EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Today's events have raised a number of issues about the role of the ABC now and into the future. Joining me tonight, journalist and former host of Media Watch, Jonathan Holmes. With him is the executive director of The Sydney Institute, Gerard Henderson.

Gentlemen, welcome.

GERARD HENDERSON, EXEC. DIR., THE SYDNEY INSTITUTE: Thank you.

EMMA ALBERICI: Now the ABC has conceded that an error of judgment was made in allowing Zaky Mallah to join the audience and ask a question of the minister on Monday night. Gerard Henderson, what's your view?

GERARD HENDERSON: Well my view is I agree with Sarah Henderson, the Liberal MP from Victoria, who said that to work out what went on here, you've to look at the executive producer, not the presenter, Tony Jones, but the executive producer, Peter McEvoy. He made the decision about - that the question be called, he approved the question. I know that Q&A go out and ask people to come into the studio on certain occasions. I don't know whether this was the case, but they knew that Mallah was coming in. No-one checked ...

EMMA ALBERICI: No, he submitted the question.

GERARD HENDERSON: Yes, but the question - but Tony Jones called the question. Peter McEvoy approved the question and the question was called. And it was approved and it was edited. So they knew he was there, but they didn't check him. They knew some things about him and they didn't tell the Liberal - the Liberal parliamentarian on the panel, nor anyone else what his background was. They didn't say that this man had pleaded guilty to threatening to murder ASIO officers. They didn't say that.

JONATHAN HOLMES, JOURNALIST: I think they did.

GERARD HENDERSON: The audience should've been told that. No, he said that.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Well, yes.

EMMA ALBERICI: It did sound like Steve Ciobo knew ...

GERARD HENDERSON: No, hang on.

JONATHAN HOLMES: It was in the question. It was built into the question.

GERARD HENDERSON: No, he - people were not told in advance that this was a man who had threatened to murder ASIO officers and pleaded guilty to this. No-one was told in advance. So he gets up and asks the question, then he says what he does. Now this is a very serious breakdown. Now, the person in control of this is not the board. They meet 11 times a year. It's not the chairman. He he spends a lot of time overseas. It's the managing director and so-called editor-in-chief, Mark Scott. He is responsible and the executive producer of the program. It's taken Mark Scott three days to say anything of substance and what he said today is pretty weak.

EMMA ALBERICI: Jonathan Holmes, if Q&A was going to have someone question the integrity of the Government's citizenship laws, is the person to do that someone who's threatened to kill ASIO and DFAT officials and someone who's made disgusting and degrading comments about two female columnists?

JONATHAN HOLMES: Look, the tweet is a separate issue. My understanding, Emma, is that nobody on the Q&A production team knew about those tweets. They were actually kept very - not secret, but quiet, for understandable reasons.

EMMA ALBERICI: How do you keep a tweet quiet?

JONATHAN HOLMES: Well, I mean, the point is that Miranda Devine and the other Rita ...

GERARD HENDERSON: Panahi.

JONATHAN HOLMES: ... they did not publicise them for very obvious reasons. They didn't want to give it more oxygen. So, until it all came out on Tuesday, that tweet was not widely known. Somebody ...

EMMA ALBERICI: But you should research the people you're going to have on asking questions.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Well, OK, you could say that somebody should've trawled through his tweets for the last six months. I mean, I don't know how many Q&A questions they're going to do that, but you could say that they should've done it in this case. And I do think that if they had found those tweets, they wouldn't have asked him on.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well they knew he was there. The last time I spoke to Mr McEvoy, he told me that on Q&A they had 60 staff. There's plenty of staff to find ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: There's 60 staff?

GERARD HENDERSON: That's what he told me, yeah. I'm not saying they're all full-time.

JONATHAN HOLMES: That's ridiculous. They haven't got 60 staff.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well, that's what he told me. They're not short of staff and the idea that someone as - I mean, how many other people have Q&A asked to come into the studio who have a record of pleading guilty of threatening to murder ASIO officers? The answer is zero. So this is the ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: Alright. Can we just ... ?

GERARD HENDERSON: Can I just finish? This is the person you check. You don't check everyone in the audience, but you obviously check this person.

EMMA ALBERICI: But it's nature of live TV, isn't it, Gerard Henderson, that unpredictable things can happen?

GERARD HENDERSON: This wasn't unpredictable. This was a gotcha question which ...

EMMA ALBERICI: No, the question wasn't gotcha.

GERARD HENDERSON: Hang on. It was a gotcha question, ...

EMMA ALBERICI: The follow-up was outrageous.

GERARD HENDERSON: ... which Tony Jones called because he was directed to call that question by his executive producer, Peter McEvoy.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Steve Ciobo ...

GERARD HENDERSON: This was - this was a gotcha question which the ABC invited.

EMMA ALBERICI: Well let's let Jonathan Holmes have a ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: I mean, Steve Ciobo coped with the question fine. He is not someone wilting flower ...

GERARD HENDERSON: But I never said he was.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Well OK, good.

GERARD HENDERSON: But that's not the point.

JONATHAN HOLMES: So you said no-one was warned, all this stuff. He was - he dealt with that in a way that I think many, many viewers would've thought was extremely effective, others would've thought it was over the top - whatever. But I mean, that's what the program's like.

EMMA ALBERICI: Hold on a minute.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Hang on, please.

EMMA ALBERICI: Let's let Jonathan Holmes have ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: Now, you say, OK, are we saying, as a matter of interest, that nobody who has been imprisoned for an offence a decade ago should come on television?

GERARD HENDERSON: Well it depends what the offence is.

JONATHAN HOLMES: OK. So ...

GERARD HENDERSON: It was never said that - it's not an offence. I mean, it's not a parking offence. He pleaded guilty to planning to murder ASIO officers. People like Dennis Richardson, who served Australia well.

JONATHAN HOLMES: No, he pleaded guilty to ...

EMMA ALBERICI: No, he pleaded guilty to a threat.

JONATHAN HOLMES: To threat. To issuing threats.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well, OK, he pleaded guilty to threatening to murder.

JONATHAN HOLMES: And he was found innocent of the terrorist charge ...

GERARD HENDERSON: OK. OK.

JONATHAN HOLMES: ... because it was basically an entrapment.

EMMA ALBERICI: And it's worth ...

GERARD HENDERSON: Well you just interrupted - and you're all interrupting me now. Can I just ...

EMMA ALBERICI: No, Gerard Henderson, it is worth making the point that while the Prime Minister today did say he was a convicted terrorist*, he's not a convicted terrorist.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well I'm not responsible for what the Prime Minister said. But ...

EMMA ALBERICI: But it's important to clear those sorts of factual misconceptions.

GERARD HENDERSON: But what he is - OK. Well let's clear this one up. He threatened to murder people like Dennis Richardson, a very long-time servant of Australia in very many public roles. That's what he did. And the ABC invited him into the studio, the ABC called his question and the ABC did not tell anyone on the panel on in the audience of his crime.

EMMA ALBERICI: We've established that. So, just further to Jonathan Holmes' question to you, on what criteria should people be denied entry to the Q&A studio and the right to ask a question?

JONATHAN HOLMES: For rest of their lives.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well I would think anyone who threatens to commit murder would be a start.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Really?

GERARD HENDERSON: Yes.

JONATHAN HOLMES: OK.

GERARD HENDERSON: I would think so. I mean, maybe you would like people who threaten to commit murder in your studio, but other people don't.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Can I say this ... ?

EMMA ALBERICI: What do you think, Jonathan? In what circumstance should people be denied the right?

JONATHAN HOLMES: Well what the team did know - they didn't know about the tweet. What they did know though is that Zaky had on television on several occasions live saying things like completely condemning Islamic State, saying that anyone who joined it was an idiot. That was in October last year on The Project. He has been - and his blogs, his video blogs are a constant refrain of attacking Islamic State and saying that people should not join it. Now, OK, he comes from a direction that is still fairly radical, but he's not by any means a supporter of Islamic State and the last thing they would've expected is that he would sort of say anything in support of Islamic State. And in fact, even though I can see how easily it was misinterpreted, he didn't.

EMMA ALBERICI: No, he didn't

GERARD HENDERSON: OK, you're saying that they should've seen his blogs and noticed that he wasn't defending ISIS.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Yeah, they did.

GERARD HENDERSON: OK. But then if they checked his blogs, why didn't he check his tweets?

JONATHAN HOLMES: Well, alright.

EMMA ALBERICI: But he wasn't ...

GERARD HENDERSON: Where threatened essentially to publicly rape women.

EMMA ALBERICI: Gerard Henderson, earlier this year during the outrage over the terrorist attacks in Paris on Charlie Hebdo, ...

GERARD HENDERSON: Yes.

EMMA ALBERICI: ... you defended the rights of Charlie Hebdo to mock the Prophet Muhammad in their magazine. You wrote that, "The Paris murderers took aim at freedom of expression." If you think Charlie Hebdo should have the right to insult Muslims, shouldn't Zaky Mallah also have the right to insult Australians?

GERARD HENDERSON: Well I don't think that's a very accurate account of what I said, but I wouldn't go around doing those things myself. But I did defend the right to do it.

EMMA ALBERICI: You said they had taken aim at freedom of expression.

GERARD HENDERSON: But there is one thing to publish a cartoon and there is one thing to threaten to murder ASIO officers.

EMMA ALBERICI: But he didn't do this live on air.

JONATHAN HOLMES: He didn't do that on air. He has not done ...

EMMA ALBERICI: But he didn't do this live on air.

JONATHAN HOLMES: He has been saying for the last 10 years there should be no violence.

GERARD HENDERSON: No, but we're talking about whether he should be in the studio or not. What they should have done was ...

EMMA ALBERICI: No, no, no, I'm going exactly to what happened on Monday night.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Does it not matter what he said since?

GERARD HENDERSON: OK. Well I will answer it, OK. When they had another terrorist on the program, David Hicks, who's ...

EMMA ALBERICI: Can I draw you back 'cause we will run out of time - can I draw you back to the specific question about Monday night?

GERARD HENDERSON: Can I just finish this? Who has made many anti - no, I want to answer this. I am doing that. Who has made many anti-Semitic statements and who has said that he'd attempted to kill people on the other side of the Kashmir Line of Control. They had him on a video link. So they knew what he was going to say and they coulda cut him off. This guy they had in the studio, that's different.

EMMA ALBERICI: So, if I can draw you back to the question.

GERARD HENDERSON: Yes, you can.

EMMA ALBERICI: If you're going to defend the rights of freedom of expression of Charlie Hebdo, should Zaky Mallah also have the right to express his views? And his views, just to be clear, were that many Australian Muslims would've been so upset by Minister Steve Ciobo's words, that would've perhaps encouraged them to join Islamic State. That's what he said.

GERARD HENDERSON: Would I defend his right to be live in a studio? No. And would I defend his ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: But what did he say ... ?

GERARD HENDERSON: Can I just finish? Would I defend his right to threaten essentially to rape women? No, I wouldn't.

EMMA ALBERICI: But he didn't say that on Monday night.

JONATHAN HOLMES: He didn't do that on air.

GERARD HENDERSON: It doesn't matter what he did on air. They invited him into the studio.

EMMA ALBERICI: I think it does because that's what we're talking about. I think we should stick to relevant facts.

GERARD HENDERSON: Hang on. They invited - can I just finish?

JONATHAN HOLMES: You always want to finish. No-one else is allowed to say a word.

GERARD HENDERSON: They invited him in the studio after he did that.

EMMA ALBERICI: Jonathan Holmes.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Yes, they did. And I think that that was a mistake and obviously somebody should've checked the tweets. It's easy to say that, but I mean, they did not know about the tweets. But he said nothing of that kind on air. What he said on air was nothing that everyone should be getting completely hysterical about. Are we so fragile now, Gerard, that we simply cannot take a little bit of somebody saying something that's slightly unorthodox?

GERARD HENDERSON: What he said on air was that young Muslim Sunnis should go to ...

EMMA ALBERICI: No, he did not say that.

JONATHAN HOLMES: He did not say that.

GERARD HENDERSON: He said that Muslims should go ...

EMMA ALBERICI: No, he did not say that.

GERARD HENDERSON: No, he did not.

GERARD HENDERSON: He said they should go and join IS.

EMMA ALBERICI: He said in his view ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: He did not say that.

GERARD HENDERSON: OK, right.

EMMA ALBERICI: Let me tell you exactly what he said. He said in his view, many Australian Muslims would've been so upset by the Minister Steve Ciobo's words that that would encourage* them to join Islamic State, which is a leap to say that he told them to go and do it.

GERARD HENDERSON: That was said with a sense of approval.

JONATHAN HOLMES: No. He ...

GERARD HENDERSON: Well joining Islamic State means going ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: ... deeply disapproves of Islamic State.

GERARD HENDERSON: Joining to Islamic State - joining to Islamic State, which he said, he said, well, you know, they should go and do this, essentially.

EMMA ALBERICI: He did not say they should go and do this and it's very important!

GERARD HENDERSON: Well you may want to cover for him.

JONATHAN HOLMES: This is what he said six months ago ...

EMMA ALBERICI: I'm not covering for him, Gerard Henderson, but we should stick to facts.

GERARD HENDERSON: I'll stick to facts. Joining Islamic State means going to Syria as a Sunni Muslim to murder Shia Muslims.

JONATHAN HOLMES: We know what it means. We know what it means.

EMMA ALBERICI: We know what it means, but he didn't call people to do that.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well he said you can understand they would do it.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Yes, he did.

GERARD HENDERSON: OK? So that's alright, is it?

JONATHAN HOLMES: And what we are trying to do, what we're all trying to do is to find the best way of stopping young men doing this.

EMMA ALBERICI: I want to move it to something else now. Yesterday, four News Corp tabloids had this story on their front pages, complete with Photoshopped images of ABC flags being waved by what are made to look like Islamic State fighters. How does that further debate about views that should or should not be aired?

GERARD HENDERSON: Well, I don't know, it's tabloid media.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Oh, that's OK.

GERARD HENDERSON: I wouldn't do it myself, but I thought it was quite - it was fun.

EMMA ALBERICI: You thought it was fun?

GERARD HENDERSON: Well I think ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: Fun?

EMMA ALBERICI: As an ABC employee, I didn't think it was fun to see an ABC flag waved to look like an Islamic State flag.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well Jonathan Green on ABC television this morning thought it was fun. I don't put together News Corp tabloids. That's what tabloids do. But I don't really think that's the essential point. But I didn't do it. And I wouldn't do it. I am very ...

EMMA ALBERICI: The four most-read newspapers in the country depicting the ABC as Islamic State sympathisers?

GERARD HENDERSON: I am very courteous. Well, what the ABC did in relations to this matter was very ill-advised and they are entitled to be criticised and some people criticise them this way and some people criticise them that way. I must say, for all the criticism that ABC personalities direct towards others, they are very, very sensitive to any kind of criticism of themselves and that includes - the problem with this organisation is there's not one conservative in the place in any prominent program. So as the former director of ...

EMMA ALBERICI: We are all entirely independent, Gerard.

GERARD HENDERSON: Yeah. As the former director of BBC said recently, only this week, that what develops in the BBC - it's the same in the ABC - it's a group think. Everyone thinks essentially the same. And what that happen is then ...

EMMA ALBERICI: Let's let Jonathan Holmes have a say.

GERARD HENDERSON: When Mallah comes in, no-one in the organisation says, "This is not a bad idea," cause they all think the same.

EMMA ALBERICI: We are running out of time. Jonathan Holmes, what did you think of the way the News Corp tabloids have handled this?

JONATHAN HOLMES: What upset me, Emma, was that they all portrayed this man as a fanatical Islamic State supporter. They didn't have to - I mean, you talk about Lateline not doing any research. You only have to look at one of his tweets or one of his appearances to know that he has been consistently opposing Islamic State for years and telling young people not to join Islamic State. That's where he's coming from. It doesn't take a lot of research to find that out, Gerard. But none of them did it because it didn't suit their yarn.

GERARD HENDERSON: Yes.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Right?

EMMA ALBERICI: I need a very quick final word. Some weeks ago the ABC chairman co-incidentally made the decision to launch an independent review into the Q&A program. Do we also now need this snap government inquiry as well?

GERARD HENDERSON: Well, it won't do any harm, it wont do any good. I mean, the Government doesn't run the ABC. No-one runs the ABC and essentially ...

JONATHAN HOLMES: Oh, really?

GERARD HENDERSON: The Government doesn't run the ABC. If anyone runs it, it's the managing director and he doesn't do much of a job. The ABC essentially runs itself, so an inquiry won't make any difference.

EMMA ALBERICI: We are running out of time. Jonathan Holmes.

JONATHAN HOLMES: I mean, can you imagine if they called an inquiry into - well, alright, it's owned by the public, fair enough, but the Government should not be holding inquiries into the ABC. I just don't think that's right. I don't think - I don't think it respects the independence of the ABC.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well it won't make any difference.

JONATHAN HOLMES: By all means, have an independent - somebody else do it, but not the Government.

EMMA ALBERICI: OK, gentlemen, we are out of time. Jonathan Holmes, Gerard Henderson, thank you.

GERARD HENDERSON: It's an absolute pleasure.

* Editor's Note: Tony Abbott referred to Zaky Mallah as a "convicted criminal and terrorist sympathiser", not a convicted terrorist. Zaky Mallah stated that Steve Ciobo's comments had "justified to many Australian Muslims in the community tonight to leave and go to Syria..." he did not use the word "encourage"