Thread by @iMusing

good morning from unceded Durramurragal lands☀️today on #Insiders are Sydney Daily Telegraph national political reporter Clare Armstrong; Nine Entertainment chief political correspondent David Crowe and ABC radio host Patricia Karvelas.

the interviews are with shadow treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers and deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce.
This thread is not fact-checked. I block snitch-taggers. #Insiders

opening spiel: contest shifts gear, says Speers. Scare campaigns have “made way” for…
What’s the Morrison perspective, skip? Well, we did not hear it for once. Instead, a foreign policy issue emerged from nowhere. #Insiders

on Albanese having covid, Speers says “his colleagues are picking up the slack” and Morrison “cut him none”. The “slim” debate win to Labor line gets a run. Solomon Islands and China again emerge from nowhere. #Insiders

montage: campaign trail. Morrison not knowing the Jobseeker payment - he was out by more than a percentage point - gets a run. So does Probyn saying that *some people* were offended by Morrison saying he and Jenny are blessed to have kids without autism. #Insiders

#MakingNews: Solomon Islands and China. Dutton has done a photo spread in a paddock. Very leadership challenge vibes. Speers then editorialises about what two sovereign nations signing a deal means for the Coalition campaign. #Insiders

panel. Crowe because foreign affairs is serious man business. D1 cuts back in to say hmm yes important questions. Karvelas says Labor sought to elevate the issue. Clip of Wong saying this is the worst foreign policy blunder since WWII. #Insiders

the Manchurian candidate rhetoric in cowards castle has “come back to bite them in the bottom” says Karvelas about the China-Solomons deal. What Julie Bishop, the failed deputy Liberal Party leader who was driven out by toxic masculinity, thinks. #Insiders

clip of Morrison verbally shrugging oh welp nothing could be done that’s why he did not send the foreign minister. It is beyond us out of our hands ce la vie etc [paraphrased]. Armstrong makes her #Insiders debut loyally defending the Morrison decision to send Zed.

the idea that Payne could have prevented or halted the China-Solomon Islands deal is raised as a kind of straw man to be shot down. Karvelas says it was Abbott who cut foreign aid. Pretty sure Julie Bishop was the responsible minister at the time. #Insiders

still speculating about the China-Solomons arrangements. What can Australia still do? To “be the partner of choice”, says Karvelas. We have been there two decades, she says, and claims this is now the main election campaign issue. #Insiders

the deal makes us less safe, says Karvelas. Crowe and Armstrong canvas what Marles said about and in China, including on Hong Kong and human rights violations of Uigyar people. Boy oh boy the government has turned the heat on [deputy oppo leader] Marles says Speers. #Insidersc

apparently Morrison and his crew are astonished that garbage foreign policy in the Pacific might have domestic political impact. Karvelas says it is risky for Labor to run hard on the Pacific and she is uncomfortable with them making it a divisive election issue. #Insiders

interview. For all their chest beating, says Chalmers, the Morrison government is a direct risk to national security, he says. Morrison “went to the wrong island”, he went to Hawaii when he should have gone to the Solomon Islands, says Chalmers. #Insiders

dropped the ball, repeats Chalmers. A nation that is less safe and a region that is less secure is his line today. Labor will rebuild relationships in the Pacific, Chalmers says, including defence spending, “being a credible partner on climate”, and foreign aid. #Insiders

Scott Morrison has made a promise, Speers puts to Chalmers. Well you can not believe a word he says is the reply. What about Labor? Most of the tax reforms proposed by Labor are based on the digital economy, says Chalmers, on multinationals. #Insiders

Speers mistakes closing tax avoidance loopholes exploited by multinationals for “employers here paying more tax”. Drink. #Insiders

a clean energy “safeguard mechanism”. I am not up on this sorry. There are 215 entities that can reduce their emissions or buy carbon credits? What will it cost says Speers. #Insiders

what are Labor’s plans to help the workers on Gladstone? As someone whose sector shed up to 40,000 workers during the pandemic, this mollycoddling of workers in the climate catastrophe causing coal sector grinds my gears. #Insiders

a reconstruction fund, says Chalmers. Gladstone has all the possibilities for battery manufacturing, it is an exciting time, his concern is the Morrison government just wants Gladstone votes without investing in its future. Let’s stick to Labor, says Speers. #Insiders

new coal mines? Labor modelling accounts for coal demand around the world and the “energy mix will change over time” says Chalmers. What about spending cuts? asks Speers. Yep, starting with consultants, says Chalmers. #Insiders

trillion dollar debt and not enough to show for it, says Chalmers. This is the worst budget any government has ever taken to an election. Waste waste.
Let’s stick to Labor says Speers. Will it help or hurt your campaign having Albanese in isolation? #Insiders

since Albanese has covid and the team are “filing the void” who will be the next Labor leader? We do not see it that way, says Chalmers. #Insiders

how are Labor handling it [the fact that Albanese has covid] says Speers to Armstrong. She dutifully recites “fill the void” and Marles jumped in the spotlight and there was a lot of talk about Jason Clare. #Insiders

D1 and D2 then have a pissing contest over what Albanese having covid MEANS on and on it goes DRINK DRINK DRINK #Insiders

heh. Morrison had no media conference yesterday. Karvelas says this is super unusual.
idk maybe the laziest politician in living memory used someone else being sick to chuck a sickie. #Insiders

then Karvelas does a classic press pretzel, claiming the messianic 2019 campaign was because *voters* did not know Morrison, who she claims was a “relative cleanskin” even tho journalists knew him well. So, they failed the electorate. #Insiders

the debate. We cruise briefly past the offensive pentecostal garbage to land on Labor and turnbacks. Three really bad answers, says Armstrong. Albanese has not held an economic portfolio so we heard about the couple of days he was acting prime minister, she sneers. #Insiders

vox pops curated by Speers again. Lotta blokes who hate change. He also speaks Matt Cooke of a local Aboriginal org and Supriya Singh of a strong communities org, a ww teacher on refugees and ww biz person with huge foreign affairs concerns. #Insiders

one in eight voters work in cattle and mining says Armstrong about the electorate of Flynn. They are “naturally distrustful” of transition, she says. Crowe says “they” want a slow transition, meaning locals. He says tens of millions of dollars on each LNG tanker. #Insiders

you can see issues working both ways, says Crowe. Labor might get cut through on health, he says. Karvelas harks back to the Brown-Adani cavalcade. She says locals do love the town, the region, and are hearing what Labor says about Morrison dropping the ball. #Insiders

Joyce. He was a red neck and xenophobe and bigot for opposing Chinelco takeover of Rio back in the day, he says. The Solomons do not want a Chinese military base, that is their policy, and Joyce believes them. #Insiders

he takes the Solomons word they do not want a Chinese military base and repeats that the Chinese do want a military base in Honiara. So kind of like Darwin Port I guess, as negotiated by Coalition politician Andrew Robb. #Insiders

he is deputy chair of the national security committee. Joyce. He repeats that inviting a totalitarian regime into “your country” it will effect “your sovereignty”. Still no word on how that operates here. #Insiders

keep our nation as strong as possible. He will not go through combinations and permutations of what will happen in the future. They are incredibly aware of what this means, says Joyce. It is why we are buying nuclear submarines. And why we have the quad. #Insiders

turning to regional campaigning. Joyce says Labor can not understand basic economic facts and bangs on and on and on about Labor while Speers pleads impotently for him to get to the Coalition “plan”. Never a policy. Always an announcement of a plan. #Insiders

investment major erm such as Fortescue says Joyce. Labor Labor Labor he says. Speers is begging him to answer the question. Joyce steamrolls over him. They will not underwrite hydrogen “at this stage”. #Insiders

he bullshits on about the northern Aust infrastructure fund for a bit, the biggest rort on his watch. The CEFC. Which they tried to abolish.
Hellsgate damn? Labor Labor Labor says Joyce. #Insiders

he is not going to announce David Gillespie’s policy, says Joyce, who is David Gillespies boss. Labor Labor says Joyce. What about the Biloela family? Labor says Joyce. Will they be released? Nah not answering that. #Insiders

the massive budget deficit (not the trillion dollar government debt). Joyce bangs on about the export earning of coal and other minerals and suggests we listen to the corrupt agencies that enabled the GFC (Fitch, Moodys, S&P etc) #Insiders

and with another Labor Labor we are rid of the buffoon. #Insiders

brief comment from Crowe on the Biloela family - a Q Joyce answered by accusing Labor of campaigning seat by seat gasp - and we go to Briggs, who has tracked the absence of Morrison in seats the Liberals might lose to Independent candidates. With any luck. #Insiders

social media spend, analysis the Graun has also done. Frydenberg is outspending Dr Monique Ryan in Kooyong. No word on who paid for the charity law violating ads. Sharma is in a tough fight, says Briggs. Allegra Spender is outspending him on social media ads. #Insiders

back to “perceptions of the two leaders” says Speers. What have you picked up Clare? Armstrong recites the who is Albanese line. Remember there are over 17 million voters. Speers says blokes think Morrison has had a tough coupla years moite. #Insiders

Karvelas says yes responses to Morrison are “gendered”. Speers says it is a very blokey campaign. Crowe obliges with a bothsides anecdote. D1 and D2 then drive home the idea that “people” - we just established it is MALES - “feel sorry for Scott Morrison”. #Insiders

nobody criticises the toxic masculinity of Scott Morrison, or ties the “blokey campaign” to misogynist bullying and covering up/minimising male violence in the parliament, or the fact Bishop and O’Dwyer left because of it. #Insiders

#TalkingPictures is up. Jack is a back to you Speersy man.

https://twitter.com/insidersabc/status/1518023162964848647

#FinalObservations 1 is Armstrong saying young people have enrolled yo vote and live in formerly safe electorates. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 2 is Crowe saying he has learnt about regional health and went to a barber who is leaning UAP. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 3 is Karvelas saying Morrison plays well in Western Sydney. There are over 2 million people in western Sydney. She wishes orthodox folks a happy Easter esp. Ukrainians. #Insiders

the outtake is Morrison repeatedly calling a journalist Mr Speaker, the only mention I have heard of this GaFfE on the ABC, let alone on #Insiders.

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

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