Politics

You Need To Watch Jan Fran Calling Out Malcolm Turnbull On ‘Q&A’ Last Night

The highlight of my Monday night: Queen Jan Fran.

by Rashna Farrukh  10 November 2020

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Monday night’s Q&A came right after a Four Corners episode that exposed senior ministers having affairs with members of their staff. Journalist Jan Fran was on the panel, and honestly, she was the hero we needed.

If you weren’t catching ABC last night, here’s a quick recap: The Four Corners investigation into the behaviour of politicians after-hours, and the treatment of women working in Parliament House revealed two big things.

First, Acting Minister for Immigration Alan Tudge had an affair with now ex-Media Advisor Rachelle Miller when he was minister for human services. Second, Attorney-General Christian Porter was not only was caught getting cosy with a young female staffer in a bar near Parliament House, but has a history of sexist beliefs and behaviours.

This last point is especially concerning because as barrister Kathleen Foley — who has known Porter since she was 16 — put it: “It would undermine the entire legal system if the Attorney-General is someone that doesn’t share the values that the legal system shares. Equality before the law and non-discrimination is an essential part of our legal system. So, to have an Attorney-General who treats women and thinks about women in the way that Christian does is, to me, profoundly problematic”.

At that time, Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister and while he says he was unaware of Porter’s long history of sexist behaviour, he was made aware of one specific night Porter was drinking with a young female staffer. Turnbull advised him that was “unacceptable conduct” but still, just two weeks later, appointed him Attorney-General.

Queen Jan Fran called him out on his judgement, straight to his face on the Q&A episode that followed.

Here’s the iconic clip:

Also on the panel was Paul Kelly, editor-at-large of The Australian. On the question of Kevin Rudd’s e-petition for a royal commission into Murdoch-owned media in Australia, Kelly claimed the paper was “perfectly fair”, leading Turnbull to urge employees of Murdoch newspapers to stand up against the misinformation being published by them.

You can watch their heated exchange here:

Again, Jan Fran rightfully pointed out that journalists, especially women of colour, are scared to speak up and call out the Murdoch press.

“They are scared that the Murdoch press — I want to acknowledge it’s not a homogeneous entity — but they’re scared that the Murdoch press is going to go after them, engage in a smear campaign, eviscerate their reputations, and they don’t want to do that. If you don’t think that that happens, just look at what the Murdoch press did to Yassmin Abdel-Magied. 100,000 words were written about her. They wrote her out of the country.

You are a former prime minister. I’ve heard you’re quite rich. You’ve got the money, the time, the connections, the platforms to deal with it.”

Your move, Malcolm.