We’ve been blogging the ABC’s Q&A a bit around here since its debut. One thing worthy of comment is the inclusion of folks who aren’t “subject area experts” (or aren’t recruited for the show as such - I’m thinking of the lamentable Difference of Opinion) but who bring a fresh perspective beyond that of the usual pollies and talking heads. Julia Zemiro, for instance, who as an averagely informed citizen (and one who seemed to wonder what she was doing there on occasion), was able to call some of the insider crud for what it is during her appearance. And smart young acas like the fabulous Kate Crawford… I haven’t watched the thing religiously - last week, for instance, after catching up with the said Kate Crawford among other things I did at the CCi conference, I was out at the Bowery drinking cocktails while Tim Blair enjoyed his moment of televisual fame. But I’ll certainly be watching tonight because my mate Miriam Lyons, policy impresario and CPD Director and all round excellent person, is in the line up. Go Mim!
34 Responses to “Q&A Lyonised!”
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Am I scraping the barrel of celebrity association if I also claim knowing Mim?
When I knew her she was running Nexus at UNSW (I think in 2001/2002). I was quite surprised seeing her on the add for Q&A and am looking forward to tonight’s show!
Indeed, “Go Mim!”
Did anyone catch that Tim Blair’s performance last week? Goodbye Sober Day indeed.
For mine Q&A has been a little disappointing. It’s just too boring. Now if the ABC stacked the audience (again) with those CEC types then I’d be breaking out the popcorn.
Tim was all right, he didn’t eat anyone, though I’m not sure what happened post show…..but yes, last week was a bit so-so, we need more Tony Abbott and Bob Brown…..and cowbell!
Q 1 Why are IT geeks paid more than nurses? Duh! The intertubes are way more important than real life. Still, an interesting discussion on the value of work.
Q 2 Funding of meds, Roxon is good as usual, this is a technically complex question.
Q 3 Opt out rather than opt in organ donation, need community debate. Hockey supports the Govts just announced plan. An emotive issue at the time of a tragic event.
Q 4 Rights of children with disabilities v schoolkids who get laptops. Van Onslen says it’s important to know that there are services out there. Folks need to know that. How?
Q 4 Why won’t Hockey shoot for the leadership? Everyone laughs. Van Onslen gives Nelson no chance. Hockey says Nelson is made of steel, audience sniggers. Hockey tries to define what the Liberals stand for, he didn’t vomit in his own mouth. Tony Jones claims the honeymoon is over, quotes, Gippsland and Newspoll. Roxon stupidly buys the narrative. Audience member questions the ‘Honeymoon’ narrative and bashes the media for suggesting that it is. Sweet. Hockey hides behind the skirts of the voters of Gippsland. Another ausience member says the media emperors have no clothes.
Q 5 Indigenous living arrangements, urban drift, regional centers? Funding needed, disappears before it gets to the source. Might have to shut some remote communities down? Bashes Helen Hughes. Remote communities are more stable than regional centers because they are centered around families. Not subjected to alcohol and drugs marketing.
That’s it, not a bad show tonight, no fireworks, oh fuck Bolt is on next week also Christine Milne, Coonan and Conroy. When will they get real new media representation on the panel?
Q1 - Phil - a lot of IT geeks aren’t paid as well as nurses, and a lot have very significant employment insecurity. It was a wrongly framed question, and while I’ve got sympathy for the argument if the comparator was better, these sort of shows lend themselves to a bit of interest group mobsourcing - it may not be a coincidence that there’s a Nurses’ Union EB round going on in NSW at the moment, if I’m not mistaken.
I’d have liked to have seen the Mim/Joe Hockey stoush go on for longer - I’m not sure rolling your eyes is the best way to refute a good point!
Quite a good show. First episode I actually ENJOYED tonight. A highlight was when Lyons took on Hockey about the lack of ideas in the Liberal Party, and how both major parties supported the “free market with a safety net” model when most people, demonstrated by the audience, weren’t interested in tax cuts but wanted more spending on services, viewing things like healthcare as major issues, not just safetynets in the event of bad times.
And Marcia Langton was great.
And so was well Hockey tried to say he had faith in Nelson’s leadership of the Liberals, but could only put forward “i think people underestimate him, he’s a really decent person, one of the most decent I know.”
@Mark, too true, I didn’t take the question too seriously only because I’m living the online version of a lowly paid webby type guy right now…..and yes the stoush was far too short, she was ready to school him I think.
I’d back Miriam against any pollie in a one on one stoush match, Phil!
Ms Lyons was great, but the night belonged to the member of the audience who gave Tony Jones and the media a serve about the ‘end of the honeymoon’ narrative.
Yeah, more power to that guy!
Marcia made sense on the issue of small communities and viability. Where does Helen Hughes or anyone else get off trying to tell people where they should live. Small communities tend to have a lot less dysfunction than the large ones.
Q1 - Oh, like I needed that. I’m an IT geek and my partner is a nurse. Imagine that discussion when we have both are bingeing on alcopops.
Yeah to be fair tonight was the best episode yet, a bit of blood in the water. I quite liked both Miriam and Marcia and Nicola Roxon is a good performer.
Miriam did give the impression she wanted a slice of that smiling and inflated excuse of humanity in Joe “Umm I didn’t kinda really know WorkChoices was like bad” Hockey. I thought Marcia’s point about the smaller Aboriginal communities made a lot of sense.
But that guy in the crowd who sunk the slipper into the MSM for their mind numbing “Government in crisis!!!1!” reporting of late deserved the chocolates. The second that guy popped up all I was thinking was “don’t you dare cut him off Tony”.
I thought Marcia was terrible. Talk about prolix.
Yeah, loved the guy telling Tony Jones the media honeymoon narrative was crap.
Expected Marcia to have more claws. She’s been better. But seeing her having a go at that Right Wing Rat Bag Helen Hughes was choice.
Maybe Miriam taught Joe the Libs are so confused they don’t really know how to define themselves - far right or far far right? Labor deserved the crack about being indistinguishable, too. You’d hardly kinow where they came from, sometimes.
Maybe I need to give it another chance (particularly if The Bolta and Sen. Milne are on next week). The only time I’ve tried watching it, even the lovely Julia Zimera couldn’t hold my interest for more than about two minutes. It was kind of like a cross between that terrible thing they had a while ago with the cartoonist and the ex-60 Minutes bloke, crossed with “Insight” on Mandrax.
“Small communities tend to have a lot less dysfunction than the large ones.”
The Paul Toohey ‘Quarterly Essay’ makes this point also. Even Brough et al found themselves having to give support to small outstations in some of the NT contexts, if only temporarily, because sending people to some of the larger communities (like Port Keats) meant sending them to potentially very dangerous situations.
The main problem with Q and A is that we hear far too much from the politicians, particularly Liberal politicians (who have all learnt the art of talking non-stop about nothing for as long as possible from Dear Ex-Leader) than anyone else. Usually the non-politicians are far more interesting but get a tenth of the air time. I would love to have heard more from Miriam Lyons, but she had a hard time getting a few words in without Mr Avuncular continually trying to interrupt her.
Tony Jones tries in a limited way to even things out, but at the risk of incurring the wrath of certain members of the Board needs to tell the likes of Hockey to shut up sometimes.
Hey all - thanks to Mark for the plug and to the rest of you for watching! As a TV almost-virgin I’m mostly relieved I didn’t find myself gaping like a guppy when the questions came in my direction, but it was definitely good fun. I quite like the Q&A format - especially the fact that we don’t know what the questions will be beforehand, and that people can submit qs by email and text.
I think with a health minister and shadow minister, and so many health questions from the audience, it was inevitable that Joe and Nicola dominated the debate last night. On the one hand I agree that it’s better to hear more from the new voices on the panel, but on the other hand it’s great that random punters can put their questions to a minister on the spot. Possibly it needs more than one program - or one hour - to capture the best of both.
As a serial panelist, I certainly found it hard to adjust to a one-hour timeslot. I’m used to two-hour gigs where there’s more time to tease out the subtleties of the issues rather than just spit out a few quick grabs. There’s a lot more I would have liked to get into with Joe - personally I’d like to see the Liberal party reinvent themselves along the lines of the Liberal Democrats, who are a genuinely economically and socially liberal party, but I think they’ll find it hard as long as their base is still captured by wingnuts.
I think one of the things missing in the analysis of this show is the fact that it is allowing Liberal shadow ministers a forum to maintain a profile in the wider community .Can someone remind me of what efforts the ABC went to to allow Labor shadow ministers create/maintain a profile in the twelve years of Howard’s government.
Initially I also thought, why Roxon is buying in this ‘Gippsland byelection end of honeymoon’ narrative?
But then I thought that even if she may not believe it, to dismiss it would be risking to be seen as arrogant and hubris so she may decided to go for ‘there is a message for us’ line. But again good on that audience member to challenge it.
I am a big fan of Julia Zemiro (the hottest bilingual woman on the planet IMHO) but she was a bit of a fish out of water really, and so was the Chaser guy the week before. It is difficult to be amongst experts and politicians that all they do is think and debate about issues all the time and try to give a light slant on things. Although Julia said one of the most intelligent things when she was on. When asked why the Rudd government was seen as being in trouble I think she said something ‘Pfff…they have been in government for just seven months, let’s give them a go’.
I some ways not having a ‘comedian’ is better. Anyway Bolt will provide the entertainment next week.
Miriam, if you’re still reading, can you enlighten us as to how they go about selecting guests? I find the mix a bit strange some times!
I enjoyed lastnight’s Q & A. The highlights were Miriam ‘helping’ Joe Hockey tease out what the Liberals policies were and Marcia on the small aboriginal communities and bonus points to the guy in the audience who ‘poo pooed the honeymoon is over’ narrative!
I was glad to see last night Q&A seems to have scrapped the ‘please send us your video mash-ups’…
Bolt next week on Q & A? Garnaut Report just out. Did the RWDBs on the ABC Board instruct the producers to get a climate denialist?
WHEN IS KEVIN RUDD GOING TO GET RID OF HOWARD’S RWDBS ON THE ABC BOARD. AND WHY DOESN’T HE HURRY UP ABOUT IT?
Guido,
That’s exactly how I view it in regards to Roxon and the “there’s a message in it for us”. Rudd set that off and really it’s the way to go politically. I doubt Roxon believes it too. It wouldn’t be a great look if after Gippsland Rudd came out and said “Nah, who cares?”. Anything close to that and the MSM would comprehensively lose their minds with this “yeah but WE didn’t want you in power” government.
Bolt will be on next week but I was under the impression Q&A wasn’t a comedy?
Paul - The Bolta may actually work out quite well. Garnaut (whatever his report actually says) will have him frothing at the mouth, aided and abetted by Sen. Milne. There’s an opportunity to submit some pretty subversive audience questions here, I reckon, which should confirm to everyone that Bolt is barking mad.
Paul Burns @ 25
Good question. Actually beside the Bolta Stephen Conroy and Helen Coonan will be also on next week. That could be a question that could be asked, considering that de-politicising the ABC and make it similar to the BBC is Government policy.
I will actually ask about the soccer national team games being placed on the anti-siphoning list, considering that Conroy is also a soccer fan
ABC board members are statutory office-holders, and can’t be removed from office except by due process. To “spill” the board would require legislation - which would have to pass the Senate - which it would almost certainly not do. Two of Howard’s board appointees have terms expiring this year, and Conroy has indicated that a transparent merit-based process will be put in place for appointing their replacements, that this will be entrenched in legislation, and that the staff-appointed member will be reinstated on the board.
We had decided after the last 2 weeks’ efforts to give Q&A a miss - too much monopolising of the Show by Lib pollies.
Ended up watching again and enjoyed Miriam and hope to see more of her. We loved seeing Hockey’s facial reaction to Miriam’s questioning. And as others have said, we thanked the guy who had the nous to say ‘who said the honeymoon is over. Only the media says that”.
We think a time limit on answers should be in vogue - and Tony should forget the usual tabloidie stuff with the pollies.
There are so many important issues to canvass and it is so interesting to hear the views of those we do not normally see on TV.
Thank goodness for sites like this one where so many intelligent people contribute far more wisely than the MSM.
Mark - not too sure on the selection process. I basically got scouted from the 2020 summit - one of the Q&A team was there on the lookout for potential panelists. The way the mix was described to me is that there would usually be one labor & one opposition panelist, plus a couple of other talking heads, preferably speaking as individuals rather than representatives or as single-issue experts, and preferably with a good mix of political perspectives. I think they’re consciously trying to get beyond the usual talent pool, which is where people like me come in. I’ve dobbed a few potential panelists in myself, but I think most of them were already on their hitlist. If you’ve got any good suggestions for future guests email me (miriam.lyons at cpd.org.au) and I’ll pass them on.
Which is good! But not where Andrew Bolt comes in I don’t think!
True. He would come under the bum-fights=bums-on-seats category methinks.
Or just bums.
Someone from the new media sphere might be nice, Miriam, if you’re in a dobbing in mood!