Can we please give this kid a break? I’m talking Kate McGuinness, the runner-up in the ABC’s Race Around the World. She is currently on the receiving end of a massive bollocking from Gina Rinehart and her acolytes.

Don’t know the backstory? A handful of extremely precocious filmmakers killed themselves for months to win the golden ticket – a chance to make a half-hour documentary for the ABC. Look, even with Hugh Marks in charge (and chair Kim Williams lurking over his shoulder), it’s still an amazing opportunity.

Those of us who saw the first iteration of this hyperreality show 20-odd years ago remember it so vividly. We also remember John Safran, whose fearless satirical take-downs of religion made him a national star. How weird that we now think it’s even worse to disrespect money than it is to disrespect religion.

Now, one of those contestants was Kate McGuinness. She poked fun at mining magnate Rinehart. I mean, what she said and did was not funny in any way, shape or form. I don’t have a great sense of humour myself. For example, I watch what passes for comedy and nothing ever happens. But I did run it past a few funsters in my life, and they didn’t think it was funny either.

But the reaction was out of control. Completely out of control. And that’s because Gina Rinehart has the entire right-wing media at her beck and call. She’s probs got Rupert allocated to the family chat. Aren’t we horrified that an overwhelmingly powerful, wealthy woman is bullying someone less than half her age?

All hell broke loose, assisted by the hounds of Holt Street and the strays at Southbank. They’ve always hated the ABC, so this gave them even more fodder. Wonder why News Corp hates the national broadcaster? Always about money. The ABC gives away for free what News struggles to get people to pay for.

Let’s get this out of the way. McGuinness’ comments about Rinehart weren’t any good. Silly. But the idea that she was trying to encourage violence is absolute rubbish. She’s a comedian trying to be funny. Good on her. With comedy as in life, it’s OK to fail and keep trying. Producers could have been more of a guiding hand, but I reckon the ABC is struggling with mentoring at the minute.

I just don’t recall any of these folks getting particularly worked up about “ditch the witch”. It’s always OK to try to prick hugely inflated egos and status bubbles. We should always be about decapitating tall poppies. (Fortunately for me, at 149 centimetres and shrinking, I’ve only ever been a short poppy.)

What happened to the country I grew up in, joyfully poking fun at rich and powerful people? Are we now so frightened of status and influence that we don’t back the upstart? Sure, McGuinness wasn’t, ah, courteous, but why do we think that matters? Shall I give you a list of those who are neither tasteful nor polite? We would be here all day, because it would be a very long list.

It is not the job of a comedian to be tasteful or polite. That is not the point. The point is to be funny and McGuinness will keep working on that so long as she isn’t bullied from her life’s work by Rinehart’s mates. If McGuinness could get to work on that racist member of the globalist elite, Pauline Hanson, that would be glorious.

McGuinness is 29! (What I didn’t know at 29 would fill entire data centres). She’s on a very big stage, and she’s still on her L plates. Not tasteful? Geez, when I was her age, I made a three-part radio documentary on sex during menstruation, broadcast on community radio. Despite complaints to whatever ACMA was called back in the day, my station manager Keith Jackson, now retired in Noosa, backed me.

And Hugh Marks? Glad he’s not my boss. What a suck-up to News Corp. Just a reminder, Mr Marks: News Corp is promoting the globalist agenda of Pauline Hanson, the politician who won’t let the ABC into news conferences. Hanson, who is Rinehart’s buddy. Hanson, who is promoting the idea of defunding the ABC. Don’t cosy up to these people. It won’t work to protect you.

What’s happening to Kate McGuinness is a pile-on and the ABC has folded like a concertina fan. The National Portrait Gallery had more gonads when it refused to buckle to Rinehart’s pressure to remove her portraits by Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira. The job of our cultural institutions is not to accept the billionaire view of the world, where might and money are always right.

I asked Matthew Ricketson, co-author with Andrew Dodd of Getting Murdoched: How Murdoch’s Media Wields Power and Punishment*, now being reprinted, what he thought of the attacks on McGuinness. He described it as a classic News pile-on. Free speech is fine until you don’t agree with it.

“Whatever the original offence was is far outweighed by the pile-on,” he said. “This is part of a sustained campaign to kick the ABC in the head.”

Rinehart is doing her utmost to destroy McGuinness because the zillionaire’s feelings are hurt. She’s not a politician, but she’s trying to back one. We should all resist her and everyone who stands with her. And right now, that includes Hugh Marks.

• I’ve been a target of News and was interviewed for Getting Murdoched. Hey, Kate, trust me. You will survive.

Jenna Price is a regular columnist.