Q&A is the ABC’s TV show on which on one famous occasion an anti-Iraq war activist threw his shoes at John Howard; which on another famous occasion had to apologise to Andrew Bolt for insulting him; and which, on the most famous occasion of all, was closed down briefly by a posse of students while they chanted catch-cries against the government. But these incidents only add to the legend or popularity of the show. Its critics, including this magazine’s sainted editor, dismiss it as a left-wing rostrum stacked with lefty audiences. But many of these critics are part of the show’s regular following. They enjoy the give-and-take with the panel, especially politicians. They wouldn’t miss it. The panels always include figures from outside parliament — targets ranging from Barry Humphries or Germaine Greer to John Pilger or Cardinal Pell. At one recent show the host Tony Jones asked members of the audience to raise their hands if they would fork out to attend the show. Almost everybody raised his hand. (One wit suggested $7 — the disputed medicare co-payment!)

Some old friends thought I must be mad to accept an invitation to be on a panel on the Queen’s Birthday weekend. But I paid particular attention to the programme of the week before — to check how it treated the three panellists (out of five) who, like me, broadly supported the Abbott government. As it happened, those three were in no way fazed by the unsympathetic audience. Senator Cory Bernardi, author of the recent The Conservative Revolution, kept his cool despite constant provocation and interruption. Rowan Dean, author of Beyond Satire directed at the Rudd/Gillard government, tossed off the line of the night: ‘Malcolm Turnbull is charismatic, intelligent, talented, a great mind at business. He should be leader of the party. The Labor party!’ Lucy Turnbull, businesswoman and former Lord Mayor of Sydney, won the headlines in the next day’s newspapers with her inside story of her husband’s fabled dinner with Clive Palmer MP in the Wild Duck.

In due course, the Q&A people emailed me the list of panellists and the issues likely to be debated. One peculiarity of our panel was that you had to be 80 or over, although one snuck in at 76. The idea was to explore what they imaginatively called ‘the wisdom of the elders’. The other four sages on the panel were Jane Goodall (‘the Chimpanzee lady’), Betty Churcher (the former director of the National Gallery of Australia), Rosalie Kunoth-Monks (who played Jedda in the famous film of 1955 and, after a spell as an Anglican nun and a run for parliament, is now an Aboriginal leader in Central Australia), and Stuart Rees (founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation and leader of the anti-Israel BDS movement). At a loss how to label me I was listed as a ‘conservative intellectual’. Perhaps it was a warning.

We were told to turn up at the ABC in Ultimo about an hour early. That allowed plenty of time for make-up and some time for the panellists to get to know each other a little. I had a chat with Tony Jones about his forthcoming novel with its big scene about Attorney-General Lionel Murphy’s extraordinary raid on ASIO’s Melbourne headquarters in 1973. Meanwhile, the warm-up man jollied the audience in the nearby studio into a party mood. Finally we were led into the execution chamber, one by one, and the crowd, more yuppie than young, obediently cheered. The questions from the audience were about chimpanzees, climate, Aborigines and Youth. It was a mild hour. The panellists were civil. Tony Jones was on his best behaviour. I was cast as the grump of the show. But I had no complaints.

The last questioner asked what advice we would give a 20-year-old facing the world. Jane Goodall said: Roll up your sleeves. Betty Churcher: Don’t be put off by put-downs. Stuart Rees: Be enraged by injustice. Rosalie Kunoth-Monks: Set the world right. My advice: Follow your star. Don’t do what Mum and Dad say. Don’t do what the market wants. Don’t do what society wants. Follow your star! To my surprise the audience for once applauded me. So they are not always as hard to get on with as the critics say.

I don’t think either of our former prime ministers did well at the National Press Club the other day. John Howard in what was taken to be a veiled criticism of Tony Abbott said current political leaders rely too much on slogans. But there is nothing wrong with slogans if they have real content. Julia Gillard’s ‘Yes we will!’ was meaningless. Will what? But Abbott’s ‘Stop the boats!’ was effective because we knew exactly what it meant.

Bob Hawke was equally depressing with his appeal over the heads of the political leaders to a national compact. Whenever the political parties stop criticising each other in the name of consensus, we know the public is getting a raw deal.

What nonsense some self-proclaimed progressives talk. To show his scorn for the appointment of Gerard Henderson of the Sydney Institute as chairman of the panel of judges of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for non-fiction — a panel incidentally which includes me — Chris Feik, writing in the Age, listed 21 prominent writers and journalists who could have ‘no confidence of receiving an unprejudiced reading’ from Henderson. Yet half (ten out the 21 listed) have addressed Henderson’s Sydney Institute about their books or journalism. Not a single one of them expressed the slightest complaint about not having received a fair, courteous and unprejudiced hearing from Henderson.