Julie Bishop takes down Karl over PM spill jab
KARL Stefanovic’s attempt to skewer another senior Liberal has ended in the same mess as the Malcolm Turnbull challenge. The Today show co-host thought he’d delivered a breakfast zinger to deputy leader Julie Bishop — he was so wrong.
Confidential
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KARL Stefanovic’s attempt to skewer another senior Liberal has ended in the same mess as the Malcolm Turnbull challenge.
The Today show co-host thought he’d delivered a breakfast zinger to deputy leader Julie Bishop when he asked her on Nine: “What’s it like talking to a man on death row?” with the Foreign Minister burning him in reply: “Well, I’m talking to you so what are you suggesting?”
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It was Bishop at her brutal best, endorsing just why she was sent out by her divided party to mop up the mess after yesterday’s failed challenge by former Home Affairs minister and PM aspirant, Peter Dutton.
Keeping on message, Bishop also batted away any suggestion the spill was a rolling disaster for the Federal Government, with polls and talkback showing the electorate is overwhelmingly over the internal fighting and unstable leadership.
It wasn’t a good morning for male breakfast hosts on Seven either, with Bishop making easy work of David Koch on Sunrise when he tried to push her on her own leadership ambitions.
When she met that question with her same rote message of loyalty to Turnbull, he invited her to come back on “in a few days” when another challenge has been predicted.
Playing to his AFL allegiances, as chairman of Port Adelaide, she replied: “Why don’t you have me on again and we can talk about footy?”
Throwing back to his co-host Samantha Armytage, she poked fun at Kochie’s soft spot, quipping: “She knows how to change your direction, doesn’t she?”
It was revealed in January how Stefanovic and co-host Georgie Gardner failed to take out the top breakfast TV slot with Seven’s Sunrise winning both five-city and national ratings.
The pair were beaten by market leaders, Sam Armytage and David Koch, who won the national battle 480,000 viewers to Today’s 378,000 people.
The defeat for Nine comes off the back of Seven’s 14th consecutive year on top of the breakfast battle — and after the shock departure of former Today co-host Lisa Wilkinson, who jumped ship to Ten over a pay parity dispute.
