Would you buy an ideology from Zaky Mallah?

It had been my intention last week to write about The Killing Season, ABC’s documentary reconstruction of the Australian Labor Party’s years in government, 2007-2013, a period which saw the backroom assassination of not one but two elected prime ministers, and a Shakespearean drama of power, hubris, betrayal, murder – OK, I’m exaggerating for effect. Nobody got killed!

The Q&A/Zaky Mallah affair intervened, and I’ve been otherwise disposed in trying to make some sense of it. It’s quiet now, for a few days at least while Bill Shorten defends the indefensible in Sydney. But before we get to media coverage of the ALP’s shocking tale of corruption and lies (which I will reveal in full next week), some questions remain.

The Q&A affair

Who called Mallah on the phone, and why then? Hadn’t the journos on call been aware of his offer to gangrape two female journalists who he didn’t like? Were they in fact aware of the backstory, and fancied their chances in the pursuit of a headline?

And if the ABC did know of the esteemed Mallah’s values in relation to the most basic human rights that define our nation, why not call him on TV then to defend his views on “Islam and Women”? Or “Islam and gays”?

That would have been good TV.

Oops, that’s what Q&A did, and it absolutely worked. Obviously. One million people on the night, and how many more million inspired by Tony Abbott’s intervention, have come to see that Islamic fundamentalism is a wee wanker called Zaky.

Disclosure

Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.