Tony Jones
I've stopped watching Q&A, the anti-government bias is just too much to bear, so I missed this week's episode and had to watch it on iview.
I don't normally follow Andrew Bolt, he's a bit too conservative and one-eyed at times but I agree with him about the ABC's Q&A programme on Monday night - it was an utter disgrace.
The ABC apologised and admitted they made an error of judgement but it's not enough. It's time to say goodbye to the entire show, its producers, Tony Jones or better still, all three.
Andrew Bolt's blog yesterday.
Zaky Mallah
A FURIOUS Prime Minister Tony Abbott this week challenged the ABC: “Whose side are you on?”
And I challenge Abbott: We’ve known for years what side it’s on. Now, what will you do about it?
There should be no surprise that the ABC gave a national platform to Muslim extremist Zaky Mallah, once jailed for threatening to kill ASIO officers.
The ABC has been at this kind of thing for years, thanks to bias in our biggest media organisation that is systemic, unlawful and dangerous.
Monday should be the final straw.
Consider: Q&A chose Mallah from the audience to challenge parliamentary secretary Steve Ciobo over the Government’s plan to strip Australian citizenship from dual nationals engaged in terrorism.
It already knew Mallah had been jailed for threatening to kidnap and kill ASIO officers, although acquitted of planning a suicide attack on a Commonwealth building.
It should also have known Mallah had been arrested in 2003 after getting a rifle and writing a will entitled, “How can I prepare myself for Jihad”.
Had the producers checked, they’d have also found Mallah believed in imposing a caliphate on Australia, had travelled to Syria and dreamt of martyrdom for the Free Syrian Army, and had tweeted that two prominent female conservative writers “need to be gangbanged on the Sunrise desk”.
The Q&A team should have realised this man should not be rewarded with prime-time exposure, going mano e mano with an unsuspecting minister. It should have realised the danger of showing other Islamist misfits the fast way to getting their own thick heads on TV.
It should have heeded this warning from the judge who jailed Mallah: “Placing a person such as the prisoner into the public spotlight is ... likely to encourage him to embark on even more outrageous and extravagant behaviour ...”
Too true. Mallah on Q&A told Ciobo: “The Liberals have just justified to many Australian Muslims in the community tonight to leave and go to Syria and join IS (Islamic State) because of ministers like him.”
That was too much even for the show’s Left-wing host, Tony Jones, who ruled it “totally out of order”.
But wait. What Mallah said was little different to what Jones has allowed to be said many times already.
Blaming the Government and the West generally for creating jihadists is standard fare in the Left, particularly on the ABC, where every main current affairs program is — surprise! — hosted by Leftists.
Ever since the September 11 attacks those presenters have given too much oxygen to similar diatribes, ever since ABC host Virginia Trioli announced “it’s quite a possibility” the World Trade Centre was actually brought down by the FBI.
Even more toxic conspiracies and anti-Australian hatreds were regularly aired on Q&A, feeding the paranoid fantasy of Islamists that they are victims of an “Islamophobia” whipped up by evil politicians.
In April, one Muslim panellist chosen by Q&A claimed “most Western countries have disgraceful records” and “always sold us out”, and another agreed that “Australia is taking a lot of very horrific positions”, which a third said “sound toxic to outsiders”.
In September three panellists — three! — agreed the “uncanny” timing of anti-terrorism raids was suspiciously convenient for the Government.
“I’m very cynical about the Government’s use of these raids to politicise the Muslim problem of terrorism,” said one, and “there are some people who are going to take these legitimate concerns and go down a radical path”.
That’s the Mallah argument.
Another panellist agreed: “IS is barbaric and I think that a large part of it is the Western intervention.”
More of the same in November, when Q&A stacked an audience with Muslim hotheads to badger Attorney-General George Brandis, with one warning that the “gung-ho” anti-terrorism raids would just “drive (extremists) in a particular direction”.
Even last Monday, two other members of Q&A’s typically Left-stacked panel preached the inflammatory message that the Government spread fear of Muslims for political advantage — “seeking to make political capital out of these events” because “fear works particularly well if you are the incumbent Government “.
No wonder that Abbott on Tuesday told his MPs: “We all know that Q&A is a Leftie lynch mob and we will be looking at this.”
But where’s the action?
Will the Government sack the board for the ABC’s failure to observe what it admits is its “statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial”?
And will it cut the vast ABC, with its five radio stations and four television stations, to a size less dangerous to democracy?
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