Keith Wheeler | Opinion, July 6, 2015

The Prime Minister was right to ask, “Whose side are you on?”

Since that episode, Tony Jones’ new-found friends have committed a beheading in France, a shooting atrocity in Tunisia, and a bombing at a Shia Muslim mosque in Kuwait.

As the Kuwait episode again reminded us, ISIS and its supporters hate everyone, including fellow Muslims.

Regular readers of this column may recall my conversation with a Shia Muslim gentleman in Mildura. He was there to get away from “bad people”.

The ABC forgets that many refugees are here in Australia because they fled ISIS-style persecution in their home country. 

The beheading in France involved the ISIS flag carrier beheading his boss!

Decent Muslims have reason to fear that the publicity ISIS is being given here in Australia paints all Muslims with the one brush. How does an employer tell a genuine ready-to-work Muslim refugee from one who hates us? If you were an employer would you be hurrying to employ a Muslim refugee?

Having Zaky Mallah on Q&A shows us once again how far the ABC is from mainstream Australia. The ABC needs pruning and reform. The JJJ network could be sold immediately because there is no need for taxpayer-funded radio stations that simply do what commercial networks do better.

We could look closely at the rubbish broadcast on ABC2 at night. Is filthy language and weird sex something that the taxpayer should be funding for young Australians?

If the Q&A format is to be retained, get it out of inner Sydney. Conduct sessions in other capitals, and in country locations such as Wagga. If Zaky Mallah can be bused in to Ultimo, then why can’t we bus in audience participants from Narrandera, Tumbarumba and so on, so that a Wagga session would truly represent the region?

Of course, you may guess that I would sell the whole ABC and save $1.1 billion dollars each year. That billion dollars could staff a lot of schools and hospitals.

– Keith Wheeler