A man has been charged for allegedly making online threats against Stan Grant after the ABC journalist made a complaint to NSW police.
In a statement, police said they received a report at about 11.50am on Tuesday of alleged online threats against a 59-year-old man and commenced an investigation into the incident.
After making inquiries, police arrested a 41-year-old man in Fairfield Heights at 6.40pm on Wednesday.
Police said the man was taken to Fairfield police station where he was charged with “use carriage to threaten serious harm and carriage service to menace/harass/offend”.
The man has been granted bail and is set to appear before Fairfield local court on 31 May.
The ABC confirmed NSW police made the arrest.
“All credible threats are reported to police. Such behaviour will not deter the ABC or its journalists from our work in the public interest,” the ABC news director, Justin Stevens, said.
“Stan Grant and his family have endured much over the past few weeks and have shown incredible resilience and courage. The ABC stands behind them.
“Toxic public discourse has real-life consequences for people and we in the media, as well as people using social media platforms, need to do all we can to foster a kinder and more constructive public conversation.”
The Wiradjuri journalist announced on Friday that he would be stepping away from Q+A in an essay published by the ABC, saying he had received “grotesque racist abuse” that escalated after he spoke on the ABC about the impact of colonialism on Indigenous Australians ahead of the king’s coronation.
In his final appearance on the show, Grant was given a standing ovation after citing the “poison” of the media as the reason he had decided to step away from the show.
He said he was not leaving because of racist abuse that he had received, but because he felt he was “part of the problem”.
“I’m not walking away for a while because of racism,” Grant said. “We get that far too often. I’m not walking away because of social media hatred. I need a break from the media. I feel like I’m part of the problem. And I need to ask myself how, or if, we can do it better.
“We in the media must ask if we are truly honouring a world worth living in. Too often we are the poison in the bloodstream of our society. I fear the media does not have the love or the language to speak to the gentle spirits of our land.”
The managing director of the ABC, David Anderson and Stevens both apologised to Grant, with Stevens saying he regrets not defending him earlier. “I’m the person who’s responsible ultimately for the journalism and the decisions,” Stevens told Raf Epstein on ABC Melbourne on Monday. “I’m saying stop going after people for doing their jobs.”
