Thread by @iMusing

good morning from unceded Darug lands☀️today on #Insiders are murdoch politics editor Samantha Maiden, 9fax politics editor Peter Hartcher, and ABC politics editor Andrew Probyn. It is an unnecessary and indulgent 90 minute show with two interviews.

the interviews are with shadow health minister Mark Butler and foreign affairs prime minister for women Marise Payne #Insiders.

This thread is not fact-checked. It is not apartisan, and I reject phoney bothsides framing. I also block snitch taggers and am not your dictionary.

opening spiel: The Gaffe. Morrison’s transphobia. “Vulnerabilities” of leaders are bothsided.
What’s the Morrison perspective, skip? he may not be popular but we should vote for him anyway. The Gaffe. Transphobia, again.
#Insiders

montage: The Gaffe. Morrison on The Gaffe. Katy Gallagher on the unemployment rate. John Howard on The Gaffe. Morrison on The Gaffe, again. Morrison in hi vis. Frydenberg and Payne in hi vis. Morrison on why we should vote for him. Shake It Off. #Insiders

journalist asking Albanese how he will afford a Medicare announcement. Clip of Morrison blaming Labor for the fact his government is pro-corruption. Keane, Abbott, Albanese, and Morrison on Deves. #Insiders

they are extending #Insiders to 90 minutes throughout the campaign😬

#MakingNews a drop of an announcement of an appointment Morrison might make if the Coalition wins. The Rachelle Miller payout, but not the fact she released Morrison from any DND clause. #Insiders

Speers editorialises The Gaffe. Panel. Opens with why Andrew Probyn thinks The Gaffe matters. #Insiders

The Gaffe The Gaffe The Gaffe. On and fucking on. I will not be further disseminating journalist opinions of The Gaffe. #Insiders

Maiden says the press gallery “kind of rope a doped” Albanese by not questioning him over the years. Says he has not held an economic portfolio. Claims he lacks ambition. According to Maiden he should have taken on defence or something. Speers returns to The Gaffe. #Insiders

Hartcher on The Gaffe. #Insiders. He repeats the usual anti-Labor lines about The Gaffe and Speers underlines how important he, Speers, says is The Gaffe.
Maiden lmao says Scott Morrison makes gaffes too!!
#Insiders

a federal integrity commission. Speers asks Hartcher if it is Labor’s fault that Morrison has not delivered on his promise to establish a federal integrity commission. Yes, you read that right. #Insiders

Hartcher is of the opinion that a federal integrity commission matters. Is it a vote changer tho? asks Speers. Hartcher says it shows the Coalition have given up on the seats contested by teal Indies? Wow. Seems a bold claim, that Morrison has deserted his deputy. #Insiders

integrity commission and “the trans gender” says Speers to Maiden, on “teal seats” he means Warringah. Maiden says Morrison is focused on outer suburban seats, calls it a zero sum game, and says that is his narrow path to victory. #Insiders

summarise the week, Andrew? The Gaffe, says Probyn. For Morrison, it is The Economy, Probyn says. Don’t risk change! Speers interjects helpfully, repeating the Morrison line. Does Labor have a theme tho? Oh Labor cares or something sneers Maiden contemptuously. #Insiders

The Economy, says Hartcher. Morrison the Great Campaigner, says Maiden. Probyn is also generous to a fault giving Morrison all the credit for the press gallery pumping up his tires all week. He calls Albanese “flabby”. He has to sharpen up, says Probyn. #Insiders

interview. Clip of Morrison supporting Deves for years opening question. Payne says her view is we have to show respect to people who transition? Speers then recites some of Deves’ more vile lies. Should she be disendorsed? Oh that’s a matter for the NSW branch. #Insiders

should. She. Be. Dropped?
Payne, a Liberal Party NSW Senator says that is a matter for the Liberal Party in NSW.
#Insiders

is this a good example of why pre-selection process should be followed, rather than a captain’s pick? Payne slips back to personal position - she herself was just pre-selected! - then refuses to condemn the triumvirate. #Insiders

like the Deves candidature in the NSW Liberal Party, the Millar payout following allegations of abuse by a Liberal Party minister is nothing to do with Payne, a NSW Liberal Party politician and cabinet minister. She knows nothing, nothing at all. #Insiders

The Economy. Payne pushes a bunch of numbers out the door. Recites the usual guff about accidental economic figures and pretends they have A Plan. The contents of The Plan are never detailed. #Insiders

a federal integrity commission. What are you promising? A 300 page document, says Payne. She says the draft was tabled in the parliament. Introduced to the parliament? One of the two mealy mouthed misleading claims. Not debated tho, says Speers. #Insiders

Payne gets quite exercised about integrity commissions [checks notes] cross examining witnesses. Are you talking about Berejiklian? Should the public not have been told she approved grants in her then BF’s seat? Lol. Backtrack. #Insiders

eventually we get to foreign affairs. The Solomon Islands and their negotiations with China? Payne says Pacific Family but not “our” Pacific Family. Posits that sovereign Solomon Islander arrangements are the business of all other pacific nations. #Insiders

Ukraine and the ICC. We are providing two officials to the court to help with investigations, says Payne, and potentially AFP officers. #Insiders

what about Australians in refugee camps in Syria? Well we asked them not to go, says Payne. Asked if refugee women and children pose a risk to Australians, Payne says she will not go into the specifics of any intelligence, implying it exists. #Insiders

back to Deves. Not a full throated defence of the candidate, says Maiden. And look at other seats like Wentworth, says Probyn. The NSW Liberals are at war, says Maiden. It is a stunning piece of political amateurishness and bloody mindedness, says Hartcher. #Insiders

ham fistedness, says Hartcher. It is not like they are surprised, says Maiden. She calls Deves very articulate very attractive and very passionate. She then trots out a *very* problematic description of trans women, and repeats it. #Insiders

the prime minister picked her out of nowhere, says Maiden. Deves joined the Liberal Party six months ago, so is ineligible for candidature. Morrison gave her an exemption because HE wants to bring transphobia into the campaign [paraphrased] #Insiders

why? says Maiden. Because he wants transphobia to play in outer suburban seats [paraphrased]. Probyn jumps in as soon as Maiden drops this pay dirt to repeat and mansplain exactly “what Sam just said”. Speers says Liberals under threat from teal indies are not happy. #Insiders

back we go to Rachelle Millar. Maiden runs thru a ten year work history in the parliament, including allegations of bullying by (now) Attorney General Michaela Cash. Hartcher tsk take and names the half million public dollar price tag. #Insiders

off we go to Casey Briggs. The Gaffe. On The Gaffe, Casey, says Speers. Briggs then goes through media coverage of The Gaffe, which he calls data and then The Gaffe Industrial Complex. Speers chortles appreciatively. Two seconds on integrity, and back to The Gaffe. #Insiders

Briggs then plays a selection of stills from major party bookface ads, which involves wait for it broadcasting Liberal Party framing of The Gaffe. #Insiders

as Briggs wraps up, Speers wants to clarify whether press gallery journalists and the Liberal Party are wholly aligned? Yep, wholly aligned: almost everything coming from both limbs of this monster is about The Gaffe. #DeathTax lies are also back. #Insiders

where the social media spending is going is fascinating, says Speers. There will be “fibs”, says Probyn, of Liberal Party lies, “which is why Albanese has to sharpen up”. No word on whether the gallery should stop broadcasting Liberal Party lies. #Insiders

a kind of #FinalObservation-sounding point from Hartcher. He says it is remarkable that the Liberal Party leader is abandoning Liberal Party heartland. This “abandoned” to the teal indies narrative keeps building. #Insiders

clip from AMA prez to go to the interview with shadow health minister Mark Butler. Seven days a week minor emergencies services, says Butler, all bulk billed. Speers interrupts to say broken arms bulk billed but not broken fingers? Christ. #Insiders

Butler obliges with examples - kid fell off skateboard, 8am-10pm opening hours - but Speers is obsessed with a bulk billing commitment. Will it be free of charge? Does it depend on the injury? Bulk billed? Bulk billed? #Insiders

will the staff for these clinics “be imported from overseas”? When will the clinics be up and running? Next year. Is it fully costed? Yes. Is it tho? Yes. Who did the costing? Who? #Insiders

aged care. Cost? Is it costed? By the PBO? Why so dull, David? #Insiders

integrity. The only way to clean up the rorts is a change of government, says Butler. He commits to retrospective operation of an independent integrity commission established by Labor, and to public hearings. #Insiders

heh. Speers then tries to suggest that the emergency clinic announcements will be in targeted seats. The press gallery did not cotton onto Morrison government handouts in April 2019 until after the election and the ANAO investigated. #Insiders

back to panel. What do we make of the emergency clinics? Maiden smirks skeptically and says she would be impressed if it happens. Beazley [who lost to Howard after 9/11] was gonna co-locate childcare with schools, she says. #Insiders

it is not just Labor releasing junk policy, says Hartcher. Or junky policy did he say? Sloppy language. Will the Coalition release these small policy announcements? asks Speers. Maiden says it annoys her when governments take credit for job creation numbers. #Insiders

Probyn: The Gaffe. #Insiders

clip of Albanese on turnbacks, detention without charge, and off shore processing. Probyn says this shows how terrible Albanese is at everything and Labor should be super worried [paraphrased] #Insiders

we then get a history of Labor conference decisions about off shore processing from Maiden. She has an incredibly detailed memory of the ALP factional manoeuvres on this. Nothing on Morrison and Dutton’s record of lying about children in detention. #Insiders

nothing on self-immolation, the murders and rapes, the targeted cruelty and Biloela family, the tens and tens of billions wasted on Border Force and Christmas Island and Wilson Security etc #Insiders

vox pops curated by Speers to underline and parrot back the dominant media narrative. The Gaffe. The Unknown. The Gaffe. #Insiders

there is no strong mood for change, says Hartcher, and this - sitting like a dead hand on the land in the comfort of incumbent power - is literally all the Coalition need to win. #Insiders

citing “qualitative research”, Probyn says Labor need a big charismatic leader to win from Opposition. Maiden says oh but John Howard was not charismatic and Speers agrees, thereby erasing the distinction between Labor winning from opposition and incumbent tory power. #Insiders

#TalkingPictures is up. The Gaffe gets a run. Reucassel is a back to you Speersy man. #Insiders

https://twitter.com/insidersabc/status/1515486447846903811

#FinalObservations 1 is Hartcher saying there are Easter Sunday puns and parallels and, citing Fukuyama, says he would like to see democratic renewal as opposed to democratic death. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 2 is Maiden teasing us with her Derridian analysis just kidding she points to the ineligibility of Ben Small to contest and sit in the federal parliament until just the other day despite sitting out a half Senate term knowing his NZ daddy status. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 3 is Probyn admiring the jacket Hartcher is wearing and 2 other things whatever who cares and Speers jumps back in with a final reference to The Gaffe. #Insiders

the outtake is Google It Mate, framed by, yep, The Gaffe. #Insiders

https://twitter.com/insidersabc/status/1515487707190943749

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

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