Not at all surprising that Tristan is a creature of the Left. The Left always denies ABC bias, but it is the extreme Left that is so full of hatred that they can actually blurt out that the ABC has a Right bias. Now, that takes a lot a imagination and brain-washing.

The extreme Left is not worth talking to. Take the Greens leader with Andrew Bolt on Sunday. The first Green ever on the programme, and probably the last, hopefully. The fanatical little man made no compomise, and was preprogrammed merely to spout extremist, Australia-harming propaganda. Bolt's regular Laborites and moderate left guests usually present themselves as fairly intelligent human beings prepared to give a point and often make comments that even I agree with. But Greens leader, Senator No Human Characteristics just blabs anti-Australian propaganda, like all his disciples. This deluded contributor should swap his allegiance to the Green extreme.

Calls for censorship nowadays are far more likely to come from the left than the right – and not just calls to silence unacceptable voices, but also threats, bullying, intimidation and shouting down alternative voices.

To be fair to Tristan though, he recognises that free speech for the left means free speech for the right, too.

I see the usual happening with responses to this article, inadvertently illustrating Tristan's very point. Comments on Q&A by a guest are said to be extreme, and that, we are told, is why we don't often hear them. Actually, they are simply regarded as extreme - these terms are relative. And it has happened over the past few decades that the shift has been ever rightwards, and, indeed, we have arrived at the point where the left prevaricates and self-censors. It is a struggle to get the conversation away from the Right's agenda, frankly. In fact, what it has mean overall is that the creeping rightward trend is becoming alarming, not just in LNP attempts to shutdown Q&A and sell off parts of the ABC to Murdoch (how long do you think the regional news will last coming from the public broadcaster?), but also in attempts to redefine swathes of our culture from the top down. The Arts are not surviving the LNP, and neither will the communities that express themselves through the Arts. What we are not permitted to say - through any of our means of communication - is having a disastrous effect on everything we understand. In fact, our understand of anything is shrinking to meaninglessness.

Almost the entire higher education system leans left. Can anyone name a conservative or libertarian thinker that is studied at university, particularly in the Humanities and Social Sciences? The only time they're mentioned is for critique or ridicule.

jcro makes a point I was thinking of making. 'Extremes' are relative. Many perpsectives of the Greens were held by Labor, and maybe even some Liberal Wets only a few decades ago. And for critical voices to be dismissed (and potentially repressed at one point) as un-Australian' suggests some kind of lurch towards the far right. It's revealing that I am being dismissed as 'UnAustralian' for supporting real pluralism - but the voices who view themselves as 'moderate' want to silence dissent on the basis of nationalism. But as I've suggested, I country's egalitarian and liberal traditions are the things with regard this nation that ARE worth defending!

Meanwhile 'moderate left' is defined as anything vaguely and slightly 'left of centre'. 'Centre Left' in the sense of being 'half way towards the Left pole' has little place in public discourse. This means there is little in the way of pluralism. And a democracy without real choice is not a strong democracy.

re: Aristocrat's suggestion that academia leans to the Left. Well check out any Economics course then ask yourself that same question. At a guess I'd say liberal and social democratic views prevail through much of the liberal arts. But unfortunately the liberal arts are stigmatised - probably on account of being critical - and the ECONOMIC orthodoxy has much more influence on public policy.

I would rather have inclusive coverage in both the media and public sphere AND in academia.

The author is correct. All mainstream mass media have veered sharply towards conservative, pro laissez faire capitalism, get rid of anything that gets in the way of greater corporate profits. Tony Jones is bad news. When Naomi Klein said her completely rational bit, he interrupted to play the devil's advocate, which is not his job. He does it every time someone says something he imagines his government bosses wont like. And the extra time he kept giving to that right-wing idiot politician was shaming. To veer off topic, how about the financial reports that take the stock market seriously, when it isn't a market but a corrupt casino with weighted dice in which corporate buybacks create the impression of profitability while actual production is falling? Real wages have been stagnating for 10 years while inflation and wealth distribution has become alarming skewed. If the fact that 99% of the planet's wealth is owned by 1% of the population doesn't scare people, then they deserve to be sucked into the vortex of poverty and wage slavery that's happening along with increasing surveillance and police brutality - not to mention rising seas and irreversible climate change.