By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
The boys at upstart pollster Redbridge Group, who’ve never met a microphone they didn’t love, have become a staple of recent election night coverage.
Former Labor hack Kos Samaras and ex-Victorian Liberal deputy state director Tony Barry were present with their bipartisan one-two punch among a rogue’s gallery of experts to grace the ABC’s election night coverage on Saturday.
Tony Barry (right) on the ABC election night panel with Kos Samaras and Patricia Karvelas.Credit: ABC
The public broadcaster loves the pair’s psephological insights. Barry, it seems, does not love the public broadcaster back.
After the dust settled on Saturday’s poll, he fired up Facebook to post a happy snap on set with the ABC’s uber-industrious Patricia Karvelas, which he then followed with a series of comments lashing Aunty’s election night broadcast.
“The ABC’s coverage was beyond woeful, just 6 hours of shallow analysis”
Christ on a bike, man, you were the ABC coverage!
“The ABC was the only telecast of six hours of no data, analysis and insight – just six [hours of] endless ‘what I reckon’ journalism. Unwatchable drivel,” Barry posted later, but he wasn’t done yet.
“They should burn the ABC down to the ground and then salt the earth under it.”
Will he be invited back? We asked the ABC about the whole episode. In response, it sent back its audience numbers from Saturday night, which showed the public broadcaster crushing the competition, with an average audience of 2.4 million throughout the night.
Hmmm. Ratings as a riposte to a participant pointing to the poor quality of a flagship election broadcast, as if popularity is the arbiter for the ABC nowadays. We think ABC chair Kim Williams would not approve.
Allan’s speech surprise
Late on election night, Labor was ready to spring one more surprise – a rare Saturday-night-in-Melbourne appearance by Premier Jacinta Allan.
Allan is prone to spending Fridays and the weekend in her Bendigo electorate, but Labor’s landslide victory for the ages drew her to the car park behind Trades Hall in Carlton at 10.30pm on Saturday as unionists and Labor campaign volunteers commenced an epic party.
Premier Jacinta Allan addresses union faithful and Labor campaign volunteers at Trades Hall on election night. Credit: Instagram
Luke Hilakari, Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary, revved up the crowd with a “UNION … POWER” war cry and some pointed jokes aimed at vanquished union hate figures Peter Dutton and Michael Sukkar.
ACTU president Michele O’Neil couldn’t stop smiling, and secretary Sally McManus clutched a can of Mountain Goat Beer while rocking a black “Don’t Risk Dutton” T-shirt. Later, CBD also spotted campaign wunderkind Jett Fogarty, Labor senior assistant state secretary and deputy campaign director.
Hilakari bellowed at the crowd from a temporary stage in the car park: “We have people power, not nuclear power, comrades.
“We have definitely won Dickson,” he said, referring to Dutton’s seat. “Turns out Australians like their potatoes pretty smashed. To be fair, he is not a monster. He’s also not a member of parliament, comrades!”
He noted there were almost no Liberal MPs left standing in metropolitan Melbourne. “Looks like we are going to win Deakin, because Michael’s going to sooka all day long about that!”
All the while hire cars from all four corners of Melbourne paused on Lygon Street outside, doors opening to dispense youthful red-shirted campaign volunteers. Hilakari then introduced his surprise guest, Jacinta Allan.
“We saw that Australians and Victorians had a choice, and they said no to cuts, but they said yes to Medicare,” said Allan, dressed in a fiery red jacket.
Anthony Albanese holds up his Medicare card on Saturday night. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“They said no to nuclear and yes to cheaper renewable being built right across the country. They said no to those blockers. They said yes to the builders. They said yes to the Suburban Rail Loop. They said yes to Airport Rail.”
But to be honest, the volume of cheering at this surprise statement was several decibels lower than when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese proudly stated he had defended Medicare.
“These results are not despite what we’ve done here in Victoria, because we have done all we have,” the premier said.
McManus was so beside herself she searched for the right words to describe the fate of Melbourne’s Liberal MPs.
“They’re all gone. We ….. shredded them. And we are looking at f---ing 90 seats,” she said.
McManus had the highest praise reserved for Emma Kingdon, ACTU campaigns director and, like McManus, a Star Wars geek, inviting Kingdon up on stage as Emma “Skywalker” Kingdon.
As Sunday is May 4, otherwise known as Star Wars Day, McManus couldn’t have been happier.
Price is not right
Oh dear. Coalition Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was called on by the ABC to reflect on Saturday night’s dire result. She instead took a spray at the media, including this very column.
During the campaign, CBD and others revealed Price’s happy “from my family to yours” Christmas photo of her and her songwriter husband, Colin Lillie, decked out in special festive Make America Great Again headwear.
Asked by host Sarah Ferguson whether her embrace of US President Donald Trump, and her photos with the infamous cap, helped seal Peter Dutton’s fate, Price hit out at the “mudslinging” media.
“There is a whole lot of mud you just slung right there, can I just say, in terms of wanting this country to be great. Donald Trump doesn’t own those four words,” she said.
“Because the media can go through your personal Facebook photos, and find a picture that was taken, in jest, at Christmastime, and then smear you with it, that is the problem. It’s the smearing that goes on, certainly within the media, just as you are trying to talk about this seriously. I’m deadly serious about this issue.”
Mud? Come, come. We at CBD are nothing if not great ironists and prefer to take our cues from that journalistic enterprise Price no doubt greatly admires, America’s Fox News, whose motto reads: “We report – you decide”.
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