Stan Grant’s replacement host on Q+A, Patricia Karvelas, faced a chaotic first night as the show’s permanent host with audience members booing MP Barnaby Joyce regarding his stance on the Voice.
It was announced yesterday that Karvelas, who had been stepping in for Grant for a number of weeks now, will be holding the position until at least the end of the year. Last night was her first show as the permanent host, and it was not an easy one with a number of highly-sensitive issues coming to the forefront.
An audience member asked Joyce whether Australia was ‘mature’ enough to hold a referendum on the Voice to Parliament.
Joyce described the issues as “probably one of the most divisive things that have come into my area in political history”.
“You’re asking two people who were born in the same hospital, went to the same primary school, went to the same high school, living in two houses beside one another in a regional town. That one apparently one has access to two fields in the federal parliament and one has access to one,” he said.
The former deputy Prime Minister was then interrupted by boos from the audience.
Karvelas then jumped in to stop the crowd, asking them to be “respectful” to Joyce’s answer.
“When other people out there hear [that], it just resonates why they’re angry,” he finished.
The atmosphere was already tense after an audience member questioned the colonial history of the Commonwealth Games.
Audience member Joy Kingson asked if the canceling of the Commonwealth Games signaled “the end of conquerors deciding Australia’s future”.
Panellist James Heappey – the UK’s Armed Forces Minister – initially ignored the comments.
So Kingson tried again, saying: “The original concept of the Commonwealth games is the Empire Games … So how does someone achieve an empire?”
“They conquer it, and then these games are at the pleasure of the King and to celebrate the King using all the conquered countries to compete against each other.”
Heappey became defensive and started defending the games and the Commonwealth.
“The Commonwealth has countries in it now that were never part of the British Empire,” he said.
“I was in Togo a couple of months ago. They joined the Commonwealth because they want to be part of a club of nations bound by friendship and shared values and nobody is compelled to send a team to the Commonwealth Games”.
“People do because they enjoy the opportunity to compete internationally in the game labelled ‘the friendly games’.”
Karvelas was hosting the show after previous presenter Stan Grant quit Q+A following “blatant” racial abuse following his partaking in coverage of the Coronation.
The ABC confirmed he would still be working with the channel on new projects.
