- Pacific
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has told the BBC to "lighten up" over the Chaser's thwarted plan to commentate the royal wedding.
Mr Rudd also said the British national broadcaster, which was providing the ABC with the clean feed the Chaser team planned to use, needed to develop "an Australian sense of humour".
"If you want my personal view - this is not the government view - but my personal view is I really think the BBC needs to lighten up a bit and just get a bit of a sense of humour," he told the Sunrise program this morning.
"Look at all the stuff around the place in terms of memorabilia, plates and whatever else, not all of that is deadly serious."
The ABC was forced to cancel its Chaser special, which was to be broadcast along with the BBC's traditional broadcast, after a formal request from Clarence House, Prince William's office.
Clarence House then also contacted broadcast suppliers, including the BBC, to ask that the ABC be denied access to the feed if it ignored the office's request.
"I'm sure the ABC has done the right thing, they've been respectful towards the Palace," Mr Rudd said.
"I think it would be useful if the Beeb would lighten up a bit and develop ... an Australian sense of humour."
Mr Rudd is in London to meet his British counterpart, foreign secretary William Hague.
He also weighed in on the omission from the wedding guest list of former British prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
"It does [surprise me] a bit, I didn't know that, I'm breakfasting with Gordon in the morning actually," Mr Rudd said.
"Knowing Gordon he's a pretty basic sort of bloke and I'm not sure he'd be all that upset but it does surprise me a bit."
Mr Rudd was not invited to the wedding. (4.28.2011, Georgina Robinson) http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/rudd-to-bbc-on-the-chaser-lighten-up-20110428-1dxoa.html
"To Achieve World
Government it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism,
their loyalty to family traditions and national identification" Brock Chisholm - Director of the World Health Organization
"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to
believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a
reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police
State Dictatorship it's going to
get." Ian Williams Goddard
The fact is that "political correctness" is all about creating uniformity. Individualism is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of the New World Order. They want a public that is predictable and conditioned to do as it's told without asking questions.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson