Australian comedian Tom Ballard will not have his Melbourne International Comedy Festival set shown by the ABC, which was due to feature it on a Wednesday television screening of the event.
After having his ABC program, Tonightly, axed after a skit labelling an Australian Conservative candidate as a “c**t”, Tom Ballard has again been cancelled by the national broadcaster.
This time, the comedian’s set criticising the Liberal Party of Australia proved too much for the ABC.
Performing at the opening night gala of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Ballard said: “I’m not saying Liberal voters are bad people. I’m saying they’re not people.
“They’re cold-blooded lizards ruining the country who should go back to the hellmouth from where they came.”
The Age reported that Ballard also referenced COVID-19, which “killed a lot of people in nursing homes—but I checked and they were all Liberal voters”.
Ending his show, Ballard said: “I hope you die, I hope you choke on your own franking credits, you evil greedy fascist soulless pig dogs”.
The ABC was due to broadcast the opening night gala on Wednesday with a second episode the following week. However, Ballard’s performance will not make an appearance.
“The ABC checks all content prior to broadcast to ensure it meets editorial standards. In this case, it was determined that the risk of causing offence to viewers was not editorially justified,” a spokesman told The Age.
It comes three years after Ballard’s show, Tonightly, was axed by the ABC. At the time, Ballard bid farewell to the show, in what turned out to be an emotional goodbye.
“Keep taking risks. It’s not happening anywhere else, please keep making shows like this for young people.”
Ballard added: “The truth is, Tonightly was a good TV show, sometimes it made a lot of shit, I’ll take the blame for that. But every once in a while I thought we were extraordinary.”
As both Fairfax papers noted of the latest Ballard boycott, perhaps festival board member John Ridley, a former Victorian director of the Liberal Party and adviser to Andrew Peacock, didn’t see the funny side.
