John Howard’s Response To David Hicks On ‘Q&A’ In 2010 Could Teach Tony Abbott A Thing Or Two

Since Monday night the government has gone full North Korea on the ABC over letting Zaky Mallah on Q&A; government backbenchers have accused the ABC of “sedition” and a few have started shrieking about the fact that Mallah made his way to the studio on an ABC-provided charter bus, because nothing says “supporting terrorism” like making it easier for people who don’t live in the inner city to take part in democratic debate on TV.

So your taxpayer funds used by ABC to pay for a would-be terrorist convicted of threatening a public official travel to ABC studio! #auspol

— Dennis Jensen MP (@DennisJensenMP) June 24, 2015

Zaky Mallah says his travel costs were covered by ABC. How many other to “everyday” #QandA audience members are invited on show & paid off? — George Christensen (@GChristensenMP) June 24, 2015

Perhaps most egregiously, the Prime Minister himself openly asked the ABC “whose side are you on?” and declared that “heads should roll” over the network’s decision to rerun the program on Wednesday, which apparently amounts to “giving a platform” to terrorist sympathising. Curiously, Abbott didn’t extend that sentiment to other media outlets that have replayed Mallah’s comments (ie. all of them) or given him a platform before — as Mallah himself has pointed out, that would class the Australian as a suspect publication, given it paid Mallah $500 for a story on his conviction back in 2003.

NewsCorp- The Australian paid me $500 for a story + photos in 2003. @martinchulov paid me! Please remind me, where was the Liberal outrage?

— Zaky Mallah (@ZakyMallah) June 25, 2015

That aside, Abbott and others are using the kind of language you’d expect from Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland, not from the government of a free and democratic country — the ludicrously-titled Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015, the regressive and authoritarian piece of legislation that caused this whole mess in the first place, is an excellent case in point, and Abbott’s hideous assertion that Labor’s objections to that bill constitute “rolling out the red carpet for terrorists” is another.

Amid all this hysteria raining down from the Prime Minister’s office, it’s worth looking back at now another conservative PM handled himself in a far more controversial situation. Shortly after his election defeat in 2010, John Howard went on Q&A for a one-on-one special with Tony Jones. During that episode he was asked a question via video by David Hicks, the Australian man held in Guantanamo Bay for five years on suspicion of terror offences. His reaction is worth remembering.

“Isn’t it a great country that allows this kind of exchange to occur. This is not the sort of exchange that would occur in other countries and in dictatorships, and it ought to make all of us — whatever our views are about my government’s policies concerning Mr. Hicks — it ought to make all of us very proud that we live in a country that allows that sort of exchange,” Howard said.

Hicks’ conviction for providing material support to terrorism was eventually struck down as having no legal basis by a US court, but he did train with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In other words, he leaves Zaky Mallah for dead in the would-be terrorist stakes, and Howard had a golden opportunity to jump up and down in the manner that Abbott is doing now. Instead of doing that, Howard defended his government’s actions and defended the principle of free speech, despite it putting him an a supremely awkward position. It’s almost impossible to imagine Tony Abbott doing the same. John Howard did a lot of awful things as Prime Minister, but he at least knew how to conduct himself and his office with dignity.

For his part, ABC managing director Mark Scott has come out swinging in a speech at the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs in Melbourne last night that vigorously defended the broadcaster’s independence and right to air controversial, inconvenient and politically charged content.

“The ABC is clearly Australian, it’s on the side of Australia. A state broadcaster is the communications arm of the government. Its role is to communicate the messages of the government – and certainly not to do anything that undermines the government. I hope no one seriously wants the ABC to be a state broadcaster. We know the examples. North Korea and Russia. China and Vietnam,” Scott said.

He also dismissed News Corp papers’ vicious reaction to the episode by delicately pointing out that “not all parties to the conversation have seemed vested in pursing a rational discourse.”

The speech in whole is embedded below.