Peter Dutton, Barrie Cassidy, Twitter and the beginning of a beautiful friendship
7 News Melbourne Twitter account on Friday:
While the government boasts about “stopping the boats”, 7 News can tonight reveal that more than 64,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in Australia by plane in just the last four years.
ABC Insiders host Barrie Cassidy commenting on the 7 News tweet:
If anything demonstrates the absolute humbug of the asylum-seekers debate it is this.
Peter Dutton replying on Twitter:
@barriecassidy you stopped working for the ALP years ago so drop the partisan rant. You work for the @InsidersABC now so please stick to the facts which are largely absent in your diatribe.
Insiders executive producer Samuel Clark tweeting in response:
We invited the Home Affairs Minister on to tomorrow’s @InsidersABC. He was unavailable.
Labor MP Tim Watts replying:
This is a weak, divided and scared government.
Sky News host David Speers:
@TimWattsMP was also unavailable for an interview tomorrow.
Alas, Tim is otherwise engaged. Watts replying with a link to the 2019 Yarraville Festival:
Biggest day of the year in Yarraville!
Amanda Vanstone marking same-sex marriage in The Sydney Morning Herald on November 19, 2017:
I’m surprised how many in the media think it is unusual that the Liberal Party will be responsible for delivering one of the biggest social reforms of my lifetime. It’s a slap-in-the-face reminder to me of three things. First, how well Labor does in painting all Liberals as conservatives and how easily that message is swallowed by the gullible or complicit. Second, how lousy my lot are at selling their own virtues. And third, how the right wing of my party have been so effective in their endeavours to paint all Liberals as being conservative and that has assisted Labor in doing the same.
Try again, Amanda! Greg Jericho in The Guardian Australia yesterday:
The moderate Liberal is a myth. Let us stop lionising them and rather ask what they have done that is either deserving of the label or, better yet, deserving of praise.
Labor’s Steve Georganas and Penny Wong talking pandas yesterday:
Georganas: What a wonderful announcement that we are going to be able to keep Wang Wang and Fu Ni here in South Australia under a Bill Shorten led Labor government, if elected …
Wong: We know that without funding, unfortunately, the pandas would have to go home in November. But today I’m announcing that a Shorten Labor government, if elected, will ensure that the pandas stay here …
Scott Morrison during his press conference yesterday:
My priority at the moment, with all due respect to people in South Australia and pandas, is cattle lying dead on properties in North Queensland.
Back in Adelaide. Georgina Downer’s name as spelt out on her campaign flyers in the seat of Mayo:
Georinga Downer.
Politics elsewhere. The BBC on Thursday:
A member of the Slovenian parliament has stepped down after stealing a sandwich from a shop in Ljubljana where he says he was ignored by staff. Darij Krajcic … has apologised, saying he regretted his “social experiment”.