ABC broadcaster Charlie Pickering has criticised the ABC’s decision to appoint Grace Tame as host of a four-part autism podcast, calling the move problematic just as the first episode reached listeners on Tuesday. The series, Autistic AF with Grace Tame, arrived under the broadcaster’s Ladies, We Need To Talk banner.

Pickering, speaking in Melbourne on Tuesday to a group protesting the ABC’s perceived political bias, said plainly: “I do actually think it is problematic.” He added that, as a Jewish Australian, he believed there was “a complete misunderstanding of a lot of the words that are said and what the true meaning of them are,” and said some people were “using words and phrases that have meaning well beyond what they think they do.”

His criticism lands on the same day the ABC tried to frame the project as a non-political podcast about autism. In its blurb for the series, the broadcaster said it would explore what life is like for autistic women and gender-diverse people, while standing by its decision to work with Tame, whom it described as a high-profile public figure and former Australian of the Year. That defence has not stopped the backlash from widening.

The Australian Jewish Association also attacked the appointment, saying the ABC had been tone-deaf in giving Tame the role. Its criticism is tied to the controversy around Tame’s comments at pro-Palestinian rallies, including her leading chants to “globalise the intifada” at a Sydney protest in February against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The issue has since spread beyond the broadcaster’s own talent and into a broader fight over where political speech ends and public broadcasting begins.

Tame told a No to Violence conference in March that she had lost all paid public speaking work for the year, saying it was the result of what she described as an ongoing national smear campaign after the Sydney rally. Pickering did not go as far as to endorse that view, saying, “I think you could argue a lot of people that jump on protest bandwagons are ignorant a lot of the time,” but when asked whether he thought Tame herself was ignorant, he answered, “I would not say that.”

The ABC has now put a high-profile, politically fraught figure at the centre of a podcast it says is about autism, not politics, and the public row around that choice is unlikely to fade while the series is fresh and the underlying question remains unanswered: how the broadcaster settled on Tame for the role in the first place.