It’s apparently time for our annual reminder that Q+A exists, via the only method it has of reminding us: controversy. Stan Grant has turfed a questioner from last night’s episode for, in Grant’s words, “advocating violence”.
Russian-Australian Sasha Gillies-Lekakis prefaced his question with his anger over “the narrative depicted by our media, with Ukraine as the good guy and Russia as the bad guy”.
“Believe it or not, there are a lot of Russians here and around the world that support what Putin’s doing in Ukraine, myself included.” He then, through heckles, repeated the Kremlin line about Ukraine killing 13,000 mostly Russian civilians in Donbas and Luhansk.
Twenty minutes passed before Grant decided a line had been crossed.
“Something has been bothering me … people here have been talking about family who are suffering and people who are dying. Can I just say — I’m just not comfortable with you being here. Could you please leave?”
We may completely reject the premise of the question, but it is hard to detect a direct call to violence from Gillies-Lekakis. People ask disingenuous questions (and get disingenuous answers) all the time on Q+A. So why was this the line in the sand? Perhaps previous blow-ups could give us a clue.
Zaky Mallah
It’s probably the biggest fuck-up in Q+A history. Back in 2015, Zaky Mallah, who had been convicted of threatening to kill Commonwealth officials many years earlier and was fresh from tweeting that some female News Corp journalists were “whores” who needed to be “gang banged”, was allowed to put a question to the Coalition MP Steven Ciobo about his treatment by Australian authorities. Ciobo took the opportunity to play it tough, saying that while he wasn’t familiar with the specifics of Mallah’s case, he would be “happy to look you straight in the eye and say that I’d be pleased to be part of a government that would say you are out of the country, as far as I’m concerned”. Mallah followed up with typical grace and said, “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.” He later said he hated ISIS and argued he’d been “misinterpreted” in a piece for Guardian Australia.
Bedlam followed. Then-prime minister Tony Abbott was furious about the broadcast of inflammatory language on a show he called a “lefty lynch mob” and banned members of his front bench from appearing on the panel. The News Corp tabloids took up the issue with gusto — The Courier Mail going so far as to photoshop the ABC logo onto an ISIS flag. In the aftermath, the ABC appointed Shaun Brown and Ray Martin to audit Q+A and issued a formal warning to executive producer Peter McEvoy.
Duncan Storrar
We wonder if Gillies-Lekakis can expect the same treatment dolled out to Duncan Storrar after he had the temerity to ask then-assistant treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer about tax-free thresholds and became something of heroic figure for it, attracting a fundraiser that netted him tens of thousands of dollars.
Q+A producer Amanda Collinge may have sealed Storrar’s fate when she tweeted (and later deleted) that he was a “new national hero”. And so naturally, News Corp went to work, delving into Storrar’s troubled past, finding a violent criminal record and enough problems with drugs and estranged family members to keep him on the front pages of The Herald Sun and The Oz for a week. As Media Watch put it at the time, it “ticked all the boxes” for News Corp: “Bash the poor. Bash the ABC. And bash Labor.”
Mona Eltahawy and Nayuka Gorrie
By November 2019 Q+A appeared to have learnt its lesson. Broadcast from Melbourne as part of the Wheeler Centre’s Broadside festival, the panel featured columnist and author Mona Eltahawy asking “How long must we wait for men and boys to stop murdering us, to stop beating us and to stop raping us? How many rapists must we kill?” Actor, writer and Indigenous activist Nayuka Gorrie said they looked forward to the tipping point where “people start burning stuff”.
There was a series of complaints and the ABC launched an investigation into the show. But there was far less tabloid interest, and the only government response was a pretty mild statement from Communications Minister Paul Fletcher. Still, ABC pulled the episode from iView.
Back to Gillies-Lekakis
Perhaps the preemptive booting of Gillies-Lekakis on a show nominally about debate is just an attempt to save us all the trouble of an extended scandal.
I didn’t find Sasha’s comment question, threatening, inciting or offensive. Grant in the other hand, the heavy hand, offended me. What would Kerry O’Brien have done?
Stan Grant is well a recognisable MSM and ABC stalwart in certain levels of propaganda. Lekakis was right to voice the deaths of some thousands of men, women and children in Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014 by Ukrainian soldiers, saboteurs and plain terrorist security agents of Ukraine. Even the UNHCR has official figures for this in the region of 5,000+ and it is very conservative. There is other evidence plainly online. Grant was not just wrong, he was prejudiced, dishonest and defamatory of Lekakis and did not give him an equal democratic right to speak freely. Lekakis did not advocate violence at all: he was deploring all deaths and asking why Western MSM had ignored thousands of civilian deaths caused by the Ukrainian forces. Grant showed total prejudice! He’s a blatant disgrace but also too old, thick skinned and entrenched to worry about his image.
The message: the Western MSM can be just as one-sided and dishonest as any other.
Can be just as one-sided and dishonest? The Masters of both.
Yeah, Stan Grant is an idiot. The questioner was undoubtedly duped by Putin, but he was no threat and could have been dealt with adequately without the drama of throwing him out.
To my mind being ‘duped by Putin’ definitely should exclude him from intelligent debate, no? However, Stan could have maybe provided a more detailed reasoning to avoid the overblown comparisons above.
Thanks John for a clear thinking voice.
I felt very uncomfortable with Grant in the chair role, and would have been happy to have him thrown out.
In the event of a federal ICAC, I would like to see Grant’s personal finances and his communications with ASPI delved into.
The role of ASPI in providing corrupt advice to government should also be investigated
I would hope that when Stan hosts The Drum his links to ASPI might be declared. I have heard panellists’ marital status (eg married to a Lbaor Party member) declared. But then last night the foprmer Lib candidate for Eden;Monaro was not identified as a Lib candidate (twice).
To paraphrase, “Strokes for some folks, none at all for others“.
Grant handled the situation jaw-droppingly poorly. Well into a new segment, just when all were focusing on the disastrous floods, he disrupts the proceedings with something that “has been bothering” poor old Stan, thereby creating mayhem. Gillies did not advocate violence, but did bring up a relevant issue pertaining to deaths suffered by ‘the other side’ in this long and complex conflict. The preceding Foreign Correspondent program was enlightening regarding this issue. Gillies also endorsed the invasion of Ukraine and thereby indirectly its inevitable deaths and destruction. Grant at that moment could have made clear that Q&A cannot in any way approve of the invasion. Now if Gillies had then continued or perhaps heckled during the discussions, Grant would have had reason to caution him and if that was to no avail, to turf him out. Gillies remained silent. Alas, while always having plenty to say himself, Grant does not have the subtle skills to productively conduct Q&A.
I can only agree. I never liked Stan Grant. Like Spearsy (Spivsy) he constantly interrupts answers when he wants to get a talking point across and is a constant self-promoter. I hope this Sasha fellow sues him as he might have grounds for lack of fair treatment and allowing audience members to interject his question. He shows personal bias and preference to some guests and I don’t even support Russia or even like them. This silencing of issues manifests itself in poor policy and administration decisions and disasters down the track. I wonder how many critics of the Vietnam War were initially silenced before the folly of the situation manifested itself. I feel you need to compete in rational debate no mater how irrational or ridiculous you think the other point of view is. Unfortunately there are pro-Russian, pro-Putin people in the anti-vax movement. I would rather attack them face to face in public debate rather than they go off after they are pre-emptively shut down and go on social media and rightly say they weren’t given a fair go.
Well said, and so agreed Grant is an “constant self-promoter”. For amusement Google “Stan Grant and Victor Gao ” -when he interviewed VG , he tried his usual tricks and got quietly squashed flat.
He was a grade Z, tabloid hack until monetising his Aboriginality to be come a professional Token.
Or should that be a Professional token?
That might be a South Park™ ® ‘\_(°~°)_/`…
Reluctantly a plus to you sir.
This probably labels me as racist.
No, that would only be if you think that race defines character.