Cut & Paste: Shorten seeks Turnbull; plus Burke, Caro and turtles

Table for one. Bill Shorten on flying solo at the Brisbane People's Forum, yesterday:

Talking about transparency, why won’t Malcolm Turnbull debate me? What’s happened to Malcolm Turnbull?

Opposition finance spokesman Tony Burke on his Press Club debate with Mathias Cormann, yesterday:

Moments of this debate have been like an argument with Siri.

Haters gonna … you know. The Liberal Party releases a meme in response to Labor’s budget plan, yesterday:

Fact: Labor’s “plan” contains less words and more photos than Taylor Swift’s latest album.

Federal MP for Dawson George Christensen makes a pledge on Facebook, May 31:

Last night I was happy to announce a $12,000 personal contribution in 2016/17 to (the Whitsundays Turtle Rescue Centre) if I’m re-elected as the Member for Dawson.

Turtle-Gate. GetUp! knows tortoises can’t vote, doesn’t it? The Australian, yesterday:

An activist group has offered to crowdfund $12,000 for a Whitsunday turtle sanctuary after the Coalition MP for Dawson was forced to withdraw a donation following a complaint by GetUp! to the electoral commission.

National Lampoon magazine, January 1973:

If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog

Greens not taking credit for things. Zaza Silk contemplates the ruins of her Sydney beachfront house, The Daily Telegraph, yesterday:

The council has abandoned us and it is their fault for listening to stupid greenies and surfers … These greenies have cost us everything and now I can’t even get into my home.

Radio host Alan Jones weighs in, yesterday:

The greenies today are silent. None of them out there today doing the clean-up.

Headline, Guardian Australia, yesterday:

Webs of tens of thousands of arachnids combine to form thick netting above trees in northwestern Tasmania in “mass ballooning event”.

Of course not. Feminist Jane Caro on Hillary Clinton’s presumptive nomination, Wednesday:

We will be told that we are only supporting Clinton because she is a woman … and all her supposed crimes will be thrown at us in an attempt to shut us down.

So it’s not about the gender card, then? More from Caro, yesterday:

Clinton has fought for the rights of women and girls all her life … If she becomes president it will be a victory, not just for her, but for all of us. She will have opened one of the most important of doors.

Caro concluding that it has nothing to do with gender, yesterday:

A black president followed by a female one? What is the world coming to? Fingers crossed we get there.

They’ll drink to forget this. News.com.au, Wednesday:

Three young Brits working at a Cyprus resort have survived a real-life version of The Hangover after getting completely wasted and ending up in one of the most dangerous countries on earth … the bleary-eyed trio found themselves looking into the baffled eyes of Russian soldiers at the port city of Tartus in war-torn Syria.