The Daily Telegraph has another ‘controversial’ front page.
I suspect they would have run this picture irrespective of there being an election on. Everyone love a ‘pollies are hypocrites’ story - especially the tabloids and their readers.
Everybody knows this - Trade Minister Richard Marles was asked about it on Sky News this morning and he had to put a brave face on saying that it was humorous and Australia had a free press blah, blah, blah. He couldn’t go in hard because he knew full well he’d be on a hiding to nothing.
He is the first ALP person I’ve seen handle something like this well. Of course, the original incident was bungled.
There is a perfectly good explanation that Anthony Albanese could have used to explain why he was photographed with Craig Thomson. Something like, ‘I know he’s accused of wrong doing and I don’t condone his actions, but he is an old friend and was in need of emotional support’. So the ‘old friend’ bit isn’t quite true but something along those lines. It would fit with the notion that we might condemn actions but not (always) people.
As it stands having the deputy leader of the ALP seen drinking with Thomson undermines the whole ‘clean-up NSW’ narrative that Kevin Rudd has introduced. Being consistent and on-message is the life blood of politics and exposing inconsistency is the media’s job. That front page is bread and butter work for the media any and every day of the week.
Notice that I’m not buying into the whole ‘Albo and Thommo were conspiring to maintain a minority government after the election’ line. There isn’t going to be a minority government and journalists should challenge anyone saying so - that is obviously spin.