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Turnbull turns on Andrew Bolt

Communications Minister labels host of The Bolt Report as "demented" for suggesting talk of leadership destabilisation.

Screen Shot 2014-04-27 at 12.25.10 am.jpgCommunications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has labelled News Corp columnist and host of TEN’s Bolt Report, Andrew Bolt, as “demented” for suggesting talk of leadership destabilisation.

Yesterday on The Bolt Report he asked the Prime Minister aabout Malcolm Turnbull’s meeting with Clive Palmer.

“Why is Malcolm Turnbull wooing Clive Palmer on his own? It looks like he’s got his eye on your job,” he said.

But Tony Abbott denied there was any threat to his leadership.

“I think it’s perfectly reasonable for senior members of the Coalition to talk with independent and minor party senators because … we have a budget to get through the Parliament,” he said.

Today Malcolm Turnbull said, “I saw the question that Andrew Bolt asked the Prime Minister on Sunday and I’ve seen his column in some of the News Limited papers today.

“It borders on the demented to string together a dinner with Clive Palmer and my attending, as the Communications Minister, the launch by a cross-party group of friends of the ABC and say that that amounts to some kind of threat or challenge to the Prime Minister,” Turnbull said.

“It is quite unhinged. Now, Mr Bolt is fond of attacking what he regards as the government’s enemies in the media, principal amongst whom of course he numbers the ABC. I don’t think you would see anything as crazy as that on the ABC.

“I just have to say to Mr Bolt, he proclaims loudly that he is a friend of the government. Well with friends like Bolt, we don’t need any enemies.”

Source: Fairfax, ABC

18 Responses

  1. Why all the rhetorical by people opposed to a Plebiscite vote on same sex marriage. The money will be well spent , employing people on polling day in polling booths, who will be paid, and no doubt spend the money earned in Australia. The people have a democratic right on this issue, not politicians who a great many of us now have little or no time for. The last time I voted 1 for a major party was for Keating. After that I gave Labor away, to me now they are the UnAustralian Labor Party.

  2. @eastwest101
    The Government would love to stay a million miles away from Palmer. But while he controls a block of votes in the Senate they have no choice but to deal with him.

    The Liberals and ALP will probably vote together to change senate voting to get rid of random minor parties and increase their power.

  3. I think Bolt was being a little mischevious and was just “flying a kite”, the “over the top” response from Turnbull is really just Turnbull attempting to appeal to his own constituency in a way, but it certainly breathed renewed life into an otherwise thin and highly speculative non-story.

    Turnbull is smart – he will run a million miles away from Palmer rather than have anything to do with him or his weird and dysfunctional group of followers. If Tony Jones is smart he would also be wise to keep quiet about Palmer as it has all the hallmarks of a future “career ender” for anyone associated with him.

  4. Bolt is just being a journalist and seeking attention by peddling rumours. This is the most publicity he gotten since he was convicted under 18C of Racial Discrimination Act.

    Turnbull just lost his temper. Which is stupid because it won’t help and someone denying a leadership challenge was just what the press gallery were waiting to pounce on (instead of doing any real journalism).

    Even if there is going to be a leadership challenge it would never happen now, and courting Palmer is that last thing Turnbull would be doing to bring it about.

  5. @scoba – “A news service was notified about the dinner, so they knew to attend. Either Clive or Malcolm is responsible for that.” Not necessarily. Maybe other customer(s), restaurant staff, a Comcar driver, passers-by? This is Canberra and the restaurant is a frequent haunt of all polies and their hangers-on.

  6. A news service was notified about the dinner, so they knew to attend. Either Clive or Malcolm is responsible for that. Either way, it clearly states that Clive won’t work with Abbott, but will work with Malcolm. Heaven forbid, Mr right wing maybe correct!

  7. Channel ten biggest problem is Andrew bolt .i stopped watching ten when the bolt report started airing . Malcolm turnbull is right bolt is demented . His biased right wing view are alarmingly extremist.now he is bagging out his own liberal party minister .

  8. It’s funny how Bolt claims that Turnbull is running a campaign to destabilise the govt’s leadership when he’s been the only one talking in the media about it. He could have left it as a clumsy question on a show almost nobody watches, and which Abbot satisfactorily answered, but he decided to try and breathe more life into it (=media beat-up) by running it in his newspaper column.

    I hope he enjoyed his five minutes of fame on the 7.30 Report where he was seen by twice as many people as watch his own show.

  9. For F’s sake PM Mr Abbott and AG Mr Brandis just get Andrew Bolt’s adverse judicial judgement reversed, give him his Knighthood and he will stop his fake leadership posturing, where he will then have to come up with yet another desperate ‘vicious budget distraction’.

    Because I reluctantly find great enjoyment in the Mr Abbott/ Sir Andrew Bolt one on one interviews, where the only fact that emerges, is just with how much disrespect that these two are prepared to treat those who gave the coalition their now undeserved landslide election majority.

    How do the sayings go? ‘ You can fool some of people some of the time but not all…….’, and ‘The voters do indeed get the government they deserve’

  10. Bolt knows how unpopular Abbott has become and is looking for a scapegoat to blame. But Turnbull is having none of that so Bolt becomes the biggest destabiliser of the Liberal Party.

  11. Shame on you David for making me read something that happened on that show. I don’t even like reading the title on my EPG 😉

  12. I love it when they turn on each other. Much better than the Bold and The Beautiful – The Powerful and the Melodramatic! Ten should run it as soap opera in prime time. Forget Family Fraud – commission 365 eps of Disorder in the House.

  13. Good to see that at least one member of the government has come to realize what many Australians have known for some time – and, happily it’s the Communications Minister, even though it means Mr Bolt will now turn on him (after all, he has a soft spot for the ABC, doesn’t he?) The Bolt Report is a kind of “reality” program with Mr Bolt attempting to play the role of a serious interviewer/journalist, reading scripted questions from a sheet that also contains scripted answers for his selected friends. At the end of his agonizing hour, he audaciously bemoans the fact that no Opposition shadow ministers will talk to him (they don’t get a script of course) and then he signs off with “no fear, no favours”. No favours??Quite laughable really. TEN, your Sunday News with Mike Munro would have a real chance in the ratings if it wasn’t preceded by the Bolt propaganda hour! 4:00 pm is far…

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