Steve Price leaves Q&A audience in shock

RADIO and TV personality Steve Price shocked the Q&A audience last night when he lashed out at a fellow panellist.

RADIO and TV personality Steve Price left the Q&A audience in shock last night when he responded to a question about domestic violence and Eddie McGuire’s “drowning” joke controversy, and claimed a fellow panel member was being “hysterical”.

The panel heard a question from Tarang Chawla, a family violence campaigner who told them how his sister Nikita was murdered by her partner with a meat cleaver. Chawla also cited the case of The Age’s reporter Caroline Wilson, who was the subject of a joke made by McGuire on air who suggested she could be held under water while talking about The Big Freeze, a charity event where football personalities were dunked in freezing water.

Chawla then called on the panel to answer the question: “How will politicians and the media play a better role in bringing about long overdue culture shifts so tragedies like what happened to my family are not normalised?”

Price was asked to reply, saying he knew Sam Newman, Eddie McGuire and Caroline Wilson very well.

“Eddie apologised immediately. If you listen to that broadcast in context, it was a bunch of blokes laughing about things they shouldn’t have laughed about,” he said.

“When it was brought to their attention that they’d said those things, all of them apologised. I think far too much was then made of it. As for Sam’s comments, who happens to be a good friend of mine on the Footy Show, I think he should regret the comments and shouldn’t have gone in to defend his great friend Eddie but I think too much was made of what was originally a joke on a football show.”

Radio and TV personality Steve Price on the ABC’s program Q&A. Picture: Supplied

Columnist Van Badham from The Guardian said we have to start taking the issue of domestic violence seriously, and took aim at Price’s words where he described McGuire and his colleagues who made the joke as “a bunch of blokes”. She suggested Price was making “apologies” for them.

“And it’s one of the reasons why we have to look at the cultural attitudes around the different treatment of women and the disadvantaged treatment of women in our society because what you see as jokes made by a bunch of blokes, you know, from the position of being one of those blokes is probably being in on some of those jokes I see as a woman who is part of a social world where violence is...,” she said.

Price then interjected, saying: “I hope you’re not suggesting I have been in on one of those jokes. I would like you to retract that.”

Badham said: “I’m saying you have just described them as a bunch of blokes joking around.”

Price said: “That’s a fact.”

How will politicians & media play a better role in shifting the language of VAW? @StevePriceMedia @vanbadham #QandA https://t.co/74wqYGM9jA

— ABC Q&A (@QandA) July 11, 2016

Badham replied: “And making apologies.”

Price then said: “That’s fact. That’s what they were doing.”

Badham said “Yes, Steve”, before Price then told her: “Don’t tar me with their brush, please.” Badham then directly said to Price: “Steve, do you know what you’re doing? Do you have any understanding what you’re doing? This man has given us an extremely upsetting story about what happened and you are defending yourself in the context where we have to have a conversation about cultural attitudes that treat women differently and you cannot create paradigms where there are blokes...”

Price told her: “I just don’t want you to twist stories where you shouldn’t. Just because you’re a woman, you’re not the only one who can get upset. Men can be just as upset.”

Badham then said: “Thank you. You’re proving my point very excellently about the attitudes...We have to stop creating these ‘binary men are this, women are this, masculinity is this, femininity is this, men have high status, women have low status’. We can make jokes and it’s all jokes and, yeah, they apologised and that’s fine but on the receiving end is the ludicrous proportion of women who do endure violence.”

Price then told her: “I think you’re just being hysterical.”

His reply left the audience in shock as they gasped.

The Guardian’s Van Badham on the Q&A panel. Picture: Supplied

Badham replied, saying: “It is probably my ovaries making me do it, Steve!”

Q&A host and moderator Tony Jones then interjected, saying: “I think it’s getting a bit too heated on this side and I think the public can make up their own minds about that.”

But Chawla wasn’t finished. He stood up and replied to Price telling him: “Steve, I find some of the comments you made rather offensive considering that you’re essentially sticking up for people making misogynist comments and passing them off as banter and you said moments ago they were making a joke and not taking it too far. Do you not see yourself as having the ability to normalise views around gender equality, if so, how would you do that?”

"Steve, you're essentially sticking up for people making misogynist comments and passing them off as banter." #qanda pic.twitter.com/rUpyd6cIFw

— news.com.au (@newscomauHQ) July 11, 2016

Price then had one more chance to reply, telling Chawla: “I was stating a fact that they were having a joke and it got out of hand. We can go too far. I feel sorry for your personal circumstances but we can go too far in taking someone like a media personality and stringing them up. Eddie McGuire apologised it should have been the end of the matter. I don’t think we needed to drag it further down the track once he did that.”

The panel, which was also filled by Derryn Hinch, Tayna Plibersek and George Brandis, discussed a range of post-election issues including Malcolm Turnbull’s ability to hold the Coalition together till the 2019 election, Tony Abbott’s future, the Mediscare campaign, superannuation, and why voters voted for minor parties and independents.

Hinch left the audience laughing with his assessment of why Pauline Hanson got elected.

He said she “played to the anti-Muslim fears not economic”.

Derryn Hinch, Tanya Plibersek and Tony Jones on Q&A. Picture: Supplied

“Pauline Hanson and I have two things in common ... that’s just about all — one, we’ve both been to prison and, two, we’ve both been on Dancing with the Stars,” he said.

Hinch also took Plibersek to task over why Labor ran their campaign on a lie about the Coalition seeking to privatise Medicare, describing it as “bullsh*t”.

But in discussing Medicare, both Plibersek and Brandis were asked to confirm their parties would not seek to increase the Medicare levy in the future, to pay for it.

While Plibersek said Labor had “no intention of raising the Medicare levy again, Senator Brandis told the audience the Coalition were “not proposing to increase taxes”.

“We are not proposing to increase the Medicare levy,” he said, before ruling it out as a “false issue”.