The federal government has launched an inquiry into the ABC after the controversial appearance of a convicted criminal and Islamist sympathiser on this week's Q&A Program.
The public broadcaster has apologised over its decision to allow Zaky Mallah to ask a question on the television panel show on Monday night.
But Prime Minister Tony Abbott has argued that "heads should roll" at the ABC and he has questioned "what side" the broadcaster is on.
The ABC's Managing Director Mark Scott has conceded that Zaky Mallah should not have been invited onto the studio audience of the Q&A program.
Mr Mallah pleaded guilty to threatening to kill officers from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation in 2003.
He was acquitted of terrorism charges in 2005.
Mr Scott says, while Mr Mallah should not have been allowed into the live studio audience, broadcasters like the ABC also believe in the right to free speech.
"Media organisations often give air-time to the criminal and the corrupt and to those who express views that run contrary to accepted public values. You have to set the bar very high before you begin to exclude certain views or perspectives. We still need to hear in order to gain insight into thinking, insight into motivation and to understand the root causes of behaviours and actions that we might find confronting or alarming or worse."
But Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the decision calls into question the editorial judgement of the ABC.
He says he is particularly angry that the ABC chose to re-broadcast the program on Wednesday after the government had voiced concerns about it.
"Here we had the ABC admitting a gross error of judgement and then compounding that terrible mistake- that betrayal if you like of our country by giving a platform to this convicted criminal and terrorist sympathiser- they compounded the mistake by re-broadcasting the program. Now frankly, heads should roll over this."
Mr Abbott says a government inquiry will release its findings on Tuesday.
Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says he is satisfied with the ABC's apology.
He says a government inquiry is unnecessary.
"The ABC is independent of government. It is not a propaganda arm of government. So while I think it is right to be critical of the Q&A audience proposals and who they put in the audience, I am not satisfied that it warrants a full-on attack against the independence of the ABC."
That's a view shared by the journalists' union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
Its Chief Executive Officer Paul Murphy believes the Prime Minister has pre-empted the outcome of the government inquiry.
"We can't have any confidence in the independence of any inquiry that's going to be conducted given that the head of the government had made his views so clear before anything has commenced. I really have quite a deal of sympathy for the bureaucrats at the Department of Communications who have been given this responsibility."
The Prime Minister's actions have also been criticised from within the Liberal Party.
Egyptian-Australian Mohammed El Leissy is a Muslim community worker, stand-up comedian and active Liberal party member in northern Melbourne.
He believes Mr Abbott's criticism of Q&A is politically motivated, given some other Australian militants have also appeared previously on the program.
"Famously we know that David Hicks also posed a question to John Howard on the very same program and that didn't raise any concern about it. So there is definitely a real risk here that this is part of a broader agenda against the ABC which would be quite unfortunate if that was the case."e r
Mr El-Leissy says the government needs to recognise the editorial independence of the ABC as a public, rather than a state broadcaster.
He says this should give the broadcaster scope to allow people to be interviewed with a range of views and beliefs which may clash with the government of the day.
"And I think it's a shame that the mood is leaning against that free speech and more into a censorship sort of model. But I think we will thrive as a society if we allow these extremist voices to be broadcast with the intention that we can then criticise, unpack it and then hopefully repudiate it."
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