Q&A: the ABC’s soapbox
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She’s been praised as the “teen who skewered Rudd” in the Telegraph and lionised on conservative blogs. “Meet the student who asked a tougher question of Kevin Rudd than did Left-spruiking Paul Bongiorno this morning on Meet The Press,” said Extreme Right-spruiking Andrew Bolt on the weekend. Eighteen-year-old Angela Samuels asked Rudd on last week’s Q&A about his laptop promise, inducing a cranky reaction from the Prime Minister, who looked flat and uninterested while being grilled by students for an hour. She then used the Telegraph interview to accuse Rudd of lying. “I’m in contact with schools. I know what he’s saying isn’t the truth. It’s annoying that he stands in front of cameras and says things that aren’t true.” Hard-hitting stuff from someone from the real world. But absent from the Telegraph’s praise was some relevant context: Samuels is a Young Liberal from Brisbane, studying at ANU (and not a schoolgirl, as some media reports initially suggested). A moment’s checking by the Telegraph journalist would have revealed Samuels’ background. Her Facebook page (doubtless shortly to be made private) details a long list of conservative causes in which Samuels has been involved: Abbott’s Army, Tony Abbott for PM, Mr Rudd, I Want My $300 Billion Back, a climate denialist group and her membership of the Young LNP South Brisbane Group. In last year’s ANU Students Association elections, Samuels stood as part of the Act! Ticket, headed by ACT Young Liberals George Ober and Sam Jackson-Hope. None of this reflects on Samuels, who has done nothing to hide her partisanship. Yesterday, she commented on her Facebook wall “I Love Tony!!! Hooray for local health boards!” Half her luck for getting a question on Q&A. It hardly invalidates her question to Rudd, and it’s entirely his fault that his media persona, on Q&A and elsewhere, is starting to slip apart. But it does reflect on journalists and reactionary commentators happy to overlook her partisan affiliations in favour of the “fake Rudd brought down by authentic teen” narrative. It also suggests Q&A is having continuing difficulties getting the balance right between partisan audience members who can deliver controversy, and representatives of the other 98% of the population. Last night’s dreadful episode, in which the mouth-watering clash between Lindsay Tanner and Barnaby Joyce was ruined by the presence of three other irrelevant and less-than-exciting guests, seemed to have been allowed by the ABC to be used as a soapbox. There was a group of ex-ADF personnel running a well-organised email campaign to have their pension benefits boosted, and an apparent supporter of Melinda Tankard-Reist’s campaign to censor and regulate everything faintly connected to sex, who served her up with a Dorothy Dixer that allowed her to range over sexualisation of children — including peddling the internet myth that Noah Cyrus is launching a lingerie line for nine-year-olds — and the recent attacks on Government websites. Which is all fine if Q&A wants to become a lobby for professional barrow-pushers, but it makes for less-than-compelling television. |
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64 Comments
True that she does not hide her right wing political leanings on her Facebook page , but it would have proper for the Telegraph to possibly question her on her leanings and affiliations and covered these in the article as well. She is not representative of the average Gen X or Gen Yor their voting intentions.
Das was one of the few who blew the whistle BEFORE the GFC, and has a lot to say about the weird and whacky way our economy has been entrapped by the financial wizards. Why have someone like that on a panel and give him only a few seconds of soundbites between Tanner reciting policy details so mind-numbing that he had to have been primed beforehand, and Joyce waffling on incoherently? He must have realised he’d been set up and played the jester for some light relief.
Bloody dreadful television.
Does it matter who asks the question? or where they are from or how old they are? All we are interested in is the answer. So what if she was a young Liberal and she knew he wasn’t telling the truth. Good for her for asking the question, something the media seem to be afraid of doing with Rudd. If an 18 year old young Lib can rattle Kevin Rudd and catch him out on lies, so be it. Rudd gave her that look of, how dare you! To me that alone, even without an answer spoke volumes about his character.
Again is Q&A “Janet’s Revenge” and does she get to audition inquisitors (going on vehemence and tone) besides get them a seat and an actual soap-box? A show that goes for less than an actual “hour”.
Last night we were treated to the spectacle of our “Shadow Finance Minister” - with his history of “anti-China-state-owned-business-investment in Australia”, doing commercials, railing against such things, with “National Party appeal waning in spades”, tapping the Sinophobia keg, just like Hanson, for the electoral collateral it elicits, holding out hope to that gold mine for the so inclined, the “nurtured, numerically and electorally rich, clueless, ill-educated, desperate and needy” demographic - specifically, and embarrassingly, obviously, being asked what he’d do to stop that sort of investment here, a couple of times, in search of clarity of policy.
“Alice” Jones might just as well have asked “The Hatter” “Why is a raver like a writing desk?” “The Hatter” went off, when pressed, into some diatribe about (selective) “Labor national debt”! Unlike the original, “ours” went some way to answering it - “underneath, they’re both occupied with empty space and they’re both probably made of wood”?
And, from the “non-core promises party”, did he heckle something about “broken promises” in relation to Tanner’s Labor?
@John Donovan
“…She is not representative of the average Gen X or Gen Yor their voting intentions…”
Says who? Got anything more than peer anecdotes to back your statement up?
Instaed of ‘intentions’ are gathered to make YOU feel less alone.
Do us a favour and remind us of how they actually VOTE. Start with the AEC.
“…it would have proper for the Telegraph to possibly question her on her leanings and affiliations and covered these in the article as well…”
How is that even remotely relevant? You sound as desperate as Bernard in the Quest for Conspiracy.
The thing is the damn computers are in the damn schools. Q & A got hijacked by liberal stooges last year and has been pretty dreadful ever since.
For god’s sake, the questions asked by the “kids” were as boring as batshit.
“…She then used the Telegraph interview to accuse Rudd of lying…”
Bernard,
Last night Four Corners showed Labor had lied with Rudd promising at its 2008 NSW State Conference that a further A$100 MILLION would be spent on “supported accommodation for people with a disability” for 300 beds.
Disability Minister Bill Shorten responded in interview: “…we understand that 68 places are now being established…”.
Unconvinced, Four Corners then “…examined the fate of those funds and can confirm only 40 new beds across Australia; just seven in New South Wales, 19 in Queensland and 14 in Western Australia. In nearly two years neither South Australia, the Northern Territory, the ACT, Tasmania, nor Victoria have provided one bed between them…”.
Lie. Disgraceful lies.
So are4C part of this VRWC on Aunty too or have they, after the longest and rapturous of Prime Ministerial honeymoons, finally had enough of the lies, deceit and spin of the Rudd Government?
You are just pissed because you bought the spin and didn’t see what we all saw coming.
MPM, you may be surprised to learn that your average Australian teenager is not a political fanatic of any particular persuasion.
For all the pre programme hype, Q and A was a bore. But one thing stuck out like MPM’s evil trolling toungue, Barnacle had been told to mind his p’s and q’s. He really should get that ruddy complexion checked out, not natural Barmy, woops Barny despite the best efforts of the makeup girls.
I get more value from SBS Insight programs.
Mama, enough. It’s ‘pissed off’ in this country not ‘pissed’
So the GFC or really Western Financial Crisis hit the budget and the election promises for six.
Cue Homer Simpson grunt here.
Isn’t it time we grew up?
@CaffeineAddict
“…MPM, you may be surprised to learn that your average Australian teenager is not a political fanatic of any particular persuasion…”
You’re telling the wrong person something she already knows.
@SBH
“…Mama, enough. It’s ‘pissed off’ in this country not ‘pissed’…”
Grow up.
Anything useful to contribute?
The media like to make fun of Barnaby, and fair enough he’s fairly hopeless in his current roll. But last night on Four Corners Bill Shorten was like a chook with his head chopped off. He didn’t know if he was Arthur or Martha.
I’ve long turned off Q&A because of the fact that they have turned into a very sloppy and poor version of SBS’s Insight, with what appears to be audiences made up of political hacks and apparachiks.
I tuned in last night, however, to see “Bend Over” Barnaby and Tanner go toe-to-toe over finance issues, and to see how far Barnaby could get his foot into his mouth. Alas I was royally disappointed when Tankard-Reist was allowed to carp on and on. She not only repeatedly myths about the Cyrus lingerie line, she also clearly doesn’t know what a hacker is as she banged on about the “hackers” that attacked the government’s website. Fortunately, “Bend Over” did a marvelous job of cramming his foot right down his throat.
Q&A is appalling TV and ABC should reconsider its future.
Well considering you don’t contribute anything bar abuse MPM why should he worry,your a Liberal troll, so go away and play on a main road or wait for a big truck and play chicken.
I don’t think you would be any great loss
well well i thought she seemed a big older than she should of been.
I had decided to watch q and A only once and that was that night,.
I cannot stand it. I was always suspicious there where people there with personal interests.
The adf well thats astounding when my husband was in the army i think he would of been in big
trouble if he did that.
I WONDER IF THIS WILL MAKE THE PAPERS.
lets tell them and see.
Devoid of humour mama, that’s your problem. Well one of them anyway
@SBH
“…Devoid of humour mama, that’s your problem…”
I laugh at things that are funny.
@John Ryan
Judguing by the quality of your ‘abuse’, I’m guessing you are ten years old.
Stick to the topic.
surfer it was advertised as a programme with school children you know
grand 7 to 11 not worldly children. I remember thinking some ones ask her to say that.
I thought it must of come from home but no we have student who is NOT a school student.
if the ABC new this well shame on them
the abc needs dressing down but i doubt that will happen till we get all new directors.
If something is advertised as that it should be just that school children
No its not good on her. If my daughter did that i would be very very dissapointed indeed
NOTE TO BERNARD
well now you may start to write a few more things like this there must be alot of this type of stuff going on with the liberals and their way of doing things.
I think Mr Rudd should do what howard did least exposure the better.
they know he is a good man and will always turn up to things.
These political apparachtiks shouldn’t be banned from the show because of their political affiliation, but because they ask appallingly uninsightful questions, and stack the audience with themselves so they can clap and cheer whenever their party’s member says something that aligns with their point of view (or boo when it doesn’t).
But it was also quite sickening last night when the question about children and the media was asked, and watch the camera turn back on the audience member, only to realise we were witnessing a love-in between fellow advocates. Really only Barnaby and Lindsay offered anything really close to a fulfilling debate last night.
The ABC would do well to ban both types from their audience, but the fear must be of an audience of political junkies and other one-issue diehards steering the conversation in all sorts of uncontrollable and weird directions =)
It was advertised 16 to 25 year olds from what I remember. Does it really matter? It’s the answers that matter not who asked them.
A few months ago a very personable young lady described as a “journalism student” was similarly praised for making a 3 minute statement that encapsulated every noble issue of the day. This was in some public forum or other that K Rudd was attending. Rudd seemed a bit nonplussed.
The media response- notably on TV news, which likes personable young women- was to treat this as a crushing blow to Rudd, who really seemed just to be too polite to ask (as your mean old Aunty Jean would have done) … “and what was the question? “
Maybe it’s time to bring back the trite, patronising and supercilious ABC panel shows of yesteryear … at least they know how to keep the hoi polloi in its place.
MPM
‘Stick to the topic’
now that’s funny!
when does janet leave its soon isnt it.
If MPM and some others can with hold the flaming for one minute, a little bit of research shows the following:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/NSW-education-Just-six-laptops-lost/0,130061791,339298679,00.htm
Based on DET figures for NSW only, 19,000 laptops had been deployed by September last year, with an expectation that 65,000 would have gone out by year end. That is for NSW alone. I don not know what the national numbers are, but I would expect that Lenovo would be able to advise. Lenovo priced the units according to a volume purchase agreement, as did Microsoft and the other key software providers (including Adobe). I would expect that if the procurement targets were not met, Lenovo would not have meekly accepted this, nor would MS.
I made 2 points in my initial post:
1. The questions posed to the PM highlights in the subesequent interview in the Telegraph, were made by a member of the Liberal Party, who is not necesarily representative of the general Gen X/Gen Y population, which has been infered by the interview.
2. The voracity of the assertation that the PM lied about the laptops for schools programs success is at the least, unfounded, and potentially completely untruthful. See the above link.
I am not criticising Q+A, nor will I bother with name calling on this site. My point was the affiliation should have been highlighted, and based on available information, the PM did not lie.
I am no big fan of any politician, but I think truthfulness in the media is rather important.
Thanks
“It hardly invalidates her question”…..yes it does. She went their under the disguise of a school girl, she’s hardly that if she is attending uni, she’s now classed as a young women. She wouldn’t have qualified for the Laptop anyway as it’s only for highschoolers.
She hid her true Liberal partisanship when interviewed by the journo, all to score a hit and gain media attention in which to make Rudd look bad.
Jesus haven’t any of these selfish Liberals heard of the GFC.
It seems to me, that even though Rudd had one job to do (get rid of Howard), and he stuffed that entirely (helloTony Abbott, Howard-lite), that the GFC did change priorities pretty quickly and radically. Of course, had the other lot been in, we’d be at 10% unemployment (all the while with them spruiking how it would be 15 under Labor), and we’d have not done as well so far…
So, in this case, the question was irrevelant, and the answer was empty. Epic fail on both sides.
“Samuels is a Young Liberal from Brisbane”
Now I know why I didn’t like the sneering little prat.
Samuels ’ stunt is a bit like news.com.au articles. Try getting a pro Labor comment posted in a politics related article on news.com.au amongst all the Liberal worshippers frothing at the mouth posting anti Rudd and Labor comments. Doesn’t help that News Ltd media discard 99% of the pro Rudd and ALP comments. The Right Wing Goons and their Christian Taliban mates are out in force now that Tony “Mullah Omar” Abbott is making inroads into Rudd and Labor’s lead and are orchestrating these sorts of media stunts that are so successful in the USA and now here.
If Republicans and conservatives in the USA were to jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge I’m pretty sure you would find scores of Liberals right behind them,
I like QNA though I concede Insight is more tightly organised. It has been clear from the start that the coalition uses it to score cheap points on the government. I think George Brandis said it all today when he quoted Menzies that oppositions have to be seen to be different from the Government to win office. The coalition will be different from the government in everything they think will win them votes so as to get back into power. We can forget about the national interest though. As far as they’re concerned, they’re interests are the national interest.
Samuels started off by saying it was her age group that had pushed Rudd into government. I thought that her spiel was a bit odd. If she was still at school, as she tried to have us think, then she’d have been too young to vote in 2007, she’d still be too young to vote now and she would have her laptop. I had her pegged as a Liberal Party stooge straight away, I’m happy to see that my suspicions have been confirmed.
Maybe the Libs could run a course in basic manners for their young acolytes. I was surprised by the rudeness and plain bad manners shown by some of the questioners. Rolling your eyes or shaking your head while the prime minister answers your question is not polite, not is it a good look when the cameras catch you at it. That sort of behaviour just destroys whatever credibility you may have.
Interesting commentary Bernard.
I was disappointed by the show last night. Barnaby came across as having early dementia — his answers wondering off on unintelligible tangents.
Lindsay Tanner was asked complex questions and unfortunately, most people find the facts (also complex) boring in terms of television.
Das veered off on his own agenda (as did the other two female guests).
It seemed to me all the guests had learned polispeak, and with exception of Tanner, couldn’t answer a question if their life depended on it.
Diana, polite and credibility are not words to be found in the Liberal (born to rule ) makeup. Watching that pratt, limelight seeker Hissie Pyne in the House of Reps is a great example of rudeness personified. His objectionable mate, the ex copper and member for Dickson, Dutton is as bad. Obviously dragged up by the nostrils, spoilt buffoons. Abbott is right up their alley.
Bernard,
Your first word “She’s” is an abbreviation for “She is”.
You want “She has”. Two words.
She has been praised as the “teen who skewered Rudd” in the Telegraph but not on a poll.
She has been lionised with some clause on conservative blogs. There is a tale.
@ DAVID Any body might think you’re not a huge fan of the coalition like the rest of us.
Sorry. “She’s” is “She has” so why not two words?
Len, You have wandered into the wrong website. You were looking for Pedants Corner.
Samuels’ rise to media stardom is akin to that of chk-chk-boom girl Clare Werbeloff. A confident refreshing young Australian ends up media fodder for a country short on. And I guess the ABC’s Q&A realises a program depicting democracy in action is far more slick with switched on spruikers. You only have to listen to Question Time to hear how poorly some Aussies express themselves. Shame Bolt and News Limited were duped again.
I complained to Q&A months ago that they let extreme Right Wingers (always rude and intrusive, talking over the top of people and constantly interrupting) run riot on the show. Apparently nothing has changed. So much for Left Wing bias at the ABC.
it doesn’t really matter if she was a young Liberal…
the fact is, Rudd looked as though his ‘goose has already cooked’ on national television which would be the most alarming thing for ALP strategists. It was most painful to watch.
I find the ALP’s current predicament amazing. It feels like 2007 again although Rudd has only been in office for a little over 2 years, surely the electorate isn’t ready for a change yet?
[Edit]
“… am not criticising Q+A, nor will I bother with name calling on this site. My point was the affiliation should have been highlighted…”
Why?
How is it relevant?
Are you seriously trying to imply that the ABC ‘planted’ her in order to pose a gotcha question?
Now THAT is funny. (SBH, your thoughts?)
Are you also saying that - in the history of Q&A - there has never been any audience members that have posed questions to the guests from other political parties?
No-one from the Greens; the Socialist Alliance; International Socialists has ever appeared and asked questions after first declaring their allegiance? The show transcripts don’t support your allegation.
Don’t be so disingenuous.
Angela Samuels may not have gone to any lengths to hide her background with the Liberal Party, and of course she doesn’t speak for all Gen Ys. But the way she phrased her question did suggest the opposite. She talked about “our generation” and how “we’re the ones” who got behind Rudd in Kevin07.
Maybe she wasn’t a Young Lib then; maybe she even joined the Young Libs because she *was* actively involved in Kevin07 and was then disillusioned.
But her phrasing certainly fell easily into the “authentic teen / plastic pollie” narrative, far more easily than into any other.
Thankfully I don’t know of any of this. I gave up on Q&A last year.
Ignorance IS bliss it would seem!
how come nobody spotted her as a ringer?
she has a double chin and dresses like Bronwyn Bishop
was it the red suit that fooled them? they probably expected Young Tory schoolgirls to be in a blue pant suit
Well, after all the hoohaa here I decided to watch the episode in its entirety to see what all the fuss was about.
Sorry guys, I just don’t get where all the adverse ‘opinion’ came from. Kevin was his usual, nerdy (but somehow endearing) self. He answered the questions for the most part (albeit with a few longwinded preambles which no politician can resist no matter what their persuasion).
I didn’t feel that he had any trouble with the right-wing ‘plants’ of which there were a number. But they stuck out like sore thumbs and were easily identified since they had those self-congratuatory smirks that young people get when they think they’ve somehow pulled a swifty on you — I recognise that well having spent a number of years working in schools (little do they realise we were all young and full of ourselves at one time or another).
Overall, I reckon he did a fair job … my main objection, if I have one at all was that Tony interjected with questions of his own on a few occasions, and hat shouldn’r have been part of the script.
Bernard, you missed one of the facebook groups Miss Samuels has joined : * Shouldn’t women be in the kitchen not joining groups? *. Group’s Description: Send them back, or at least make them do some ironing… Miss Samuels does respond to a friend who comments about the chauvinists within the group, posting that she joined it as a joke. Shows some naivety on her behalf perhaps?
Daniel – the number of Liberal Party MPs Miss Samuels is following would imply she has a significant interest & commitment to the party – not someone who had supported Kev 07. Maybe she was being selective in her wording of her question to intentional imply a disillusioned young supporter. (You know the spiel – I voted for party X at the last election, but not again!) As Bernard says, her facebook group membership shows an overwhelming conservative bias whilst her facebook page indicates she is enjoying her time in the spotlight.
@Skink
D’ya mean spot her apart from the usual supermajority of lefty ringers in the Qn’A audiences?
P’haps the absence of dreadlocks, Birkenstocks and tats?
I’ve been mulling over the reason for such hostility against the govt. from the mainstream press. Someone might have said this already, but it dawned on me that when Kevin Rudd actually went through with the idea of NOT spending heaps on govt. advertising he’d put a bit of a hole in the budgets of the media organistions.
I mean, how dare the government force the news organisations report the news for free?
While the millions are a drop in the bucket to some of those organisations, the principle would have irked at the very least.
I’d love for somone to put the media heads on the spot and ask them — because blind freddy can see that the ‘interpretation’ of the news, where the govt. is concerned, differs greatly from the facts.
I think that when in government the media sells everything you say as spin, whilst everything the opposition says is holding the government to account. The media thrives on conflict. JamesK, it is apparent that you and MPM think anyone who holds leftist views is an evil plant while those righteous and thouroughly wholesome types who mock and protest at every opportunity are God’s gift. What a joke.
@jenauthor
Most modern journalism consists of copy made from reconstructed press releases from various government departments.
There is no problem with the line of communication.
Nice try.
And as for the facts:
finance.gov.au/advertising/docs/Full_year_report_2008-09.pdf
You’re wrong there too.
Government advertising spend under Rudd is at record levels compared with John Howard
But again, nice try.
@davidk
“…anyone who holds leftist views is an evil plant…”
Hardly, although some troglodytes on this blog yesterday tried to insinuate Chk-Chk-Boom Girl on Q&A was a RWDB plant designed to trip Rudd up by virtue of her Young Liberal plaintings on a Farcebook page.
We all had a BIG LAUGH at that one.
You sound paranoid.
@MPM Not paranoid, but deeply cynical rgarding the veracity of any so called fact trotted out by the right as experiance tells me that it will invariably be either a lie or at best a half truth.
@Most Peculiar Mama
I have been a member of Crikey now for almost a month. I have begun to notice that you are over represented in the comments section, particularly politics. I am beginning to wonder whether you have a lot of free time? Or, perhaps you are paid for your comments?
timbo
“…I have been a member of Crikey now for almost a month…”
Good for you.
To answer your questions in no particular order: no and yes.
Hope that clears things up for you.
“Or, perhaps you are paid for your comments?”
Come now, a bit of common sense please. Raving trolls don’t do it for pay (can you imagine a paymaster getting any value at all?). No, their reward is of quite a different kind and only to be examined if you have a very strong stomach.
lol David now you are really showing your age… paymaster?
paymaster:
A person or organization responsible for giving people their wages or the money they are owed.
That you are ignorant of the word, and that you like to show off your ignorance, means nothing.
Excellent piece Bernard Keane.
Q and A allowing itself to be hijacked by ideologues, clogged with tedious celebs, stumbling from ishoo to ishoo…
an irritating format at the best of times. I no longer watch it.
It’s time Q and A stopped the silly baracking from the audience. It would end the stacking that goes on and mean there was more time for comments without the audience applause. If it’s questions and answers people want, why is clapping and cheering, booing etc, allowed? It’s not a bear pit. No one is being adjudicated, other than the viewers individually, ewither in house or at home. There’s a difference between questions and answers and cheap bear pit entertainment!
Just chuck the “Applause” sign guys!
you would think the abc would realise this show is unwatchable
now i may be wrong but i never saw this report on the abc
i wonder why
Q&A Went from soliciting right-wing audience members, to being stacked by Coalition supporters. For a TV channel which is funded by the tax-payer, to become so heavily influenced by the Coalition, is further proof of John Howard’s duplicity.
Having placed all his pals in positions of power on the ABC board, he now sits back and admires his handiwork.
Last night I switched it on, quickly got bored, and just as quickly walked out. Tony Jones is becoming another Oprey Winfrey; slashing smile, lots of hair and a divine belief in his own godliness
Q&A Went from soliciting right-wing audience members, to being stacked by Coalition supporters. For a TV channel which is funded by the tax-payer, to become so heavily influenced by the Coalition, is further proof of John Howard’s duplicity.
Having placed all his pals in positions of power on the ABC board, he now sits back and admires his handiwork.
Last night I switched it on, quickly got bored, and just as quickly walked out. Tony Jones is becoming another Oprey Winfrey; slashing smile, lots of hair and a divine belief in his own godliness.