Fellow travellers, like many of you I tend not to watch the ABC as much as I used to. It seems to have become so much more conservative lately. It all started with the appointment of that revolting Janet Albrechtsen to the board a while ago. I mean, can't we just have a purge of reactionaries and right-wingers so that balance can be restored to our ABC?

One show in which this appalling bias is always depressingly clear is Q&A. The producers are quite brazen about it. They have people like Miranda Devine on, for God's sake (and I do mean God, to the endless consternation of Gaia). Can you believe it? And Tony Jones does nothing to shut them up. Really, he should be ashamed of himself.

I think the only worthwhile moment on that show recently was when that courageous activist threw his shoes at John HoWARd. it It was truly electrifying stuff; a bold, brilliant statement of resistance against tyranny. Actually, considering how thoroughly the producers stack the audience with those on the right (just like they do with the panelists), I'm amazed that he even got in. Considering the odds he was up against it made his brave act even more brilliant.

Clearly, since that occurred the show's producers have been terrified that another man of the people might show them up for what they are. So they have injected the show with even more right-wing prejudice lately. Last week they had Barnaby Joyce on. He shouldn't even be let out onto the street, let alone into a TV studio!

So, when I had a quick look at Q&A last night I was expecting to be made angry by the right-wing bias as usual. And yes, the show was certainly true to form. The loathsome Piers Akerman was one of the panelists.

Still, amid the horror there were some glimmers of hope. You see, they also had Gretel Killeen on. Now I didn't know much about her, but she really was impressive. I was pleasantly surprised.

Among her offerings was this searing insight on the subject of the carbon tax:

GRETEL KILLEEN: Well, with all due respect to the brouhaha about whether it was a lie or not, we, the general public, we're really not surprised to hear a politician lie. Would you agree? The more astounding thing about this situation is how stupidly it has been done. There was no catalyst to cause this announcement to be made. It's not as though we suddenly got now figures on global warming, let's come in with our tax. It came out of the blue and when I say out of the blue after, what, five days of us being shattered in sharing the New Zealand earthquake trauma, Egypt, Libya, another boy dying in Afghanistan. We were preoccupied with other issues. This one came in for no apparent reason. Not only did it come in, it came in unprepared. We didn't even get any facts. So to me it's not so much that someone has lied, it's why the hell did you all do it so stupidly?

Have you ever read such a brilliant analysis? Really, I think our sassy sister Julia Gillard should put Gretel on her media team immediately.

As I said in a recent post, politics is lying. More than anything, the Labor Government needs to do it with greater intelligence, proficiency and - most importantly - persuasiveness.

Then they can achieve what is really important: Lowering the Earth's temperature and thereby saving the planet for future generations.

So, thanks Gretel for that searing insight. (And thanks also for restoring my faith in the ABC.)

You were extraordinary. Just extraordinary.