Malcolm Turnbull and Emma Alberici in nasty Twitter spat
Malcolm Turnbull and former ABC reporter Emma Alberici have butted heads over an infamous tax article after the economics reporter announced she has left the national broadcaster.
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Former ABC journalist Emma Alberici has accused ex PM Malcolm Turnbull of bullying in a nasty Twitter spat between the pair.
The venomous back and forth began over an article published in The New Daily revealing a letter written to the ABC from Turnbull’s office accusing Alberici of “Labor talking points” and “interviewing only people who agree with her” during her tenor as chief economic correspondent.
“Just cos (sic) you bully people doesn’t make you correct and others not,” Alberici directed at Turnbull. “The countless letters you sent to the ABC were ridiculous and unbecoming of a PM.”
The new evidence submitted to the Senate on Tuesday contained claims from Turnbull’s office that: “Alberici has a habit of including comments from and interviewing only people who agree with her.”
Turnbull reacted to the news online, reiterating the sloppiness of Alberici’s article, saying it was “full of errors, confused basic accounting concepts and was widely and publicly criticised including by me in the House.”
Alberici, who announced only hours before her Twitter stoush with Turnbull confirmed she no longer worked for the ABC as of yesterday, quickly responded with her searing summary of the situation.
“Just cos (sic) you bully people doesn’t make you correct and others not. The countless letters you sent to the ABC were ridiculous and unbecoming of a PM.”
Turnbull again responded, this time calling Alberici’s work “propaganda” for the left.
“The 14 Feb article’s errors were later acknowledged by the ABC. It’s (sic) publication showed a failure in, or bypassing of, the editorial process at the ABC. With so much fact free propaganda posing as “news” the need for the ABC to be accurate & objective is greater than ever.”
It was at this point that the argument took an ironic twist, taking a road most online battles go down, with Alberici correcting Turnbull’s grammar.
“Malcolm, there’s a stray apostrophe in your tweet,” she wrote. “Who will you blame that on?”
Turnbull is yet to respond.
The bad blood between the two came to a head in 2018 when Alberici wrote a now infamous article on corporate tax rates that was widely reported to contain nine errors and was cited as a reason for the Senate inquiry into political interference at the ABC.
Originally published as Malcolm Turnbull and Emma Alberici in nasty Twitter spat