Teena McQueen didn’t deserve Q&A pile on

When the federal Liberal vice-president was allowed to get a word in, she spoke sense that is a rare commodity on the ABC show. Instead of the vitriol that came her way, she deserves a medal, writes Miranda Devine.

I’m not what you would call a fan of federal Liberal vice-president Teena McQueen, who is being pilloried for a “car-crash” appearance on the ABC’s Q&A on Monday night.

She is the epitome of a delcon, the name I coined two years ago for “delusional conservatives” who were willing to destroy their party to get Tony Abbott back as leader.

And she and her thin-skinned pals have been extraordinarily vicious about me as a result, in a way that rivals anything the left dishes out.

McQueen was foisted on the Liberal Party literally from nowhere last June by the delcon faction when she replaced Trish Worth on the federal executive in a revenge coup two months before Malcolm Turnbull was ousted.

MORE FROM MIRANDA DEVINE: Young Liberals’ stoush exposes right’s real enemy

The move was seen as punishment for Worth, a one-time Howard government MP and former parliamentary secretary to Abbott, after she told me Abbott was being a “spoiler … letting down his colleagues and helping Labor. It’s extremely selfish [for someone] in a safe seat”.

Teena McQueen is a delcon, a “delusional conservative” who wants to see the Liberal Party get Tony Abbott back as leader. Picture: John Appleyard

As a former marginal seat holder, Worth was trying to persuade her party to stop a civil war which would only lead to a Shorten government.

It was good advice but she paid the price.

So that’s how McQueen wound up in a position of influence in the Liberal Party with a contract to appear on Sky News at night. It is a contract which she reportedly told senior NSW Liberals was too lucrative to drop when they complained about her appearances.

Now her colleagues are complaining again, after her Q&A debut.

It is true that McQueen is uncouth and entitled and did the Liberals no favours by venturing into the ABC lion’s den. She is too much of a loose cannon to represent the party before an election.

MORE FROM MIRANDA DEVINE: This week’s Q&A was everything wrong with the ABC

But I am still going to defend her.

The attacks on her are a damp squib. What she said on Q&A was perfectly defensible, apart from the tacky “c*ck” reference.

Teena McQueen faced bullying from the other panellists on Q&A.

She held her own in the face of intense bullying, from her fellow panellists, especially the sanctimonious Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi and American “bad feminist” Roxane Gay, who eye-rolled and mean-girled McQueen all night. Host Tony Jones piled on with his usual kick-the conservative schtick with the help of Labor’s oily Tony Burke.

The audience laughed and groaned at McQueen and she was interrupted constantly.

But she was right when she said, “The worst hate speech I’ve heard recently is Richard Di Natale”, and she was right to say Donald Trump has been exonerated, and she was right to say that New Zealand is following John Howard’s lead on gun control, and she was right to point out the hypocrisy of Burke sucking up to the Greens while demanding the Liberals preference One Nation last.

When she was allowed to get a word in, she spoke sense that is a rare commodity on that show.

I may not like McQueen, but she does not deserve the vitriol that came her way yesterday. She deserves a medal. But now she should bite her tongue until the election.

@mirandadevine