The planned appearance of controversial former breakfast-TV host Karl Stefanovic as guest speaker at an elite private school’s old-scholars’ event has provoked the ire of online activist group Mad F—ing Witches (MFW).

The group has urged social media followers to contact Adelaide’s Prince Alfred College and its Old Collegians Association and tell them “to pull their heads in”.

In early June, InDaily revealed that Stefanovic was announced on social media as the keynote speaker at the Prince Alfred Old Collegians Association (PAOCA) annual dinner at the Adelaide Convention Centre, in the wake of controversy surrounding his podcast interview of a far-right activist.

The original PAOCA Facebook post said, “this year, we are delighted to welcome acclaimed television presenter and journalist Karl Stefanovic as our guest speaker”.

“Now, with The Karl Stefanovic Show podcast, he’s stepping into conversation too bold, too honest and too unfiltered for traditional TV.  Nothing’s off limits!”

InDaily previously reported that PAOCA would be “monitoring” Stefanovic’s guest appearance after his three-decade career at Channel Nine ended following an interview with British far-right activist Tommy Robinson on an episode of his podcast.

Robinson is the co-founder of the far-right English Defence League movement and has served five prison terms since 2005 for crimes including assault, fraud and contempt of court.

Stefanovic was also dropped as co-host in the joint radio venture with Eddie McGuire called The Long Weekend on Gold FM following his interview with Robinson.

Despite the backlash, the former TV host’s appearance is set to go ahead on Friday night, but PAOCA has quietly removed references to his controversial The Karl Stefanovic Show podcast on social media posts promoting the event.

According to its website, Prince Alfred College is an independent day and boarding school for boys based in Kent Town that charges up to $32,000 a year for tuition.

The old collegiates’ association and the school did not respond to questions from InDaily.

The Australian online advocacy group MFW, which organises campaigns against media organisations and figures it claims to be “spreading misogyny or bigotry”, shared a post to its more than 100,000 followers on Wednesday calling on them to contact PAC, PAOCA and Adelaide Convention Centre to express concerns about the Stefanovic appearance.

“We know Prince Alfred College aren’t directly responsible for this event, witches, but we certainly reckon they should be concerned about the example being sent to students and parents,” a social media post said.

“Karl Stefanovic has a right to host podcasts and earn a living how he chooses.

“But when what he does involves secondary schools or other similar organisations which have a duty of care to young people, we too have a right to protest. And we are.”

A spokesperson for MFW told InDaily the decision to have Stefanovic as guest speaker “sends the wrong message to the school community”.

“We alerted our MFW community to this issue and asked them to contact the school and the venue to register their disgust at this event taking place,” the spokesperson said.

“There isn’t time for us to run a serious campaign on the issue because the event takes place tonight and we only learned of it a few days ago.

“A large number of our witches contacted the school principal [David Roberts] and the Adelaide Convention Centre two days ago, but to our knowledge nobody has received a reply.”

MFW has been involved in grassroots campaigns, including having advertising sponsors pull out from KIIS FM’s former breakfast radio show with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson.

Followers have targeted PAOCA’s social media post advertising the event, calling the decision “tone deaf” and an “extremely poor choice of guest speaker”.

–InDaily