Assange poses Q&A question to Gillard
Q & A pulled out another surprise moment last night as Julia Gillard faced a video question from Wikileaks' Julian Assange.
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ABC1’s Q & A pulled out another surprise moment last night as Julia Gillard faced a video question from Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.
It followed last year’s video question from Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks to former PM John Howard.
Assange told Gillard that Wikileaks had evidence the Australian Government had been exchanging information about people working for Wikileaks with foreign governments.
“When will you come clean about precisely what information you have supplied to foreign powers about Australian citizens working or affiliated for Wikileaks?” he asked.
“And if you cannot give a full and frank answer to that question, should perhaps the Australian people considering charging you with treason?”
Gillard, who kept composed during the surprise question, told host Tony Jones she wasn’t aware of any such exchange.
“I don’t know anything about exchanging information about people who have worked for Wikileaks,” she said.
“To my knowledge it hasn’t happened.”
But she confirmed information on Australian citizens is sometimes exchanged, in the case of crimes, including drug trafficking, people smuggling, terrorism.
Of her recent US visit she insisted, “No-one in the United States raised with me Mr. Assange. No-one.”
Gillard later responded to a question on the possibility of Assange facing the death penalty in the US.
“We do not extradite people who could be subject to the death penalty.”
The video question which appeared to be professionally filmed included at least two camera angles, more elaborate than the usual video question from a home viewer.
Last year Q & A denied its David Hicks video question had been arranged by the ABC.
Assange is facing a courtcase in Sweden that many observers say is a smokescreen for international anger over Wikileaks disclosing secret papers that have embarrassed several governments.
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16 Responses
I suppose it takes brains to answer questions properly. None of which dumb, dumb gillard has. That is why she can’t answer questions when asked.
@Kenny – I think that the reason why people feel more comfortable being familiar with our lady PM is a combination of her being more approachable and down-to-earth than (say) Howard, plus her somewhat lacking in gravitas.
@Neon Kitten – I think it’s fairly clear that the ABC didn’t fly a crew out to the UK, but also equally clear that either the ABC or Assange hired some professional equipment (and prob a couple of locals to set it up and operate it) to record his question.
I watched this last night Julia just smirked Julian’s questioned off. Typical Politicians do not have the balls to take the question on. If they didnt have their Public Relations people around them then they would be stuffed. I dont think that we should be getting to comfortable with the US.
@Jen13, no, didn’t mean (righteously) defending herself – more squirming to defend her backflips and polispeak of the last few months. So really, no different to any other politician.
Trix, you are kidding aren’t you?
The last thing I want to watch is our PM trying to defend herself.
We’ve all seen the pre-election clip showing her lies, oops, sorry, semantics.
Mind you, if I’d known Julian Assange was on I would have recorded the program so I could have seen that bit.
It might be on Media Watch next week though.
…Watching Sons Of Anarchy last night, good entertaining stuff.
I thought Alan Jones might have got a video question about punctuality “I see you were on time for the ABC hmmm…”
@Dave: All of that can be done with cheap consumer digital video gear these days. And a tripod.
I know there’s kind of a tantalising implication that the ABC sent a crew to England to shoot a 30-second blurb from Assange. But the reality is that a guy who’s been a tech-obsessed geek since he was a teenager – and who is now an image-obsessed activist – is packaging himself for media consumption.
The ABC has admitted it sought out WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange so he could ask Prime Minister Julia Gillard a controversial question on last night’s Q&A program.
I’m bummed this didn’t rate better last night. I would have thought more Australians would have wanted to see Julia Gillard defend Labor policies for an entire hour, but there you go. I love that the program still pulls some surprises out but I can’t help thinking Julian Assange would have looked even better with a Salvador Dali moustache that he could have twirled while asking his question.
Still perplexed how disrespectful Australians are towards our female PM, addressing her as “Julia”.
Can’t recall John Howard being addressed as “John”.
The Poms and the Yanks would never address their leader as “Barack” or ex-PM Thatcher as “Margaret”.
The ABC24 news bar referrals to “Gillard” is also disrespectful. “PM Gillard” would be a better read.
I guess it’s all a confirmation of our lowering level of manners in general.
I watched this last night. Great stuff. Highly entertaining. A hell of a lot better than the crap on the other networks (Brothers and Sisters, the stale Good News Week, the old relic Parkinson/Frost..)
@neon kitten. i can tell just by the freeze frame here that it was a professional shoot. lapel mic, lighting, framing of him.
Deny, deny, deny.
I loved how Julia thought Tony was joking about a video question from Assanage.
Superb ambush to keep the pollies on their toes. Well done Q & A.
Assange is, to say the least, highly computer and technology literate. What that looked like to me was simply the output from a decent-quality webcam or camcorder.
I am more curious why nobody seems to have noticed that he had a black eye 🙂