Here’s what Hannah Diviney thinks about Kyle Sandilands’ ‘sensitivity training’

KIIS FM radio has hired a second censor and forced their star host, Kyle Sandilands, into sensitivity training after his comments about Paralympians were found to breach decency provisions by the Australian Media and Communications Authority. It’s a step in the right direction, but as disability advocate Hannah Diviney asks, is it enough?

When news broke earlier this week that Kyle Sandilands was actually being held accountable for his vile comments about the Paralympic Games last year – which he called “horrific”, among other things – all I could muster was a mocking slow clap.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that someone at the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) had the guts to make this call and draw a line in the sand. But I struggle to see how a man who in his own words, “refuses to bow to a woke world” is going to do anything other than treat his mandatory sensitivity training as a joke. 

Plus, I have questions about this ‘sensitivity training’. The big one is whether or not it’s going to be informed by the lived experience of disabled people. Who exactly will be delivering this training? Because I hate to break it to you ACMA, but if it’s delivered by a bunch of able-bodied people reading from a textbook, it’s not actually all that helpful. 

If not handled properly, this training will be nothing more than a gentle slap on the wrist. Just a blip in the cycle of Kyle continually being enabled to make ableist comments. And we don’t even have to wonder when he'll do it again – because he already has. 

At the end of last year, just a few months after the Paralympics incident which, by the way, his network defended in their response to my, and other’s complaints, Kyle had this to say about being beaten by rival radio broadcaster Ben Fordham in the ratings: “(My) team are a bunch of spazzes and Ben Fordham’s audience is nothing more than a bunch of fake, fibreglass half-dead flops in wheelchairs.”

Quite frankly, I don’t think employing an extra censor or mandatory sensitivity training is going to do the job.

Not when Kyle clearly thinks so little of disabled people. Not when there are, as far as I know, no disabled people on any of Australia’s major commercial radio networks in meaningful time slots. Not when organisations like KIIS FM only think this stuff is an issue when their talent gets rightfully punished. And certainly not when we all know that while Kyle will tick the box, as soon as he’s back in front of the microphone, he’ll say something else and get away with it. 

Aside from a few forced stints off the air, over the past 15 years, Kyle Sandilands has always had his golden microphone within reach. As long as the powers that be leave it dangling there, he’ll never change. And no one’s going to make him, because money, sponsors, ratings and power speak loudly. 

So while I appreciate this forward momentum and small step in the right direction, it’s like putting a bandaid over a gunshot wound. It’s not going to do much. If you really want to make a difference, ACMA, and show yourselves as true allies of all marginalised communities, you’d have Kyle Sandilands look for another job. 

As far as I’m concerned, Australia is long past the point where we need to hear his voice on the airwaves, television or anywhere publicly, at all. 

Hireup contacted the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) and asked if their sensitivity training is informed and/or led by people with disability. ACMA responded via email with: "The sensitivity training will be delivered by the licensee’s legal department and the training material will be provided to the ACMA. Further information is in section 5 of the enforceable undertaking accepted by the ACMA."