The Media Glass House has mentioned a few times the crap poor dear Melissa Downes has been forced to read out on Channel 9’s Brisbane 6pm news service, and last night’s efforts were a doozey.
We start with her beginning summation of the night’s main news items: “Divided by The Voice, another Liberal frontbencher has quit over the party’s rejection of the referendum..”
Well, to a man and woman, the heads of the bitter, washed-up, hacks who compile the MGH flew up from their desks and shouted almost in unison: “What other Liberal frontbencher!”
They repeated the refrain when Ms Downes got to the actual story of the LNP’s Julian Leeser quitting shadow Cabinet so he could campaign for The Voice, and added this: “Cracks are growing with the Liberal Party tonight with another frontbencher quitting over its rejection of the Voice.”
So, who was the first Liberal frontbencher to go?
Fully awake now, the MGH compilers poured rum and cokes and waited patiently for the network’s national political editor Charles Croucher to set us straight.
In reporting on Leeser’s decision, Croucher did note that former MP Ken Wyatt had resigned from the Liberal Party last week over the party’s opposition to the Voice. All very accurate so far, Mr Croucher, we must admit!
But we still remained very keen to hear the name of the second frontbencher to pull the pin, causing divisions and cracks within the party.
We never did hear of one, but what Croucher banged on about next gave us a very broad clue as to why whoever wrote the Downes’ to-camera pieces fucked up so badly.
Take it away, Charles! “… and to paraphrase Yes Minister paraphrasing Oscar Wilde, to lose one indigenous affairs spokesperson may be considered misfortune, Melissa, to lose two is starting to look like carelessness”.
Look, we think it’s commendable that Croucher tried to impress us by paraphrasing the great Oscar Wilde, but it’s a complete nonsense.
The Liberals yesterday did not lose a second indigenous affairs spokesperson from the frontbench… or from any where else, come to think of it. The party lost a member in private citizen Ken Wyatt over the stand on The Voice by the federal Opposition shadow cabinet.
Wyatt lost his seat of Hasluck in Perth’s south at last year’s federal election with a 12.9 per cent swing. He had been the Aboriginal Affairs Minister for three years up to then. He lost his seat for many, many reasons – Scott Morrison and his shitty government’s record on so many issues – but the MGH can safely say The Voice and Wyatt’s commendable stand on it would have been far from electors’ minds.
Okay, so let’s roll the tape back then and play what Croucher should have said: “…and to paraphrase Oscar Wilde (yes, the Yes Minister mention is waffle just to show how well educated Croucher is in the performing arts), to lose an indigenous affairs spokesperson from the frontbench may be considered misfortune, Melissa, to lose that spokesperson and a former indigenous affairs minister from the party completely is starting to look like carelessness.”
Hmmm. Gets a bit clumsy being accurate, doesn’t it? Isn’t journalism’s obsession with accuracy so, so 20th Century?
So our MGH summary: Croucher should have stayed well clear of any reference whatsoever to The Importance of Being Earnest.
It was a silly idea unbefitting a political journalist of such high quality that Nine Entertainment Co. considered him worthy enough to replace the amazing, professional, balanced and fair Chris “All the polls point to a disastrous hung parliament so it’s important to vote Liberal!” Uhlmann! (BUGers are invited to insert their own prolonged and loud canned laughter here).
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