CANBERRA –

Australia's main public broadcaster is the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC). Modeled on the BBC and also known colloquially as Aunty, it is fully funded by the taxpayer at an estimated 14 cents daily per Australian.

It was started in 1929 as the Australian Broadcasting Co. and converted into a state-owned corporation in 1932. The ABC Act of 1988 guarantees its editorial independence, with CEO Mark Scott making the point recently that it is a public but not a state broadcaster; China Central Television (CCTV) is a good example of the latter. Appointments to its governing board are made by governments bearing in mind qualifications, backgrounds and political affiliations. The board chair is nominated by the prime minister and endorsed by the opposition leader.

With an annual budget of 1.22 billion Australian dollars (about ¥110 billion), the ABC provides TV, radio, online and mobile services throughout Australia, as well as overseas in limited jurisdictions. The Australian public holds it in high regard in terms of quality, reliability, and educational and cultural programming, which the commercial sector would unlikely supply on its own.

Two very good recent examples are a three-part documentary called "The Killing Season," which forensically examined the internal wars that destroyed the Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard governments, and "Arthur Phillip: Governor, Sailor, Spy," about the man who led the First Fleet of British settlers to Sydney in 1788. Both were superbly done and trace important events and personalities in Australian history.

A regular weekly TV program is called "Q&A," which involves a panel of guests discussing items in the news in front of a selected audience. On June 22, a Sydney man named Zaky Mallah appeared on the program and asked a question of panelist Steven Ciobo, parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs. Mallah is a self-styled media critic and Muslim activist who was convicted in 2005 of threatening to kill government officers but acquitted of terrorism charges. He has also posted crude and offensive sexist threats on social media against some female journalists.

In my judgment it was inappropriate for ABC to have selected him to be part of the audience and given him a national TV platform. But importantly, the question Mallah posed to Ciobo was legitimate.

Astonishingly, Prime Minister Tony Abbott had wanted to give the immigration minister the power, based solely on his discretion, to strip Australians of their citizenship.

When the Cabinet revolted against this, the proposal was watered down so that dual citizens (of which I am one) can have their Australian citizenship revoked by the minister, but the decision can be reviewed by the courts. This is clearly different from the government taking away a dual national's Australian citizenship after a person has been convicted in a free and fair trial with all due process safeguards.

Mallah pointed out, correctly, that he would have been subject to such a law as he had been charged with terrorism offenses (that is, the minister believes, not that a court has convicted). Ciobo responded combatively that he was proud to be part of a government that would turf Mallah out of the country. Mallah's comeback to the show of aggression was that ministers like Ciobo would motivate many Australian Muslims to leave the country and fight for Islamic State.

The claim may well eventually prove to be wrong, but it is not an unreasonable proposition to bring up to highlight the self-fulfilling risks of Islamophobia. It is on par with the claim of Sir Ivor Roberts, the British ambassador to Rome who said in September 2004 that President George W. Bush had proven to be al-Qaida's best recruiting sergeant and they would celebrate his eventual re-election.

A former Australian federal police commissioner was slapped down by the John Howard government for making a similar comment about the impact of some of the West's policies in radicalizing some angry Muslims. Abbott was part of the Howard government that joined Britain and the U.S. to invade Iraq, topple Saddam Hussein and remove a firewall against Islamic extremism, unleashing waves of fundamentalist insurgency that is also now being exported to the West.

Remarkably, "they" never retaliate against "us" for our policies and actions; they just hate us for who we are and our lifestyle. But we never attack, invade and kill them for who they are, only for what they do to us.

Abbott, some of his ministers and the rabidly right-wing Murdoch press — the Murdoch empire controls something like 70 percent of the print media in Australia — went ballistic over the Mallah flap. As in the U.K., for years the group has been out to discredit and destroy the public broadcaster for self-interested commercial reasons. "Heads should roll" at the ABC, declared the prime minister in somber tones as he questioned the organization's allegiance and patriotism.

An inquiry was ordered immediately. CEO Scott quickly conceded the ABC's error of judgment in having Mallah in the audience.

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce was scheduled to appear on "Q&A" last Monday. On an ABC TV program Sunday, he confirmed his participation. Later that day, Abbott instructed his entire front bench to boycott "Q&A" and on Monday Joyce canceled his appearance, citing the prime minister's orders.

The government is wrong to refute a plausible argument by discrediting the person making it. It is on dangerous ground in trying to bully the public broadcaster into submission by government fiat. And it shows worrying authoritarian tendencies in attempting to impose state censorship.

Abbott has somehow managed to turn a PR blunder by the ABC into a story of government bullying. A Canberra-based political commentator noted some months ago that Abbott has a tendency to retreat into secretive decisions because he knows they will not be accepted by his full Cabinet. They are called "captain's calls." A perfect illustration was the decision to award an Australian knighthood to Prince Phillip, husband of Queen Elizabeth, who among her various roles is queen of Australia.

Indeed the decision to revive the imperial honors system was itself a captain's call. The latter decision in general produced much bemusement, but the award to Prince Phillip was widely mocked and almost cost the prime minister his job.

Tellingly, voters in three key districts — all held by prominent Cabinet ministers — hold the ABC in such high regard that in a poll published Monday they indicated support for a constitutional change to protect its independence. Fewer than a third supported cutting funds to the ABC. Abbott's judgment has proven to be so flawed that he should consider adopting the George Costanza principle from "Seinfeld" — follow a course of action the exact opposite of his first instinct, which is so reliably wrong.

Ramesh Thakur is a professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. He appears weekly on an ABC breakfast talk show in Canberra and has been interviewed occasionally on ABC TV, but has never appeared on "Q&A" either on the panel or in the audience.