Your forgetting about a thing called free speech.
It was Voltaire who said that I may not agree with what you say but i will defend your right to say it.
If you were to ban such idiots from having their say where do you draw the line, ban anybody that disagrees with the government or your particular point of view. It is a slippery slope once free speech is not guaranteed.
The question that should be asked is, if this idiot was supporting a terrorist organisation why was he not arrested and read his rights then and there?

The ABC agrees with free speech as long as they decide who gets free speech, and those chosen are the adhrents of the Left and now, judging by recent advents, complete lunatics, with one conservative for the lunatics and the larger part of the audience to sneer and jeer at.

The ABC needs balance. I don't know how to do it because the culture from top to bottom is far left, Greenie. Some how,wirther all of them should be replaced with presenters and journalists who are competent at their profession (i.e. not political advocates) OR half the presenters and journalists (virtually all of whom are of far left persuasion) need to be replaced with presenters and journalists who As far to the right as the ABC's current crop are to the Left.

The Left wing bias needs to be stopped. Or ABC becomes funded on a donations basis from those who want their partisan biased advocacy.

Ponde, he wasn't arrested because he did nothing wrong. Well spotted.

ttbn, how curious that you argue for free speech by arguing against the free speech of those who disagree with you.

Peter, I think you're probably right about the overall political affiliation of the ABC staff, but I think it goes further than your argument. Australian journalism in general is a domain of so-called "progressive" politics by virtue of the self-selection into journalism of young people, mostly women, who want to "change the world" and then rapidly become exposed to the idea that it is possible to "frame debates" to do just that. Then they discover the political parties are now among the largest employers of journalistic talent and they learn that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

This whole discussion is a storm in a teacup. Anybody who reads the news can spot a mile off that the majority of so-called "reportage" around politics is press-releases, leaks or editorialising.

The problem for our politicians and the reason they dislike the ABC so much (on both sides, let's not forget the fraught relationship of Rudd and Gillard with the national broadcaster) is that it is very difficult to make it cooperate with threats or bribes, unlike our commercial press which depends on the revenue from advertising that political alignment can help to ensure keeps flowing in.

We don't need more polarisation, we need a great deal less. That way, genuine arguments have to be made.

Claims of left wing bias by the ABC are made by people with no idea where the left wing is on the political spectrum. Outside of Late Night Live, you do not hear socialist views, nor anarchist views, nor communist views, much at all. There are views that are recognisably centrist--in favour of reducing wealth disparity for example, moderate right wing views such as concerns about civil liberties, equal opportunities and opposing unfair discrimination. There are views about the environment, which don't fit on a left/right spectrum at all. There are pro-government views--mostly quite far to the right, (though by no means all of them) made by government spokesmen. Where are these left-wing views?

An interview where a government spokesperson presents a case and an ABC interviewer raises is difficulties is not biased. Two sides are presented.

If the ABC is to present all reasonable views equally, the heavy majority of its coverage will be antigovernment. There are not just two views on every topic.

Finally, how on earth was the ABC to know about Mallah's tweets?

Those who argue that the ABC demonstrates left wing bias in its current affairs programs only demonstrate how right wing this country is. There is precious little "left wing" analysis or argument in the ABC or anywhere else in the msm.

There is for example, a wafer slice of difference between Labor and the Coalition on almost any area of substance, yet a representative of each is almost invariably on Q & A as if that represented a right v left perspective.

Even when the issues are not ideological but factual, there is precious little in the way of different analysis or substantially different viewpoints. Whole areas of importance are simply ignored; eg. the piracy, yet again, of Israel in stopping, in international waters, a ship attempting to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza. Not mentioned on ABC or SBS yesterday, and missing from ABC on line today.

The coverage of the downing of MH17 is abysmal. Like the author I have made complaints to the ABC and received anodyne responses. There are many other examples.