The ABC program Q&A did not know that controversial audience member Zaky Mallah had tweeted misogynistic messages about "gangbanging" two female journalists, host Tony Jones has said.
In a partial defence of last week's episode, which sparked a political storm over the ABC, national security and free speech, Mr Jones used the first minute of Monday's broadcast to clarify the decision to allow Mr Mallah on the program.
"Others can and no doubt will judge this program and the ABC … but it is appropriate to put a few facts on the record," he said.
"The Q&A team were not aware at the time Zaky Mallah appeared of the very offensive and misogynistic tweet that he put out about two female journalists. Had we known, we would have rejected his participation."
Also on Monday's episode, Freedom Commissioner Tim Wilson joined the condemnation of Q&A, saying Mr Mallah's appearance was not a free speech issue. Rather the ABC had made a serious error of judgement in giving Mr Mallah a "platform".
"To be brutally honest Tony I think the producers and yourself ought to be ashamed of yourselves for giving a platform," he told Mr Jones. "The issue at heart is that the ABC chose to give this person a platform on live television … Nobody's calling for this individual to be silenced or censored."
Mr Mallah, who was convicted in 2005 of threatening to harm ASIO officers but acquitted on other terrorism charges, tweeted earlier this year that two female journalists, Miranda Devine and Rita Panahi, "need to be gangbanged".
He appeared in last week's episode of the program to ask whether under the government's proposed citizenship laws he would be stripped of his citizenship. Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Steven Ciobo, a panellist on the program, replied that he would like to see Mr Mallah lose his citizenship and be deported.
Mr Jones said Q&A had followed the ABC's charter by presenting "a diversity of perspectives so that over time no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded nor disproportionately represented".
He added that the safety and security of panellists and the audience was "always a key priority for us" – a response to Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull's remarks that Mr Mallah posed a security threat by appearing in the audience.
Mr Wilson said he had himself expressed concern about the government's citizenship laws.
But he added: "For the ABC to turn it into some sort of free speech issue and try and project it as though the ABC had made just a simple error of judgement and invoke the idea that this was akin to the Charlie Hebdo massacre I found laughable and contemptuous of the substance of the issue at heart."
ABC boss Mark Scott made a reference to the Paris massacre by Islamists to argue a point about free speech as part of a defence of Q&A last week.
Dr Anne Aly, an expert in extremism at Curtin University in Western Australia, said she had spoken to Mr Mallah about working with her organisation "People against Violent Extremism".
"Yes he's said some shitty stuff but he's also said some good stuff as well. And the shitty stuff he says, it's because he's not groomed, he's not media savvy, and he's not politically savvy. But he could be a really strong voice and a really powerful voice. He just needs the right kind of support."
She said nobody "in the history of mankind has ever or will ever be radicalised by anything that Zaky Mallah has said".
