Thread by @iMusing

good morning from unceded Darug lands☀️today on #Insiders are ABC 730 politics chief corro Laura Tingle, 9fax (Age/SMH) politics chief corro David Crowe, and 9fax (AFR) politics editor Phil Coorey. The interview is with Deputy federal Liberal Party leader Josh Frydenberg.

opening spiel: the [Liberal Party] budget pitch is in. Election to be called “any day now” (ie once Sydney Liberals sort out their shit).
What’s the Morrison perspective, skip? Putting the Coalition “back in the race”. #Insiders

as well as spruiking for a Coalition win, Speers promises to put more focus on Labor’s policy platform [paraphrased]. Thanks, David! #Insiders

the montage is organised around Liberal Party messaging. A few Labor zingers get a run. CFW gets a run too. Morrison gaslighting his critics. Morrison screaming in the parliament. Birmingham and his rehearsed captain no lines. #Insiders

montage wraps with Albanese telling Morrison to call the election. #Insiders

#MakingNews the reporting of Morrison using racism and Islamaphobia for political gain. ALP aged care policy. Something I missed about India. #Insiders

Speers editorialises that Liberal Party politicians are happy with the budget and in despair about reports the prime minister is racist and hopes might be dashed and other manpinions about man feelings. #Insiders

panel. Crowe outlines the Towke story and says there are disputes about things that were said. The “news” is the stat decs which testify to Morrison saying racist stuff. A Towke supporter tho? says Speers. A friend of both says Crowe. #Insiders

he is not a Muslim he is a Catholic says Crowe. Well either way the prime minister has denied it says Speers. Clip of Morrison denying the Q which necessarily means he is accusing others of lying on a stat dec, an offence. #Insiders

when Towke won he won fair and square says Coorey and conflates this with branch stacking. It was coming from the PMO, says Coorey. “John Howard did not want Towke in there for whatever reason”.
I wonder what cough racist cough reason that might be. #Insiders

these people are five minutes from an election says Coorey. They are trying to bring down the prime minister, he says.
Clip of CWF stating that Morrison is a bully and not fit to be prime minister. #Insiders

they are happy to bring the prime minister down, says Tingle. If he gets away with this and wins, the Liberal Party will be his party. She runs through the legal processes catalysed by Morrison “proxy” Alex Hawke refusing to attend meetings. #Insiders

not said: the Liberal Party would be his *pentecostal* party. #Insiders

technically the election can be called today, says Speers, but he can not really call it until the Sydney Liberals resolve [their chaos and destruction]. Coorey says he has been told that Alex Hawke will get thru this election but never stand again. #Insiders

the normalisation of Liberal Party politicians using the federal budget for wholly partisan political purposes continues apace. They [Sydney Liberals] need a bit more time to maximise political gains, apparently. Spectacularly bad timing, says Speers. So what sez me. #Insiders

the government wants to have a fight on the economy, says Tingle. But it is not about what the government has actually done. She wonders aloud why the focus on ALP $2.7 billion promise on aged care but not questioning on Coalition spending. #Insiders

you can see it in the questions journalists ask, says Tingle. The [Liberal Party lie on economic management] is so baked in, she says. Yes yes says Speers why she’d care tho? Thematically? #Insiders

aged care is a hot button issue, says Coorey. He says year after year [Coalition]?budgets throw money at tradies. Free utes, he says lol toxic masculinity he does not say. Wraps by saying aged care promises is “dangerous” for Labor “if uncosted” - a threat/promise. #Insiders

more pro-Liberal costing messages echoed by Crowe. This is underscored with a clip of Morrison lying about Labor and taxes to segue to the interview with Frydenberg who, nine years into office, is still reciting what the Coalition plan will do in the future. #Insiders

their plans, says Frydenberg, are in stark contrast to Labor. All this is speculative future tense claims, which Speers goes along with. The Qs should be on their RECORD. It has been 9 years ffs #Insiders

you must be thinking if the Labor definition of tax reform says Frydenberg to Speers lol so what is your definition of tax reform? asks Speers. Fairer, lower, better, says Frydenberg. These vague abstractions are allowed to hang in the air. We move on to fuel excise. #Insiders

can you do fuel efficiency standards after the election? We have always been committed to fuel efficiency says Frydenberg, of their 9 years in office without legislating fuel efficiencies. It is complex. That old excuse. #Insiders

“there was cash payments to address cost of living”, recites Speers loyally. The cash payments are the Morrison government spending our money for partisan electoral purposes, David. #Insiders

bit of wedge to and fro on what Sukkar said and what Frydenberg says about the PBS changes for concessional and non-concessional card holders. Frydenberg glosses over the details to get his campaign slogans in #Insiders

the regional spending announcements. Hellsgate damn? Shouldn’t you do the business case before you commit the money? The key is how you do the business case, says Frydenberg. Sure, mate. #Insiders

aged care worker payrise and current FWC case. Frydenberg bags Labor for a bit and then brags about how much money his government gives to profiteers for starving and neglecting elderly people and buying maseratis. #Insiders

he does not want to talk about whether aged neglect profiteers will have to pay real wage increases for aged care workers or if a Coalition government would make us pay for that. Labor Labor costs plans says Frydenberg. #Insiders

retention bonuses for nurses, says Frydenberg. Really? Wasn’t that announcement a bonus for full time workers who are not nurses, paid to bosses on application and “passed in”? Speers does not clarify this. #Insiders

will you step up if the Independents agree to forming government with the Coalition but not if Morrison is the prime minister? Frydenberg bags the Independents with a litany of lies. Refuses to say if he would take the PMship off Morrison to form minority government. #Insiders

Kooyong hard to hold, posits Speers. And how’s about this Sydney Liberals mess tho? Labor Labor Labor says Frydenberg. #Insiders

could you reflect on the last three years? And not be too partisan? Here is a cushion: plague, floods fires. And global conflict chuckles Frydenberg weirdly. He ignores the non-partisan request and cites “longest lockdown in the world” in Melbourne, school kids etc. #Insiders

any regrets? Apparently not. #Insiders. Back to panel: aged care. Crowe claims that the aged neglect profiteers can not pay a real wage increase for workers.

some of them can afford it and some of them can not, says Speers, which adds nothing without context. Tingle says we are all getting older. She says context is required. Canvases options for paying aged care workers to do the work. #Insiders

the weird thing in what the Treasurer says is that they have already done all this stuff and Labor is proposing something terrible, observes Tingle. There is also a worker shortage that maybe can be fixed with immigration, says Coorey. #Insiders

whoever wins is going to have to grasp this nettle, says Coorey of the aged care workforce and the cost of paying wages to workers. He bothsides the Coalition trillion dollar debt #Insiders

how about the announcement of 10K more defence force personnel? says Tingle. The idea was to pay them more to recruit more. Tens of billions of dollars - why are we are not questioning that?👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼#Insiders

tax reform. Obviously wholly speculative. The framing is that on the eve of a change of government there will have to be tax reform because structural deficits. Who caused the mess and who is expected to clean it up - as always - is not specified. #Insiders

clip of Zelenskyy speaking to the Aust parliament. Coorey uses this to repeat Liberal Party propaganda, blaming Putin for their mass economic management failures. #Insiders

who wants to speculate about when the election will be called? asks Speers. Tingle says hmm yeah the Sydney Liberals court case. Coorey says they like using our money for Liberal Party campaign advertising [paraphrased] #Insiders

the Sydney Liberals clownery, the absolute shitshow brought on by Morrison loyalists and not resolved by Morrison because he can not, also gets a mention from Coorey and from Crowe, a measure of just how bad it is #Insiders

#TalkingPictures is up. Sarah Ison is a back to you Speersy laydee.

https://twitter.com/InsidersABC/status/1510405468224512001

#FinalObservations 1 is Tingle on the budget reply strategy of aged care centrepiece. She predicts attacks on tax and economic management [Liberal Party lies about PlAnS] and to watch how Albanese copes with that. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 2 is Coorey fact checking resources revenue in the budget but I missed the significance of his vignette sorry #Insiders

#FinalObservations 3 is Crowe with another budget fact check😳saying the budget papers and budget speech are inconsistent - a PBS announcement in the speech was cut from the budget, I think. #Insiders

the outtake makes way for a Parkinson mash up this week. #Insiders

https://twitter.com/InsidersABC/status/1510406730961854464

this has been another edition of watching #Insiders so you don’t have to👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼

tip jar here. Apologies in advance for not replying today, I have a bunch of assignments to mark😩 paypal.me/IngridMM

aged care, not she (Tingle) cares lol the question was why Labor put aged care as the centrepiece of the budget reply speech. Nobody mentioned the obvious pitch to women or feminist ethics of care because the as a group the gallery is wilfully feminist-illiterate.

https://twitter.com/iMusing/status/1510397370135064576