Audiences across Australia should be able to take part in Twitter debate as show goes to air, review of the high-profile panel show says

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The ABC should screen Q&A live on ABC News 24 so audiences around the country can watch it at the same time and participate on Twitter, an independent review of the high-profile panel show has recommended.



According to an early draft of the report leaked to Guardian Australia, a key recommendation is that Q&A audiences outside New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT should be able to take part in the discussion of the show that takes place on Twitter.



Until March this year, Q&A was simulcast on ABC News 24, meaning viewers in different time zones could watch it live.



But when Lateline was moved off the main channel to the news channel in the earlier time slot of 9.30pm, Q&A was pushed back to 10.30pm.



Last week Guardian Australia revealed that authors of the long-awaited review found Q&A does not have a “left wing anti-Coalition bias”.

The comprehensive independent review of the Q&A program – between 2 February and 29 June 2015 – included the now infamous episode on 22 June when the appearance of former terror suspect Zaky Mallah in the audience sparked the ire of then prime minister Tony Abbott, who banned Coalition ministers from appearing on the program.



Q&A: apparently the most dangerous show on Australian television Read more

The review was commissioned by the ABC board and undertaken by broadcaster Ray Martin and the former managing director of SBS Shaun Brown.



The draft report, which will be finalised and released publicly before Christmas, found Q&A is equally a challenge to both sides of politics.



It found that not only was the panel usually balanced with conservatives and progressives but that the questions asked by the audience were also fair to both sides of politics.



The review examined in depth whether the “questions were coming from a biased perspective” and concluded that they were not.



One of its nine key recommendations is that producers should adjust the make up of both the panel and the audience because the panelists in general are too old and the questioners are too young.

One of the questions asked in the report is if Q&A “is the young questioning the old”. It concluded that more panelists under 35 should be invited to appear and more questioners over 35 should be included in the audience.

#Q&A, day 143. Live from hell | First Dog on the Moon Read more

More panelists from the world of business would be included and diversity would be improved by traveling to locations outside Sydney.



The panel is not only skewed towards men but when women do appear they are not given as much time to speak, according to the report.



The authors also recommended that more information on the backgrounds and the affiliations of the questioners should be given to the audience.



Audience members should not be given multiple chances to ask questions or be allowed to attend and ask questions on several occasions. Mallah, who was given a platform to ask a question, did attend as an audience member on several occasions but had never had his question chosen before.



While the key criticism by former prime minister Tony Abbott that Q&A is a “lefty lynch mob” was effectively dismissed, the veteran journalist and host Tony Jones did not escape all criticism.



The authors found “isolated examples” of Jones asking “too many persistent follow up questions” in a style more suitable to the earlier current affairs program hosted by Leigh Sales, 7.30.



Jones also made some “questionable asides” but these were “rare lapses”, the draft report says. “It is recommended that Tony simply exercises care.”



Culture War Two: conservatives get high on their own supply | Jason Wilson Read more

The report also identified two isolated “problem” episodes in which the panels were unbalanced.



One such “problem” episode was the special on LGBTI rights in June when MP and conservative morals campaigner Fred Nile was pitted against five pro-gay panelists: Tom Ballard (host), broadcaster Julie McCrossin, transgender activist Julia Doulman, veteran gay rights activist and author Dennis Altman and entertainer Paul Capsis



One of the conclusions reached by Martin and Brown was that politicians “have an antipathy towards audiences – and audience reactions – which are not tightly controlled”.

