… but we don’t expect one to be forthcoming
It would be a pretty shameful thing, would it not, to accuse some people of laughing uproariously, seemingly callously, at the plight of some fellow citizens who are laid up in hospital?
Especially if the people casting such defamatory accusations know full well there’s not a skerrick of truth to such scandalous and hurtful claims?
Okay, so we’ll now explain why Karl Stefanovic, The Courier-Mail editor Chris Jones and some tyro entertainment writer Isabelle McMillan owe the Queensland Government front-bench a grovelling apology. We have total faith they won’t be delivering one.
It all began on Channel 9’s 6pm news bulletin out of Brisbane on Wednesday, with a Tim Arvier report on an overcrowded Gold Coast hospital putting some low-care patients into motel-style accommodation at Sea World Resort.
It was a fair and reasonable report, with the Opposition catching out the state’s new health minister Shannon Fentiman who openly admitted she was unaware of the move.
But here’s the key bit. Arvier’s report showed vision of government ministers, most prominently Education Minister Grace Grace, laughing at the Opposition … repeat … the Opposition when the health minister recovered quickly to point out that back in 2014, Lawrence Springborg had espoused much the same idea!
Repeat: they were laughing at the Opposition! Not the plight of patients moved across to 24 rooms at the tourist resort. Anyone with a modicum of journalistic skill would have know that.
But that fact appeared of little interest the next morning to Today‘s Karl Stefanovic.
After interviewing a Queensland doctor, Stefanovic went on full, bloated, blowhard attack: “I just want to show everyone at home one thing. This was how the Queensland government, in parliament, reacted to this yesterday.”
Note the “reacted to this”. His intention to deliberately misdirect was clear.
He then appears to completely ignore the footage shown from Question Time, when it is abundantly clear the Labor MPs are laughing at the Opposition, believing they’ve caught them out with the Springborg mention.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” Stefanovic asks. “What are you laughing at? Stop cacking yourself and get on with rebuilding the health for Queenslanders.”
Okay, so who gets into the act of deliberate distortion next?
None other than some lass by the name of Isabel McMillan, who penned a piece for The Courier-Mail online.
As you can see, McMillan totally supports Stefanovic’s view over what the Labor ministers were laughing at! Morning TV’s loveable bloated boofhead “has unleashed on MPs who were seen laughing at one hospital’s last resort amid a bed shortage”.
No. They. Were. Not.
Anyone else want to get in on the act? How’s this?
That’s right! The Courier-Mail‘s tweet, happily promoting McMillan’s online entertainment piece, and clearly very content to spread the bullshit once more over what was causing the MPs’ mirth.
By the way, isn’t it amazing how one big news organisation can give a rival one a plug, especially when the boot is being put into any Labor government, but especially the Queensland Palaszczuk government, for which the Courier has an almost visceral hatred.
On that note, we really must urge Chris Jones to keep a close eye on this tyro McMillan.
Our researchers discovered she lives in Adelaide and writes for NCA Newswire but the MGH truly believes she has enormous potential to be a future senior politics reporter up there at the LNP’s Bowen Hills branch!
Put her folder in your drawer, Chris Jones. We suspect her “last resort” jibe was all her own work! We at the MGH can see her one day becoming the latest Renee Veilarris up your way.
Don Gordon-Brown
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