to five days a week, from Sunday to Thursday.
The show has long been controversial, and the decision to give the two hosts more airtime came just months after Sky News apologised for allowing an offensive comment made by Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm about Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young to be highlighted on screen.
Outsiders is part of what is colloquially called Sky News After Dark, the post-6pm conservative commentary on the news channel that is Australia's answer to Fox News.
In August Sky News apologised for airing an interview with far-right nationalist Blair Cottrell.
Sky News recently began airing on free-to-air television in some regional parts of Australia on WIN TV. The media watchdog wrote to WIN in August to tell the station it needed to comply with the free-to-air TV code of practice.
WIN TV responded that staff had undergone training before the launch.
WIN told the ACMA it doesn't control what Sky News puts to air, but Sky News has trained staff to comply with free TV code of practice (even After Dark hosts?) https://t.co/0OZW6s0MUx
Sleeping Giants Oz has been running campaigns against Sky News and other News Corp outlets since the Hanson-Young incident, and has recently received some return fire from News Corp newspaper The Australian, which has described the campaign as "a secretive political group".