Plus: the media dances to Scott Morrison’s fiddle, and other tips from the Crikey bunker.
Machine gun Kelly Yesterday Tips observed that Prime Minister Scott Morrison has possibly the greatest talent any politician can possess: the ability to get the media to not only uncritically report what you say, but go further on your behalf than you ever have. So it was on Monday when a content-free equivocation about the Coalition’s “preference” that Australia reach net zero emissions by 2050 was translated into headlines about Morrison’s “more ambitious climate change target”.
And now it continues with Morrison’s handling of the Craig Kelly clown show. By any measure, Morrison (who has already directly intervened to save Kelly once) has failed to rein in Kelly’s conspiracy theories and medical misinformation on his immensely popular Facebook page.
According to Channel Nine, the PM “lashed” Kelly in a private phone call. But Kelly’s public statements didn’t shift one iota. So the headline, as far as we can tell, really should have been “Prime Minister resolutely fails to control dangerously out of control MP”.
