ABC’s Friends meet in SA as enemies mass in Canberra
The Friends of the ABC have held a crisis meeting in Adelaide today, declaring the furore over a terrorist sympathiser appearing on the flagship Q&A program a “political beat-up”as the Abbott Government’s critique of the national broadcaster intensifies.
Coalition frontbenchers have been on the offensive after Monday night’s panel show allowed terrorist sympathiser Zaky Mallah into its studio audience to quiz the program’s guests.
Mallah grilled Liberal Foreign Affairs spokesman Steve Ciobo about his 2003 arrest on terrorism charges, of which he was later acquitted, and claimed the Abbott Government had “justified many Australian Muslims to leave and go to Syria and join ISIL”.
The exchange came amid a dicussion about the Federal Government’s plan to strip citizenship from dual nationals suspected of terrorism, with Ciobo telling Mallah he would be pleased to be a part of a government that would say “you’re out of the country”.
Mallah has served time for threatening violence against a Commonwealth official.
But Jessica Knight, SA Friends of the ABC president, told InDaily the incident was “an example of the honesty of the ABC”, which would “allow anybody on”.
“They do need to vet people, but this person slipped through the net in some way, in the same way as the person who attacked the café in Sydney (gunman Man Haron Monis),” said Knight, who admitted she didn’t see the show.
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“If they’d known this would happen, they wouldn’t have allowed him to be there,” she said.
Knight said the furore was being blown “out if all proportion”, as the Government took “any excuse to undermine the ABC”.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for Abbott to have a go at the ABC … it’s grist to the mill for him; more reason for him to say, ‘There you are, that’s why we should cut their funding or stop having programs like that’.”
She said the ABC charter dictated the “freedom of individuals to be able to speak and say what they wish to say”.
“I know you have to be careful as well, but that is part of the charter,” she said.
The meeting, with representatives from each state, unanimously agreed the ABC was being “seriously undermined because powerful forces are at work to destroy Australian public broadcasting”.
“Since savage cuts were made in the 2014 budget – in breach of a pre-election promise by Mr Abbott – domestically the ABC will lose $254 million over four years; nationally, 400 staff have lost their jobs, and regional facilities or studios, such as in Adelaide, have been closed or significantly downgraded,” Knight said.
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Graeme Connelly, from the Victorian Friends of the ABC, said: “Without immediate action to stop the attacks on the ABC, Australia will lose the skills and leadership of its very highly respected national broadcaster.”
The political fallout from the Q&A episode ramped up today, with Liberal frontbencher Peter Dutton accusing ABC journalists of running a “protection racket” for the program.
Management has admitted the decision to allow Zaky Mallah air time during Monday night’s program was an error in judgment, and will coordinate with federal police on a comprehensive review.
But Dutton questioned what he labelled a “rear-guard action” by ABC journalists, telling Radio National today: “There’s this protection racket that’s being run and I don’t think that bodes well”.
The episode has re-ignited the running feud between the national broadcaster and the Murdoch media, with Greens senator Penny Wright criticising Brisbane’s Courier-Mail for its front-page featuring the ABC logo Photoshopped onto the Islamic State flag.
That followed Tony Abbott leading the charge yesterday, labelling the ABC a “lefty lynch mob” and asking it: “Whose side are you on?”
“They have given this individual, this disgraceful individual, a platform and in so doing, I believe the national broadcaster has badly let us down,” the Prime Minister said.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull told parliament it was “extraordinary” that Mallah was included in a live audience with “no physical security checks”.
Mallah has stood by his comments, writing in the Guardian Online that “the so-called Islamic State would be extremely happy to hear what Steve Ciobo had to say on Q&A”.
“It feeds into their recruitment propaganda,” he said.
-with AAP
