Q&A: ministers puzzled at ‘self-destructive’ call

Cabinet ministers are puzzled and angry at Tony Abbott’s sudden boycott of Q&A.

Cabinet ministers are puzzled and angry at Tony Abbott’s sudden boycott of the ABC’s Q&A, pulling Barnaby Joyce from last night’s program and threatening the scheduled appearance of Malcolm Turnbull next Monday.

The Prime Minister’s personal decision on Sunday night to ­instruct the Agriculture Minister to pull out of the broadcast — the day after he released the government’s Agricultural Competitiveness white paper — has confused ministers and government ­advisers.

The decision to deny Mr Joyce the chance to address farming ­issues is being described as “self-destructive” because of the high-rating program’s potential to reach the ABC’s rural ­audience.

Q&A, which Mr Abbott has ­described as a “lefty lynch mob”, is under internal review after convicted criminal and known ­extremist Zaky Mallah last month used the platform to claim ­Muslims were “justified” in joining Islamic State.

Mr Abbott had not imposed the boycott before Sunday night, although Defence Minister Kevin Andrews said he had declined an invitation to appear in protest at the Mallah incident. Parliamentary secretary to the Prime Min­ister Alan Tudge also withdrew from last week’s show.

But because there was no ­formal boycott imposed by the Prime Minister’s office, Mr Joyce and Mr Turnbull, the Communications Minister, accepted invit­ations to appear.

Government sources said last night the boycott was a culmination of a series of ABC responses to the Mallah incident that Mr Abbott did not feel went far enough. There has been no time limit set for the boycott, which could prevent Mr Turnbull’s scheduled appearance next ­Monday.

While many government MPs agree with Mr Abbott that the program is biased against the ­Coalition, several senior figures believe it is essential that every opportunity is used to state the government’s case in a hostile ­environment.

Grahame Morris, a former chief of staff to John Howard and Q&A panellist the night Mallah struck out, told The Australian last night he could understand why Mr Joyce pulled out.

“The ABC is in the sin bin and when a chief executive gives you a directive you accept it,” Mr ­Morris said. “But really, with the economic trouble in China and Greece, is a TV program really worth the distraction and any ­instability or a schism in cabinet?”

Mr Morris’s famous advice to Howard government ministers going on the ABC was that they should because it “was our enemies talking to our friends”.

Mr Turnbull last month ­opposed calls for a boycott, arguing the Coalition should “take ­advantage of every platform that’s available” to push its message and discredit Labor.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne said it would be “madness” to vacate the program to the political Left, while Environment Minister Greg Hunt agreed Q&A was enemy turf but he was “never fussed by a difficult environment”.

Mr Joyce, who was instructed to withdraw from Q&A about 8pm on Sunday — a decision acknowledged by host Tony Jones last night — yesterday ­rejected Labor’s demand that he show “the single finger” to the Prime Minister and appear anyway.

“Do I think that would have been good to know about it a little bit earlier? Yes, that would have been nice. But that’s life,” Mr Joyce told the National Press Club in Canberra. “The Prime Minister of Australia is just that — the Prime Minister of Australia — and it is by deference to the Prime Minister that when an ­instruction comes through it is obeyed. Otherwise the whole process of cabinet becomes chaotic.

“He’s made an instruction that until the processes of the review at the ABC is properly concluded that he doesn’t want people from cabinet on Q&A. That’s the ­instruction. It’s not a case of alternative A or alternative B.”

Mr Joyce predicted “other ­opportunities will arise” to discuss the white paper.

On Twitter, ABC managing ­director Mark Scott criticised the boycott as “a missed opportunity for (Mr Joyce) to discuss the ­agriculture white paper in front of a million people who watch the show”.

Mr Abbott’s spokesman said: “Given the ABC is undertaking an inquiry into Q&A, it isn’t ­appropriate for the minister to ­appear.”

Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon rejected the ­“ridiculous proposition” that Mr Joyce’s appearance on Q&A could somehow undermine the ABC’s inquiry.

Appearing on the program, opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said Mr Abbott’s boycott of the show was an attempt to avoid scrutiny in a “challenging room”. He said the decision would be a sore spot for many government frontbenchers.

“It’s a mistake on the part of the government and ultimately it’s weak,” he said. “It doesn’t actually do a lot to scrutinise the position of the government.”

Greens Senator Larissa Waters said Mr Abbott was “flogging a dead horse two weeks on” and accused Mr Abbott of trying to distract attention from other political issues including climate change and same-sex marriage.

“It’s been a huge overreaction in my view,” Senator Waters said. “I think the Abbott government is attacking the ABC, because it doesn’t like the ABC.”

A departmental review of the Mallah incident found that Q&A ­producers were unsuccessful in checking his background with two people who knew him, and performed only a cursory check of his social media activity, failing to recognise expressions of support for the terror group Jabhat ­al-Nusra and a call for two ­prominent ­female journalists to be publicly “gangbanged”.

Mr Joyce, asked about Mr ­Fitzgibbon’s urging him to give Mr Abbott “the single finger”, said: “I challenge my good friend and colleague Joel to now give Bill Shorten the middle finger at any time of his choosing.”

Last night’s guests included libertarian Centre for ­Independent Studies researcher Trisha Jha and foreign editor of The Australian Greg Sheridan.