Australian PM savages Big Brother after sex attack claim

Prime minister John Howard called today for the Australian version of Big Brother to be axed after a woman on the show claimed two male contestants sexually assaulted her.

The centre-right government has referred Network 10’s Big Brother – a fly-on-the wall series in which a group of strangers live together and compete for a cash prize – to the television standards watchdog over the incident on Saturday, communications minister Helen Coonan’s office said.

On a Sunday broadcast, the 22-year-old woman contestant was shown tearfully telling her housemates that one of the men held her arms while the other rubbed his groin in her face, although it did not broadcast footage of the alleged incident.

But footage was sent to police and the three people involved were questioned, Queensland state police said. The woman did not make an official complaint and no further police action was planned, police said.

Howard appealed to the youth-oriented network, formerly called Channel 10, to cut the long-running programme, which has been subject to complaints of poor taste in the past.

“I don’t like heavy-handed regulation. The business community is always saying to me, ‘let us self regulate’,” Howard told Sydney Radio 2GB. “Well, here’s a great opportunity for Channel 10 to do a bit of self regulation and get this stupid programme off the air.”

Sydney’s Daily Telegraph also criticised the network.

“The alleged sexual assault of a female housemate on Big Brother marks another new low in what constitutes entertainment in the modern age,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

But network and programme producers issued a statement today that “reaffirmed their commitment to the highly popular television programme”.

“Big Brother is very popular, as evidenced by the strong and broad audiences it draws every night of the week, and will remain on air,” Network 10 said.

It added that the two men accused over the incident had been pulled from the show “because they broke the rules of housemate conduct”.