The host of the ABC's Q&A program, Tony Jones, has defended allowing former terror suspect Zaky Mallah to ask a question on last week's show.
But Mr Jones says Mr Mallah would not have been allowed on the show had the Q&A team been aware of an offensive tweet he had published about two female journalists.
After a week of debate about the decision to give Mr Mallah a platform on the program, as well as boycotts from booked guests, the controversial show on Monday night kicked off by talking about itself.
"In considering the decision to allow Zaky Mallah to ask a question, the ABC's editorial standards tell us to present a diversity of perspectives so that over time no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded, nor disproportionately represented," Mr Jones said.
"Now secondly, the safety and security of our panellists and the audience is always a key priority for us. And finally, the Q&A team were not aware at the time Zaky Mallah appeared, of the very offensive misogynistic tweet that he put out about two female journalists. Had we known, we would have rejected his participation."
Paul Kelly, the editor-at-large of The Australian newspaper, and a late inclusion on the panel following the withdrawal of a number of other commentators, described the explanation as "extraordinary".
"We're told that would have ruled him out of the program, but the fact that he had been prosecuted with terrorism, the fact that he had admitted that he threatened Australian officials and wanted to kill them, the fact that he'd served time, that he had a weapons arsenal, that he was conducting a campaign to publicise jihad nonetheless, that's OK," Mr Kelly said.
"Well, it's not OK."
Mr Jones put it to Mr Kelly that The Australian in 2012 ran a positive story about Mallah in which he urged Muslims to wage a jihad of peace.
"But this is not why he was on the program," Mr Kelly responded.
"This was a gotcha moment."
Counter-terrorism expert Anne Aly, also a panellist, said it appeared Mr Mallah was "good enough for your paper, but he's not good enough for Q&A".
The line-up for Monday's program, following the withdrawal of Prime Minister's Tony Abbott's parliamentary secretary Alan Tudge and Menzies Research Centre director Nick Cater, also included Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek, human rights commissioner Tim Wilson and American theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss.
Ms Plibersek said it was a clear error of judgment to allow Mr Mallah on the show last week, but also criticised the Abbott government's response as "really quite emotional in its tone and not productive".
However, Mr Wilson said it was "laughable and contemptuous" that the ABC had described last week's show "a simple error of judgment and invoked the idea that this was akin to the 'Charlie Hebdo' massacres".
He attacked ABC managing director Mark Scott, saying it was a tragedy he chose "to go and do it that way and in essence mock the memory of those people and what they actually stood and died for".
