Laura Tingle unleashes on Coalition ‘clown show’ in final appearance as 7.30 editor

Veteran journalist Laura Tingle used her final appearance as political editor for 7.30 to unleash on the now ‘irrelevant’ Coalition.

Laura Tingle at the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

ABC star Laura Tingle has ­unleashed on the newly ­reunited Liberal and Nationals parties in one of her last appearances in her current role, calling the current state of the Coalition a “clown show”.

Appearing on the national broadcaster’s Party Room podcast “for the last time” with fellow journalists Patricia Karvelas and Fran Kelly, Tingle said the opposition’s current policy positions were broadly irrelevant.

“I can say this because I’m going, but I don’t care,” the media veteran said. “These people are irrelevant for the next ­little while. They’re a sideshow. They’re a clown show.”

Tingle has taken a vicious swipe at the Coalition in the wake of the federal election bloodbath.

Tingle is moving on from more than 40 years in the press gallery and six years as political editor at the ABC’s flagship current affairs program 7.30 to take up a role as the national broadcaster’s global affairs editor.

On the Coalition’s policy platform, Tingle said the parties “deserve to be in the state of ­oblivion that they should be”.

She attributed Peter Dutton’s election defeat to being unable to “find a rational policy position that doesn’t involve a ludicrous nuclear policy which never actually was spelled out properly, or any of these other policies which were all just thought up on the back of a bar coaster”.

“The fact (the Coalition’s) personal ambitions are just so blatantly out there (is) basically disgraceful,” Tingle said, continuing her spray of the days-long split. “Because we as taxpayers are paying for them to be looking after their voters in their electorates and to be looking after the national good.”

Tingle slammed the Coalition as being “destined to fail” if they continued failing to understand the changing demographics that are shaping the nation.

“They were pulling out ideas from the Howard era, like private sector TAFEs. My sense is that the Coalition doesn’t have any ideas, and it hasn’t had any ideas for a really long time.”

Tingle’s new role is likely to see her travel internationally to support the ABC’s team of foreign correspondents, working on global news stories after decades of political journalism.

“It’s the best job in journalism … other than the one I have already got,” she told The Australian earlier this month.