Josh Frydenberg to appear on Monday's Q&A after Tony Abbott lifts ban
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Version 0 of 1. Liberal party assistant treasurer Josh Frydenberg will be the first government minister to appear on Q&A after Tony Abbott lifted his ban on frontbenchers appearing on the ABC program. The prime minister said he wanted to “give the ABC a bit of a pat on the back” for agreeing to move the program to the news division, and signalled he was happy for his colleagues to return to the show as early as next week. On Thursday, the ABC board announced it would shift the Q&A program’s operations from the television division and into the news division by 2016. Related: ABC moves Q&A to news division, but not until the end of the year The decision – in line with Abbott’s wishes – follows a row between the prime minister and the ABC over Q&A’s inclusion of a former terrorism suspect in the live television audience to ask a question on 22 June. No Coalition frontbenchers have joined the panel since then, with Barnaby Joyce and Malcolm Turnbull being forced to pull out of scheduled appearances. Abbott, who wrote to the ABC chairman, James Spigelman, on 10 July to set the programming shift as a condition for lifting the ban, welcomed the ABC board’s announcement. “It’s exactly what I was calling for and at last we’ve seen a bit of common sense after the notorious Q&A program of some weeks back and look, I’m pleased that they’ve accepted what the government sought,” the prime minister said on Friday. “I’m pleased that they’ve finally agreed to do what their chairman said he wanted to do a few weeks ago and I’m looking forward to Coalition frontbenchers reappearing on Q&A.” Asked whether frontbenchers would only return when the shift had formally taken place, Abbott said: “Now that they’ve guaranteed that it’s going to happen it could happen straight away as far as I’m concerned.” Related: Tony Abbott: Q&A ministerial ban could be lifted if ABC imposes strict guidelines Abbott, who has previously described Q&A as a “lefty lynch mob” and said “heads should roll” over the Zaky Mallah issue, declined on Friday to criticise the ABC for the time it took to make the decision. “I’d rather give the ABC a bit of a pat on the back today, that’s what I’d like to do – give them a bit of a pat on the back for doing the right thing and I don’t want to talk about the length of time that management decisions might take,” he said. The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, accused Abbott of having the wrong priorities. “What a victory for Mr Abbott this week. We’ve got unemployment now at 6.3% but he’s micromanaging the programming decisions of a TV station? The job of the leadership of the nation is not to be deep-diving into which department within the ABC runs a television show,” Shorten said. “If that’s the most Mr Abbott and his Liberals have got to do they really need to take a good, long look at themselves. Ultimately where the Q&A shows sits within an organisational chart of the ABC does not matter to me whatsoever.” The ABC board said on Thursday it believed the relocation of Q&A would “provide the program with greater operational and cultural alignment” as it was “a significant feature in Australia’s news and current affairs cycle”. The ABC previously conceded it made an error of judgment in allowing the participation on 22 June of Zaky Mallah, who in 2005 was acquitted of two terrorism offences but pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officials. It also issued a formal warning to the show’s executive producer, Peter McEvoy. An ABC-commissioned review of Q&A by Ray Martin and Shaun Brown has yet to be completed, but the board received an update at its meeting on Thursday. Spigelman wrote to Abbott on 9 July saying the review would take some time but the ABC was, in the meantime, considering transferring the program to the news division. “I see merit in this proposal,” the ABC chairman wrote at the time. Abbott endorsed the proposal in a letter to Spigelman the following day, but was accused by critics of trying to interfere with the public broadcaster’s operations. |