Stan Grant to walk away from ABC’s Q+A show

Stan Grant will ‘walk away from the ABC’ after he was racially abused for using live coverage of King Charles’ Coronation to focus on Aboriginal dispossession.

He is now taking leave as Q+A host just 10 months after taking on the role, with the Monday night program losing its second full-time presenter in just two years following the departure of Hamish Macdonald in 2021.

The ABC reportedly received more than 1,000 complaints for its ‘disrespectful’ May 6 Coronation coverage, which linked the British monarchy with the dispossession of Aboriginal people since 1788.

Grant, who is presenting his late Q+A show on Monday before taking indefinite leave, said he has been subjected to ‘relentless racial filth’ with viewers targeting him because he is Indigenous.

‘The ABC has this year lodged an official complaint with Twitter about the relentless racial filth I am subjected to,’ he said.

‘I am not beyond criticism. I occupy a privileged and prominent place in the media — I should be critiqued. And I am not thin skinned. Aboriginal people learn to tough it out. That’s the price of survival.

‘For years I’ve been a media target for racism and paid a heavy price. For now, I want no part of it – I’m walking away,’ Grant said.

‘For how long? I don’t know. I don’t take time out because of racism — I won’t give racists the satisfaction. I don’t take time out because I believe the ABC was wrong to discuss the legacy of colonisation and empire on the day of the Coronation. We did that, I believe, with maturity and respect.

Grant also called out the top bosses at the ABC – prompting the national broadcaster’s head of news Justin Stevens to issue a statement on Friday afternoon.

‘No one at the ABC — whose producers invited me onto their coronation coverage as a guest — has uttered one word of public support,’ he said. 

‘Not one ABC executive has publicly refuted the lies written or spoken about me. I don’t hold any individual responsible; this is an institutional failure. 

Grant said he valued the friendship of Mr Stevens. 

‘He has been a support and a comfort. He is trying to change an organisation that has its own legacy of racism. But he knows I am disappointed. I am dispirited,’ he said.

Stevens released a statement on Friday afternoon acknowledging Grant had  ‘been subject to grotesque racist abuse, including threats to his safety’ following the coronation coverage.

‘This has become particularly virulent since he appeared as part of the ABC’s Coronation coverage,’ he said.

‘It is abhorrent and unacceptable.’

Grant in 1992 became the first Indigenous host of a prime time TV show as the frontman of Seven’s Real Life current affairs show, which in 1993 briefly out rated Mike Willesse’s A Current Affair.

He later hosted Today Tonight on the same network and was a Europe correspondent for Seven before moving to Hong Kong to present for CNN. 

‘Sadly, it seems there is no place in the media for love, kindness, goodness or God. There is no place in the media for respect,’ Grant said. 

‘I am sorry that some monarchists were offended at our coverage. That was never my intent. I thought I used words of love. Clearly, I failed. I have to accept I am part of the problem. I am part of the media that fails the Australian people every day.

‘I don’t take time out because of racism — I won’t give racists the satisfaction. I don’t take time out because I believe the ABC was wrong to discuss the legacy of colonisation and empire on the day of the coronation. We did that, I believe, with maturity and respect.  

‘I take time out because we have shown again that our history — our hard truth — is too big, too fragile, too precious for the media. The media sees only battle lines, not bridges. It sees only politics.

‘I want no part of it. I want to find a place of grace far from the stench of the media. I want to go where I am not reminded of the social media sewer. 

‘My parents have been proud of the career I have built. I owe anything I have done to them. I have tried to represent my people and do some good in the world.

‘I don’t know now if it has amounted to anything. I thought I had come a long way from that scared, little Aboriginal boy in the school photo. Now I wonder if I have travelled very far at all.

Pictured, Stan Grant with partner Tracey Holmes