What happens when a journalist asks a Coalition minister a legitimate question the minister bristles at and doesn’t want to answer? He gets labelled a “lefty” with an agenda, in a bid to discredit the questioner and avoid giving an answer.
That at least was ABC journalist Michael Rowland’s experience this morning when interviewing the health minister Greg Hunt. The minister played the man and not the ball.
Rowland asked a perfectly reasonable question: why did Greg Hunt include a Liberal Party logo on an announcement which read: “Australia secures additional 10 million doses of Pfizer vaccine”?
The vaccine isn’t paid for by the Liberal Party. It’s funded by all of us, through taxpayers dollars and government debt. The official announcement included the use of taxpayer resources, not those of the Liberal Party.
So why did the minister, who likes to refute accusations partisanship ever plays a role in his decision making, decide to include the Liberal Party logo in the announcement?
In the interview with Rowland Hunt briefly suggested doing so was reasonable because he was elected under that banner. Excuse me? Why not pop a Liberal logo on the front cover of this year’s budget papers too then? Let me guess, because that would be inappropriate?
In a clear indication that the question being asked got to the minister, any attempt at answering it was overshadowed by Hunt throwing barbs at Rowland.
He accused Rowland of being a lefty. Hunt claimed to have had a bet with his office about whether the supposed lefty would ask such a question. That sounds like a professional political office. Yet he questioned the professionalism of the journalist and tried to discredit the question by labelling Rowland as a partisan and ideological hack.
All on live television. It looked childish and spiteful. In sharp contrast Rowland looked professional and calm, refusing to let the question fade from view simply because the minister refused to answer it and got personal instead.
It is a common tactic behind the scenes for politicians and their advisers to try and undermine journalists who ask the hard questions by labelling them partisans of one complexion or the other. It is unusual, however, for it to happen live on air.
Rowland is a career journalist, not someone who has stepped in and out of journalism and media advising roles. The basis for the attack was non-existent.
As Rowland said in the interview, he’d ask Labor the same question if it was in power and did the same thing. Indeed Rowland has asked such questions of others.
All Hunt has managed to do is amplify the very issue he didn’t want to discuss. Why did he use the Liberal logo on a government funded announcement? It’s not the first time. It may not be illegal to do so, but it should be. And it certainly is misrepresentative. It suggests partisanship has a role in the vaccine rollout, which it doesn’t.
I hope every time Hunt now gets in front of a microphone for media interviews he gets asked about that logo and is required to answer the questions.
Maybe he’ll just accuse us all of being lefties for having the temerity to question him on such matters.
Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.
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