How Q&A battler Duncan Storrar’s question made the cut

HE CAUSED a media storm when he asked about tax rates, but the question is how did Duncan Storrar’s Q&A question make the cut?

DUNCAN Storrar caused a media storm with his appearance on Q&A on Monday night, but it also raised fresh queries about how the show selects the questioners and questions from its studio audience.

And how do you get into that audience in the first place?

Make no mistake, Q&A may be live but it’s tightly-controlled television.

Audience members register and provide confidential information “that assists the program team in selecting a diverse and balanced audience”, an ABC spokesman said.

Questions during the registration phase include who you would intend to vote for in the next election, and if you are a member of a political party.

Mr Storrar asked his question and went through the “normal audience selection process” ahead of his question being short-listed, the ABC said.

And while he confessed he was “in the middle of an anxiety attack” as he appealed to Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer “you lift my tax-free threshold, that changes my life”, Mr Storrar knew he was likely to get the chance to ask it.

His question on tax rates was one of two he submitted on May 6 in response to Q&A’s regular audience mail-out to its upcoming studio audience, and he knew it had made the show’s shortlist.

Asked to review Q&A last year in the wake of the Zaky Mallah controversy, journalist Ray Martin said Q&A was “not a freewheeling, drag-‘em-out, knock-‘em’-down style of Town Hall public debate”, nor was it democracy in action as the ABC likes to trumpet at the start of each week’s show”.

In December, when the report was released, he said content of the show was “driven more by the identity of the panellists than the news of the day’’, and was decided long before the show went live.

“The only thing that’s unpredictable are the panellists’ answers,” he said.

“The only thing that’s unpredictable are the panellists’ answers,” says Ray Martin of Q&A. Picture: Britta Campion

Q&A is primarily filmed in Sydney, which means its studio audience is primarily local.

Mr Storrar, who is from Geelong in Victoria, but the show was filmed in Melbourne on Monday night.

Q&A’s prompt letter sent to the studio audience ahead of the show confirms the panellists, and suggests broad issues for debate.

Up to 200 questions are submitted, and that number is whittled down to a short-list of 10 to 12 by producers, although it’s likely only three will get asked, the report revealed.

“Questions are chosen based on whether they are valid, interesting and appropriate,” an ABC spokesman said.

Q&A’s questioner selection and vetting process came under scrutiny last June, with its decision to allow convicted criminal and terrorist sympathiser Zaky Mallah into the live studio audience to question a government frontbencher.

The ABC admitted it made an error in judgment allowing one-time terror suspect Zaky Mallah on the show to ask a question last June. Picture: ABC

Mallah had previously pleaded guilty to threatening to kill ASIO officials, and when this was revealed, his appearance on the show saw the ABC admit an error of judgment, saying not enough checks of Mallah’s recent history had been performed.

In the fallout, executive producer Peter McEvoy was given a formal warning, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbot ordered a temporary boycott by frontbenchers, and an editorial review conducted by Mr Martin and former SBS managing director Shaun Brown was ordered.

The review report observed some of the criticism that Q&A attracts results from the show’s internal policies for the selection of audiences, panellists, questions and the Twitter stream not being documented, let alone published.

In response to the review, a program mission statement and set of guiding principles on the role of the presenter, audience and panel selection and question choice is being developed and will be provided on the program website, the ABC said.

It also accepts questions via Twitter, online and by video as well as impromptu questions in the studio, but impromptu questions rarely make it through.

“Some might be surprised at the small number of spontaneous questions,” the review said.

“This means that to a very significant degree the direction of the programs was determined by the production team and not, as some might imagine, by the public.

“We understand the reasons why that is the case. The producers have the responsibility to ensure that the questions, individually and collectively, comply with the ABC Editorial Standards.”

Originally published as How Q&A battler Duncan Storrar’s question made the cut