More questions about Q&A
When a member of the Q&A audience last night,
in a reference to MPs hiring family members
and questions about their electorate allowances,
asked Tony Abbott why the public should trust
politicians, Jones gave the last word on the subject
to Rudd Government Minister Penny Wong
– after all other panel members had responded.
Tony Abbott tried to flick the question to Wong,
but the boss intervened.
The ABC’s Q&A program last night was yet another grab-bag of one-sided left wing promotion.
This program really is a waste of time and effort and conservative politicians should boycott it because they rarely get treated fairly; and conservative perspectives are rarely treated fairly or with balance.
It was very clear that for program host Tony Jones and much of the audience, the hero last night was Climate Change Minister Penny Wong.
Jones didn’t ask Wong any hard questions. For instance, he could have put to her that her Emissions Trading Scheme, now being spun as “carbon pollution reduction”, would further contribute to the massive government deficit and debt.
When Wong declared that a solution to global warming needed to be global, (she should work in rocket science), why didn’t Jones come back and ask “why then is Australia going it alone with a scheme which will be expensive, cost jobs and do nothing to address a problem that doesn’t exist?” (I know – all pigs fed and ready to fly).
When Wong was asked about her position on gay marriage, one would have thought that a journalist might have provided the context that Wong is herself gay. She doesn’t hide it, so why did Jones?
I suspect that in the politically correct world of the ABC it is considered highly impolite to point out to a gay person – even an openly gay one – that they are gay, even when they are discussing gay marriage.
As often happens on QandA, the token conservative is sidelined to the margins or given all the hard topics.
When the issue of allowance rorting in Britain was raised, and a member of the audience addressed a question about the public’s trust in politicans to Tony Abbott, Jones allowed it to proceed.
Mr Jones, a Labour Party Speaker of the House has just resigned over the rorts. Labour. Got it? Why didn’t you throw it to Wong?
After all, only last month when an audience member directed an insightful question to Rudd Government Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek Tony Jones intervened and directed the question to another panel member.
Just when the program was getting to some hard questions about Mr flim-flam Barack Obama, Tony Jones helpfully changed topics.
When Bob Ellis was asked about Rudd spinning the government debt, he referred to John Brogden for some strange reason and then turned the question into a discussion about the Iraq War.
This program is all over the shop week after week. It is current affairs for ten-year-olds. It always has one panellist who plays the “village idiot” and last night it was the turn of Bob Ellis. That was about its only redeeming feature.
Next week’s line-up is Peter Holmes a Court, Kate Ellis, Alice Pung, Brendan Nelson and William McInnes. Which one will be made to look stupid?
Well, it is unlikely to be Holmes a Court, and it certainly won’t be Alice Pung because she writes for The Monthly and The Age. You know it won’t be Kate Ellis because she is a Rudd Government minister, and I doubt it will be William McInnes because he has been on the ABC and played Curtin. Sorry, Brendan, it’s not looking good.
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ABC’s QandA under fire for bias
