Poor Hamish Macdonald. It is a universal truth in media that journalists can’t advertise their new program without appearing to be a bit of a poseur.
It’s impossible to avoid. So sympathies for the new Q&A host as he has dutifully trotted all over the ABC to promote the revamped panel discussion as a kind of national “R U OK?” conversation.
Last night’s debut was quite a departure for a program that since 2008 has often hinged on stunt casting and divisive moments — Zaky Mallah, Mona Eltahawy — in the hope of generating as many provocative headlines as possible.
It was a very different Monday night for all of Aunty, with fiercely independent programs Four Corners, Media Watch and Q&A all themed around bushfires, and Macdonald introducing all three. Q&A had hurriedly relocated to Queanbeyan, NSW, from Bega when local fires looked to be too hazardous.
As program creator Peter McEvoy, who departed last year, wrote in The Guardian: “The Q&A audience aren’t warm props for the cutaway shots — they’re active participants.”
But Macdonald asked a lot of questions on his first night. In fact he dominated proceedings. Has there even been a more subdued audience? Some looked broken.
It was etched on their strained faces, a weariness behind the eyes. Sometimes they disappeared entirely, as men and women buried their faces in their hands.
McEvoy set up Q&A because he wanted those people to ask politicians tough questions and make them squirm. The program needs a strong host to control the audience and the panel. Macdonald did this admirably, as did previous host Tony Jones, though both exhibit less control over their own questions.
Meanwhile, Monday night’s program produced some of the most heartfelt utterances by a politician in political history — and also one of the silliest.
State MP for Bega, Liberal minister Andrew Constance, appeared a broken man propelled by his duty to serve. It is rare for a politician to speak with such candour.
“We’re expending so much energy not being united,” he said.
An admirable thought, but this being Q&A you could set your watch to the likelihood of a member of the government getting hammered and heckled for their stance on climate change.
On Monday night it was at 10.24pm when Liberal Senator Jim Molan found himself at the receiving end of the program’s proud tradition of putting politicians on the spot. Molan’s response that he’s “not relying on evidence” to the question of whether humans are causing climate change drew jeers.
But then Macdonald did something unusual.
After climate scientist Michael Mann sledged Molan (“You should keep an open mind, but not so open your brains will fall out”) the host reprimanded him for getting too personal.
MacDonald pointed out that the government had won multiple elections with such climate policies, which therefore meant the Australian public supported them. Mann had no explanation.
Molan stole the headlines, but the legacy of the program will be the words of Constance.
Watching his Q&A debut, you can see why ABC executives have long pursued Macdonald for his energy, curiosity and even-handedness. At one point they attempted to draft him into becoming executive producer of 7.30.
New executive producer Erin Vincent and ABC bosses want engagement to be front and centre of the program. While Tony Jones ran proceedings from behind his desk, Macdonald will present parts of the program from within the audience. Last night he even flipped the premise of the show and questioned a trauma counsellor in the audience.
It was an admirable showcase. But if you take too much oxygen from the audience, well, you end up with Lateline.
So what does success look like?
The program is continually attacked as too left leaning (although a formal review by the ABC deemed otherwise). Pertinent criticisms are that it doesn’t feature enough women, and is far too Sydney-centric.
Macdonald will succeed in bringing a different audience to the ABC. But can he entice back those who used to be regular viewers but switched off?
The true test will be whether Macdonald is able to charm Scott Morrison into lifting a self-imposed ban on the program that stretches back to 2012.
ABC executives and viewers will be pleased with the return of Q&A. It is very hard to imagine the ABC, or indeed political discourse, without it.
But spare a thought for the studio audience. They won’t be as good as the host at asking questions — which is precisely the point.
Given a choice between discussion of issues and diverting to gossip and antagonism between panelists, Tony Jones was too inclined to the latter. The new guy didn’t take that path and as you note, when it happened he hosed it down. So much BETTER. As to the audience, if they were subdued as you say (not so subdued they didn’t give Molan a deserved rubbishing), couldn’t that have something to do with what they have been going through? I never had such an immediate sense of the scale and impact of these events.
And Media Watch immediately preceding gave Molan’s allies at Sky News and Murdoch tabloids the drubbing they deserve as well.
Hamish did a great job, but Scotty from Marketing and his knuckle dragging colleagues will not be impressed or happy – you sensed that the ABC was already back-pedalling this morning with no mentions at all about the current whereabouts of Molan’s brain.
Listening to Molan last night I strongly suspect that if he had two brains they would both be lonely.
His body language, slouching back in his seat and expressions showed him looking like someone who felt he was in company well inferior to himself.
The chairman of any meeting should have no substantive part in it. By asking questions of his own, McDonald guaranteed that his invited experts would go stupid on him. If the producers want a more feisty debate, they should stack each side with more forthright participants.
The conceit of this young puppy to chip Prof Michael Mann is appalling. Prof Mann has suffered an enormous amount of personal punishment in his struggle to bring us the “hockey stick” measurements of temperature rise. He above anyone is entitled to vent some of his outrage on a local ignoramus.
Agreed but Michael Mann was the hero of the evening with that insult, more power to him.
I think Hamish had to make a token gesture of preventing personal attack, but the audience reaction showed how richly Molan deserved that one – a Gold moment in Q&A history for mine.
Mann was commenting on a particular way of thinking – that is encouraged far too much, especially by particular parts of the media, for their own political benefit.
Roger…I absolutely agree with you about the treatment metered out to Professor Man by Hamish McDonald. I found the latter’s comments quite rude, when as you say, Professor Man is an expert, and I would add, a visitor to our country just trying to impart his considerable knowledge for our benefit. Not that he was allowed to say very much??!
Molan’s attitude was typical arrogant Liberal denier behaviour…and why were there NO Labor/Green politicians on the panel? I have no problem with Q&A having no pollies at all, but if they are to be present, then there should be a balanced line-up.
So Hamish…I am a long time supporter of your work, but on this occasion: ‘could do better’!!
I think in this case the panel was about doers and enablers for the victims to question, and may probably knew nothing about Mann to prepare questions for him – so Molan was there just to take the heat for Federal leadership sadly lacking.
I am sure if the LNP had someone more talented than Molan, they would have sent him or her.
Prof Mann is an expert along the lines of Dr Paul Ehrlich – noisy but eventually his alarmism will be proved a gross exaggeration if not completely wrong.
Yeah right. But when he isn’t, you’ll be safe under your rock.
Too late. Already proved correct.
Well I do rely on ‘wokesters’ like the Obamas and the Sussexes for a lead on climate change.
Those luminaries have bought or are eyeing multi-million$ properties at Marthas Vinyard (close to the spirit of Joe Kennedy’s clan), and Vancouver on the water.
It the predicted metres of sea level rise happens, the Obamas and Sussexes were either too thick to understand climate theory OR did not believe the story in the first place.
McDonald to Mann on Molans brain and liberal voters – I thought it was a brilliant subtle intervention to point out how those voters might reflect on their future decision making.
Can’t respond to Nosliner Feb 5 but I wouldn’t take any leads from the Obamas. I was pleased when Obama was elected but soon saw the reality of the US one party system described by Gore Vidal. “It has two right wings, the Democratic and the Republican.” Both well and truly in the hands of Big Business. Post White House the Obamas are making money with amazing ease.
While the informality of this format worked for this subject and audience, I think, normally with so many diverse subjects and opinions being thrown about for over an hour, panellists will need to able to take notes and have access to a glass of water. Good start for the year though and Molan got what he deserved.
Two politicians on the panel – Molan and Constance – both from the same party – the Coalition – what’s not to like?
[Any wonder the Liberal Party gave “General Nuisance” a leg-up into the Senate (to replace Arfa Seenodonors) after he couldn’t get elected.
Will there be a court-martial as a result of ‘the ranks’ continuing to question his orders?]
I rarely watch past the first Q+A question to a politician and last night was no exception. “… [State] Liberal minister Andrew Constance, appeared a broken man propelled by his duty to serve.” is one view. Mine, especially at that quaver in his voice, was to ask where the bloody hell he had been.
PM Morrison had told us that his front bench did not know who Matt Kean was when he questioned the federal Liberal stance on climate change. But I knew who he was although I do not live in NSW. And I know who John Barilaro is too – the Nat who wrote a ridiculous climate change denying article for the Daily Tele. (I don’t read the Tele but I do subscribe to Independent Australia and they featured it,) But I have seen only a few tv news clips of Andrew Constance and never heard him speak up or read anything he has written on this topic at all. A broken man? Rreally?
And, ever a loyal ABC watcher, I hope Hamish McDonald is not going to anchor Four Corners and host Q+A each week. I think that it was an error to have him do both last night. Better to have Phil Williams or one of the other many ABC reporters who were on the south coast of NSW during its conflagration. McDonald is not such a gifted talent that he needs to appear everywhere.
MJM – I do live in NSW, in Andrew Constance’s electorate, for that matter. I evacuated on 3 January after a hellish night on New Year’s Eve and ahead of a weekend that was promised to be worse, and stayed away in Melbourne for 10 days until neighbours who stayed (he is an Fire Service volunteer) said it was safe to return, our house still intact because the fires were held at bay 6kms from my home and the westerlies were pushed back by north-easterlies.
I have driven from Canberra to Bateman’s Bay and seen the formerly beautiful Clyde Mountain bush reduced to black sticks and ash all the way from the turnoff to Monga National Park all the way down to Nelligen, and then from Bateman’s Bay, where Betta Electrical, A-Mart furniture and a host of other retail and industrial outlets adjacent to the Princes Highway were burned, to Mogo where half the town has burned to destruction. That part of the Princes Highway is just black sticks and ash – there is nothing else. I have friends at Surf Beach, who stayed and described the experience as horrific as two houses burned in their street, including one two along from them. I have friends at Malua Bay, where Constance lives, who have been traumatised by what they witnesses as neighbours’ houses burned. I have friends at Broulee where the local fire captain mobilised the residents and gave them instant training on how to save their houses. I have been to Rosedale and seen not much left. I have driven through Cobargo and found half the town burned.
And you have the nerve to question the description of Constance as a broken man? Someone in the QandA audience last night said they doubted the rest of Australia really understood what the threat or witnessing of a bushfire was like until it happened to them. They may well have been talking about you. Until you experience an event like this, I suggest you refrain from questioning the reactions of others. Or perhaps have some empathy training. You may not agree with Constance’s political choices – I don’t – but I recognise a person who has been through a life-changing experience and emerged a different person.
As for McDonald, he was a constant and reassuring presence on ABC TV (before we lost power and internet and phone for a few days), as were Melissa Clarke and the other ABC reporters in the hotspots. Constance was also everywhere in those days – doing his best to mobilise govt help for bushfire victims. If you lived down here on the NSW far south coast, you would understand why McDonald kicked off 4 Corners last night – his was the face we saw and voice we heard during the worst of it on here on the far South Coast of NSW.
Thanks for that DF. That’s the kind of background knowledge we need to understand what those people are going through.
Actually I live in Canberra, I have friends who lost houses in Malua Bay and North Rosedale and spent the night on the beach to escape being burnt alive; immediate neighbours who were evacuated from Moruya and made a 12 hour trip home via Brown Mountain; family with coast houses further south who struggled without power or petrol for days on end; have been in contact with a company burnt out in Batemans Bay who had installed a kitchen for me three years ago; and made a trip out to Braidwood and Bungendore to help support those businesses suffering the loss of business while the Kings Highway down Clyde Mountain was closed for weeks.
None of the people I know who were personally badly affected by the fires have behaved as Constance has. Of course people are upset and the disaster has been life changing in the worst possible way for many. If the effect has been to cause him to re-think his views then maybe we might see some progress on the political front.
And yes I watched all of the ABC’s TV coverage of the fires and saw Hamish McDonald and others providing outstanding reportage and interviews. But he was not the only one and I think it was not necessary for him to introduce both programs on Monday night.
I was in Canberra on 18 January 2003 when 470 homes were burnt in one afternoon. It was terrifying. People picked up and got on with it with support from family, friends, neighbours and from complete strangers. We had a coroners inquiry and a government inquiry into these fires. It is a sad truth that people do not learn from the experiences of others. It is not until they suffer it themselves that they grasp the horror.
I do not suffer an empathy deficit and I am not questioning the fact that Andrew Constance has found the fires devastating. But it’s not as if Australia hasn’t had severe bushfires before. I just wonder when our elected representatives will stop squabbling amongst themselves, start paying attention to what is happening to this country and taking some preventive actions. Wise after the event is not really wisdom at all.
I live in the Blue Mountains region of N.S.W. I have experienced many of these events over the years as it seems has MJM in Canberra.
I accept that AC has been through a terrible experience. I note that he’s made some noise regarding the roll out of assistance. Only time will tell whether he’s a “changed man”, a “broken man” or just another conservative career politician who happens to be angling for a promotion to Premier.
Perhaps you DF should refrain from questioning the commentary of people when you’ve no idea of their circumstances.