The Sauce: Bill Shorten’s good deed marred by mask safety fail

Bill Shorten’s good deed in delivering food essentials to public housing towers in his Victorian electorate has been overshadowed by a safety fail. But he wasn’t the only politician with egg on their face this week.

• Locals slam Clover’s plan to ‘Disney-fy’ Potts Point
• Shaoquett Moselmane bails on dinner in his honour

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten has taken a hands-on approach to the COVID-19 crisis gripping his state by visiting public housing towers in his Victorian electorate to deliver meat with a local butcher.

But The Sauce couldn’t help but notice a bit of a safety fail during the week.

Bill Shorten at the Flemington Towers housing complex in Melbourne this week. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

The Member for Maribyrnong did the right thing and picked up a single-use mask to wear to the COVID-19 hotspot but seemingly failed to keep it over his mouth.

Which is, after all, sort of the point of wearing one.

As the World Health Organisation says, users must “place mask carefully to cover mouth and nose and tie securely to minimise any gaps between the face and the mask”.

GETTING SPEER-ED

Little-known Labor Senator Sue Lines must have been confused last week when she mistook ABC Insiders host David Speers for one of her colleagues.

Listening to Speers on breakfast radio, a frustrated Lines tweeted her disappointment that Speers was only offering “commentary on the Morrison government” not criticism like a Labor MP would normally do. “It seems #criticism is out of the question?” she tweeted.

Labor Senator Sue Lines.

ABC Insiders host David Speers.

Among his press gallery peers, Speers is considered a “straight-shooter” who rightly sees his role as offering an analysis, not picking a side.

The Sauce understands Speers has been shocked by the level of vitriolic abuse by some extreme left-wingers on Twitter following his move from Sky to the ABC.

But he must have been surprised to see a senator join the pile-on.

The normally cool-headed Speers fired back: “You’d like more criticism of your political opponents, rather than commentary … thanks for the feedback senator.”

MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH!

Liberal MP Angus Taylor knows the electorate of Eden-Monaro like the back of his hand.

Taylor, a senior government minister, said it was “very clear” that there has been “a very strong swing in primary votes against Labor, three per cent, a swing towards us”.

“A very good result for Fiona Kotvojs and for the Prime Minister,” he said.

Angus Taylor.

John Barilaro.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro also professed to know the electorate better than anyone else.

“I think the Liberal Party is doing exceptionally well in Queanbeyan, which you would have thought they (the Liberals) would have struggled,” he said.

“I believe the Liberals will win this. I think they will get there.”

While the result was close, on Thursday the Liberals conceded defeat in the tightly fought by-election.

YOU’VE BEEN HACKED

Former Sydney Morning Herald editor Darren Goodsir wants to set the record straight — he has not died from a perforated anal abscess.

Report’s of Darren Goodsir’s death are premature.

The newspaperman-turned-UNSW chief spinner had his Twitter account hacked on Saturday.

One of the tweets from Goodsir’s account read: “Unfortunately, the account owner, Darren, has passed away due to complications (anorectal abscess).”

The hacker also posted a photo of Goodsir with a caption that read: “When you send her a dick pick (sic) and she leaves you on seen. Pain.”

Goodsir told The Sauce he had reported the hack to Twitter, but was otherwise powerless to remove the posts. “It might increase my number of followers, but it is not my normal straight-laced personality at work,” he said. “It’s definitely not me.”

The hacker appears to be a fan of online shooter game Fortnite, posting that Goodsir would not be granted control of his account until he “wins the gulag”.

In Fortnite’s battle royale mode, players killed in combat are revived if they defeat a rival in one-on-one combat set in a Russian-style prison known as “the gulag”.

Now you know.

Got some Sauce? contact [e-mail] or [e-mail]

Originally published as The Sauce: Bill Shorten’s good deed marred by mask safety fail