Strange Twitter activity caps Alan Tudge’s very bad week

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 1 year ago

Strange Twitter activity caps Alan Tudge’s very bad week

By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell

Former Human Services Alan Tudge had a torrid couple of days in the witness box at Catherine Holmes’ Royal Commission into the former government’s disastrous robo-debt scheme – and that was after he’d been chucked under the bus by the preceding witness, his former lover and media adviser Rachelle Miller.

Alan Tudge has not had a good week

Alan Tudge has not had a good weekCredit: John Shakespeare

All the hating on Tudge we’ve seen in recent days from online lefties must take the opposition backbencher back to his glory days in the ministerial wing, when his office - it turns out - could turn to Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers to downplay its policy disasters.

It’s Tudge’s online activities that brings him to CBD’s attention today. The Aston MP made a curious choice last month to ‘like’ a Twitter post from an extreme right-wing account targeting European Union President Ursula von der Leyen in terms that, as a family newspaper, we won’t repeat or platform.

His office said he has no knowledge of how this post was liked by his official account and that it is completely inconsistent with all other posts supported he has made.

“Mr Tudge does not follow this account, does not have knowledge of this account, and does not share the views of this account.”

His office has unliked this post.

Now, we’ve all made mistakes on the socials, but a serving MP and former minister should know to steer well clear of a social media account that has, in separate tweets to the one Tudge liked, compared Victoria to the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz.

It all reminds us of that other classic social media slip up – when Tudge’s former front bench colleague Christopher Pyne had an unfortunate run-in with an explicit gay porn site back in 2017. For the record, Pyne says he was hacked. Will Tudge plead the same excuse? We asked his office what went wrong, and got no reply.

PAID IN ADVANCE

Advertisement

All eyes have been on the staggering sums of money flowing from Australia’s wealthiest postcodes to teal independent candidates ahead of the last election. But the latest donations data show that plenty of one-percenters are still throwing their cash at good old-fashioned conservative causes.

Take the perennially weird right-wing lobby group Advance Australia, positioning itself as the leading opponents of an Indigenous Voice to parliament. Politically, they might hate the teals, but their donors have plenty in common. In the last period, Advance got $120,000 from Rodney and Colin O’Neil, whose family have long been a core part of Sydney’s exclusive harbourside set.

Another $34,000 came from multimillionaire Queensland grazier and investor Franklyn “Lyn” Brazil.

Andrew Abercrombie, the Melbourne businessman and Liberal powerbroker whose 2020 Aspen party kicked off a COVID-19 cluster that rippled through Toorak and the Mornington Peninsula in the earliest days of the pandemic tossed a spare $20,000 Advance’s way.

The coming Voice referendum should give us a better idea of whether they’re wasting their money.

DIRT UNIT DUTTS

CBD fondly remembers the days when political parties funded their own dirt units, but it looks these days like they’re outsourcing the work.

Take Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s effort on 2GB - owned by Nine, publisher of this masthead - on Thursday, when the Liberal leader waded into the workplace dispute, now before the Federal Court, between independent Kooyong MP Monique Ryan and former chief of staff Sally Rugg.

Teed up a treat by host Ray Hadley to go off about these whiney lefties being frightened of a hard day’s work Dutton urged people to come forward with evidence of Ryan’s “prickly character”.

“I’d be really interested Ray, to have a further look at Monique Ryan’s employment history, and interactions with other people in workplaces where she’s been before,” Dutton said.

“I just really think it bears a little more scrutiny.”

Trouble is, Dutts isn’t the first to come up with the idea of digging for a little dirt on Ryan.

Ryan announced during last May’s campaign that News Corp journalists have been asking questions about her work at the Royal Children’s Hospital’s neurology department.

If the Herald Sun’s hacks found anything on Ryan, it didn’t make the paper. But never mind, Peter, always worth another try.

SALE AWAY

As this column has observed before, every Canberran of a certain vintage and income bracket winds up in possession of a South Coast holiday pad. But veteran journalist and 7.30 chief political correspondent Laura Tingle is going the other way and disposing of a South Coast beach shack that’s been in the family for over two decades.

We hear Tingle’s a reluctant seller, and doesn’t get nearly get enough time to head out of town these days. Currently campaigning for a staff-elected spot on the ABC board on top of her day job, we reckon she’s only going to get more time poor.

WHAT A DRAG

We’re just over a month out from a state election, which means the number of sausage sizzles, meet and greets, baby kisses and other awkward fundraiser events are ratcheting up.

Most are fairly bland affairs, which is why news the Greens’ Summer Hill campaign launch this Friday will feature a drag queen called “Cassandra” caught our eye.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be resonating enough in the party’s most winnable target seat, with candidate Izabella Antoniou sending a slightly panicky email claiming she was “super excited but a bit worried” about flat attendance numbers.

You’d think such entertainment would be more popular in the inner west.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.

Most Viewed in National

Loading