Q&A Review

As if a disease or malignancy, BBC Question Time spreads around the world. I’m sure the people at Broadcasting House prefer ‘franchise’ or ‘licensing’ but I’m certain viewers of the British version of the topical panel show know what I mean. One such spin-off is Australia’s ‘Q and A’, also known at times during its 13-year run as Qanda and Q+A. Launched in 2008, a full three decades after its UK counterpart, the programme airs on ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Since which, according to the guff, it has ‘established itself as a cornerstone of public discourse in Australia, providing a platform for robust debate on current affairs, politics, and social issues’.

The show consists of a live broadcast format unlike in the UK where, until recently through the iPlayer, the programme was always shown a few hours after recording on a Thursday evening. Besides that, as with the BBC version, a non-diverse panel of bubble-dwelling usual suspects – politicians, academics, activists, journalists, and cultural figures – respond to questions posed by a live audience and viewers at home via social media. Its slogan, “Adventures in Democracy,” encapsulates the show’s claim to fostering open dialogue and civic engagement.

As for a chair, in place of Day, Sissons, Dimbleby or La Bruce read Tony Jones, Hamish Macdonald, Stan Grant and, in the most recent series, Patricia Karvelas. If you think that on this side of the world we’ll be well ahead of the Ozzies when Clive Myrie and Alison Hammond become QT’s tinged co-presenters, think again.

Despite his name and his appearance, Stan Grant stepped down in July 2023 after facing racist abuse. Grant is a Wiradjuri man, apparently, and spoke out about the impact of colonialism on a panel ahead of King Charles III’s Coronation. During Stan’s segment, he said the symbol of the Crown “represented the invasion, the theft of land – and in our case – the exterminating war”. A reference to a period of martial law in New South Wales two hundred years ago during which Wiradjuri people died.

In response, light-skinned Anglo-Saxon monikered Stan claimed to have received ‘grotesque’ abuse, and blamed his employers at ABC for an ‘institutional failure’ to protect or defend him. Despite it being everybody else’s fault, gallant Stan apologised if his comments caused offence and passed the baton on to Ms Karvelas. She describes the programme as being the ‘town hall’ of Australian television. To the relief of the antipodean viewer, not the jobs for the boys British town hall where clock watchers and jobsworths twiddle their thumbs on massive salaries while awaiting vast pensions, but a cut-and-thrust American-style town hall debate.

One of Q&A’s defining characteristics is its emphasis on participation. Members of the studio audience are encouraged to ask direct questions to hold panellists accountable for their views or decisions. Viewers at home can also engage via Twitter, with selected tweets displayed on-screen in real-time, contributing to the immediacy and inclusivity of the conversation.

However, this went wrong in June 2015 when Zaky Mallah, a former terrorism suspect acquitted of planning a terrorist act in 2005 but convicted of threatening Commonwealth officials, appeared on the live show. Mallah posed a question to Liberal MP Steve Ciobo, challenging the government’s proposal to strip citizenship from Australian nationals involved in terrorism-related activities without a trial. Ciobo responded that he would be comfortable with Mallah being stripped of his citizenship, prompting Mallah to retort that such measures could drive individuals towards extremism.

The exchange sparked an immediate backlash, with critics accusing the ABC of irresponsibility for allowing Mallah on live television. Prime Minister Tony Abbott condemned the broadcaster, accusing it of providing a platform for a “terrorist sympathiser,” while the ABC defended its editorial independence but later acknowledged an error in judgment. An internal review found that while Mallah’s question was legitimate, the live format created risks that were not well managed.

This integration of social media has been a significant factor in the program’s development, particularly for younger audiences who are accustomed to multi-platform engagement. Remember when Question Time included Puffins commenting on a bespoke G-P thread while watching? After a series of self-inflicted Question Time wounds, this is no longer the case on G-P, but the Oz programme streams on YouTube with a little panel to one side for commenters. At the start of the most recent episode, Mr W Davis contributed,

‘Is this going to be another hour of winging [whinging] about Trump?”

We’ve trod your path, brother.

Mr J A Hall added,

‘Everyone hold your nose, we’re going in. Starting with another toxic ‘welcome to country’.’ Interesting.

Over the years, Q&A has tackled an eclectic array of topics, from domestic policy issues like healthcare, education, the touchy subject of indigenous rights, international affairs, climate change, and cultural debates. The programme has hosted some of Australia’s influential political figures, including prime ministers. Also, prominent international guests such as author Germaine Greer, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis (oft on over here) and activist Malala Yousafzai.

Speaking of indigenous rights, Wiradjuri Tony and the ‘toxic welcome-to’, the show begins with what to our ears sounds like an odd line. The most recent programme, a season finale broadcast on Monday 24th November 2024 at 9:45pm, did not begin with Ms Karvelas welcoming the viewer to the Australian version of Beckenham or Milton Keynes. Rather, ‘I want to pay my respects to the Gadigal people of the Aora nation on whose land we’re broadcasting from tonight here in Sydney.’ Hmm.

A reference to Aboriginals of centuries ago who didn’t have the wheel or reading and writing but, we are led to believe, did have title deeds and property law. Why not start the programme with, ‘Broadcast from the lands of George III, for whom Captain James Cook claimed in the year 1770? Or from the land of the Worth-Sayings. We have ventured that far south.

As every schoolboy knows, a Dr Worth-Saying was murdered by a lunatic in an asylum in Parramatta in 1866. His obituary noted the character of a Christian gentleman. Those who recalled Dr Worth-Saying testified to ‘a considerate and humane disposition which led him to be too trustful even of men such as those who are confined to the criminal division of an asylum. A confidence which eventuated in his untimely decease.’ A message there.

Or, were the programme to be broadcast amongst prefabs and a sea of mud populated by poisonous dungy spiders, tribute might be made to ten-pound Fairfax Pom Mrs AWS.

On that most recent programme the guests were Jason Yat-Sen Li, NSW Labor MP for Strathfield, George Brandis, ANU National Security College professor, Jo Masters, Barrenjoey Chief Economist and Geoff Raby, former Australian diplomat and ambassador to China. Barrenjoey being the Barrenjoey Capital Partners, a ‘proudly Australian financial services firm’. ANU is the Australian National University in Canberra, which Google Maps reveals as separating the South Oval and Fellows Oval in much the same way that Stanley Park separates Everton and Liverpool.

Not as bad as the UK version but bad enough, the wall-to-wall comedy Australian accents and questioners called ‘Gail’ and ‘Simon the card box factory owner’, can’t save the dismal show. Questions and comments consist of a familiar sea of complaints sifted from the few ungrateful inhabitants findable in The Lucky Country. AS Patricia wrapped up the programme until next February, a Mr TP summed up thus;

‘Thank God.’

Further below the line, Mr @aauld3530 spoke for all of us on both sides of the world:

“Q&A is a hard watch. Part of legacy media that is fast disappearing because it is so predictable and vacuous. Patricia is a puddle-deep moderator that’s high on her own supply. A panel of predictable talking heads with no real-life experience, lecturing the unwashed. Seriously!!! We just have to be patient to see all is well and to stop believing your lying eyes!!! Things really are good. Both parties are out of touch and look after the rich and big business.”

A friend tells me being ‘high on one’s own supply’ means eleated to excess on the drugs that one sells. ie up yer own bum – like Fionna Bruce.

The Australian programme returns in February, the UK’s next Thursday, one can but hope for two armed lunatics and a couple of over-trusting doormen.
 

© Always Worth Saying 2025