Q&A (Australian talk show)

Q&A
Q&A logo
Presented by	Tony Jones
Country of origin	Australia
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	10
No. of episodes	351[lower-alpha 1] (list of episodes)
Production
Location(s)	Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia
Running time	Approximately 60 minutes
Release
Original network	ABC ABC News 24 (2010–2015), Australia Network (2011–2014)
Picture format	576i (PAL) 16:9 DTV
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	22 May 2008 – present
External links
Website

Q&A is an Australian television panel discussion program, broadcast on ABC hosted by news journalist Tony Jones. The show usually broadcasts on Monday nights at 9:35, and has run since 2008. Its format is similar to Question Time on the BBC and Questions and Answers on RTÉ.

Format

The program generally features a panel of five public figures, usually including politicians from each of the major federal parties (Labor and Liberal) as well as minor party politicians, media personalities, academics and celebrities, answering questions provided by viewers and the studio audience. On occasion, the show features a sole notable individual, such as the Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition. The program is broadcast live (in the eastern states) on ABC TV and online, in front of a studio audience. From October 2010, Q&A is also simulcast live on ABC News 24, allowing it to be viewed live across the country.^[1] In March 2015 ABC News 24 ceased simulcast of Q&A. When Federal Parliament isn't sitting, the show can be heard on ABC NewsRadio.

The program is usually broadcast from the ABC's studios in the Sydney suburb of Ultimo, but is often broadcast from various Australian metropolitan and rural centres. Audience participation is a key aspect of the program, with producers selecting members who represent "a diverse and well-balanced" group.^[2] Q&A is occasionally broadcast from other cities, with three shows being broadcast from other countries (Indonesia, India and China).

History

The program premiered on Thursday, 22 May 2008, at 9:30 pm on ABC TV. The program contains closed captions within its broadcast signal.

In 2010, Q&A moved to Monday nights and received a full season of 40 episodes.^[3] From 26 April 2010, Q&A introduced a Twitter feed; selected tweets discussing Q&A live are displayed on screen.^[4]

Tom Ballard, Virginia Trioli and Annabel Crabb have filled in for Tony Jones whilst he was on breaks.

Notable episodes

Shoe-throwing

On 25 October 2010, former Prime Minister John Howard had a pair of shoes thrown at him from a member of the audience due to responses on his attitude to the Iraq War. The shoe-thrower was subsequently removed from the audience. Although Howard seemed indifferent to the incident, it was criticised by both Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, among other members of Parliament from both the Government and the Opposition. The shoe-thrower, environmental activist Peter Gray, died of cancer six months later; before he died, however, he asked for his shoes to be auctioned off and the money to be donated to the Red Cross.^[5][6]

University student protest

The show was disrupted on 5 May 2014, when a group of university students began protesting against proposed higher education cuts. The group unfurled a banner over the back of the set and began to chant at Minister for Education Christopher Pyne, before they were removed from the studio while the live broadcast was replaced with footage of a musical performance from an earlier episode. In the lead-up to the protest, Pyne was the subject of several questions regarding education cuts and was heckled by members of the Socialist Alternative.^[7]

Zaky Mallah incident

Controversy ensued following the 22 June 2015 episode when Zaky Mallah, an audience member, posed a question to Parliamentary secretary Steven Ciobo.^[8] Mallah was found not guilty of terrorism offences in 2005,^[9] and was known to Q&A's editorial team, attending three shows as an audience member since 2011, and twice being rejected as a panel member.^[10][11][12]

In his pre-approved question, Mallah asked Ciobo about the possible outcome of his case if it had been heard by a government minister instead of the Supreme Court.^[13] Ciobo defended the government's position, saying he would be personally pleased if it meant Mallah was out of the country. Mallah later was directed to respond, saying "The Liberals now have just justified to many Australian Muslims in the community tonight to leave and go to Syria and join ISIS because of ministers like him."^[14] Tony Jones ruled the comment out of order, and Mallah later clarified in a piece on Comment is free that he "hates ISIS" and his comments were misinterpreted.^[15]

Prime Minister Tony Abbott condemned the ABC for "giving Mallah a platform," asking "Which side is the ABC on?" and saying that they had "betrayed" Australia^[16][17] and that "heads should roll".^[18] He banned members of his Front Bench appearing on the program,^[19] later offering to permit them if the show was the ABC's Television section to News and Current Affairs.^[20] The ABC moved forward their plans to move the program, which an ABC source characterised as "the biggest example of editorial interference I've ever heard of".^[21]

Front pages of tabloids referring to the incident.

The ABC released a statement apologising for including Mallah on a live event,^[22] and the ABC board appointed Shaun Brown and Ray Martin to audit Q&A,^[23] and issued a formal warning to Q&A executive producer Peter McEvoy.^[24] Martin, a veteran journalist, said that some critics of the program needed "a good lie down."^[25] ABC director Mark Scott conceded the producers had erred putting Mallah on live television, but defended the independence of the ABC's editorial decisions^[26] and argued there is merit in platforming "views that run contrary to accepted public values" in order to "understand the root cause" of alarming actions.^[27]

Substantially negative coverage of the ABC's conduct appeared in News Corporation owned papers, with some changing the ISIL flag to an ABC logo.^[28][29] The Daily Telegraph ran the headline "ABC doing the devil's work...".^[30] The Australian said "ABC exists in a parallel universe where impartiality and sound judgment are all but redundant".^[31]

Other commentators have defended the ABC. Peter Greste said that Tony Abbott attempted to shut down debate in a crucial area of policy.^[32] Johnathan Holmes said that Malcolm Turnbull's portrayal of Zaky Mallah and his views is profoundly misleading, and that Q&A has been prevented from defending itself.^[33] Richard Ackland has suggested that "the hysteria over Zaky Mallah on Q&A would make Joseph McCarthy proud".^[34] In November 2015, Q&A's host Tony Jones said the Zaky Mallah furore and boycott was based on a 'big lie' [that Mallah supported ISIS].^[35]

Twittergate qanda

Not long after Zaky Mallah's session, the twitter feed for Q&A, showing posts with the hashtag #qanda accidentally let a tweet screen that ran "i prefer ones twitter feed to their biographies" from someone running under the username @AbbottLovesAnal, creating a huge uproar, with some commentators suggesting that the ABC needs to reign Q&A in.^[36][37][38]

Duncan Storrar

Duncan Storrar asked assistant government minister Kelly O'Dwyer a question on tax-free thresholds, asking why poorer people were not receiving similar tax relief from the Coalition government. He quickly gained widespread support as an embodiment for the 'battling Aussie'. The publicity from his question caused various media outlets to cover his life, with some outlets publishing allegations that he was a drug addict and that he had previously failed to care for his family. Storrar became traumatised as a result of his harsh media treatment.^[39][40][41] A crowdfunding campaign was started to buy him a new toaster, which played on O'Dwyer's seemingly out of touch remarks of depreciation treatment for small business, namely cafes.^[42]

Panellists

Reception

The Q&A program has been criticised by some News Corp Australia papers in a long running and widespread campaign against ABC management and programming for being overtly left wing in the views expressed by its guest panellists, the nature of the questions asked by audience members and the failure to disclose identity and/or political affiliations that some audience members asking questions of the panellists may hold. Criticism has been made in particular that the program presents "a distorted view of Australia".^[43] During an episode aired on 9 April 2014, guest panellist Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton claimed Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt had abused a fair skinned indigenous woman and that he was a "fool who believed in race theories".^[44] The host Tony Jones made an apology at the end of the following week's episode of Q&A in which he relayed that "Professor Langton publicly said that she does not believe Mr Bolt is a racist, although she profoundly disagrees with and disapproves of his views and statements on Aboriginality. She apologised to him for her comments and, as a result, the ABC also apologises for broadcasting her remarks."^[45]

David Marr said in 2015 "The ABC has only created a handful of great shows in recent years and Q&A is one of them."^[46]

Guests

The most frequently-appearing panellists on Q&A, as of 11 July 2016 (not including the digitally-streamed pilot show) are listed below:^[47]

Notes

References

External links

• Official website