good morninghappy new year! This Sunday on #Insiders are TripleJ Hack (ABC) journalist Shalailah Medhora and politics editors at Guardian Australia and ninefax, Katharine Murphy and Peter Hartcher. The interview is with federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

this is nominally a murdoch-free panel, which has presumably prompted angry phone calls from senior federal Liberals #Insiders.

covid is under control for now, Speers open, continuing the narrative Hartcher and Murphy set up yesterday for a pro-Morrison campaign. “Australia” is doing well, he says, before moving to the Labor leadership.

the montage, to the Mercury and Bowie classic Under Pressure, is about the Labor leadership. Petty scrutiny of front bench switches. “Joel is a backbencher, just like Barnaby Joyce” says Penny Wong #Insiders

Headlines. Speers tells us that *Labor* has its focus on the election. Next he announces Morrison announcement about a future vaccine rollout as fact. The utter failure of Coalition climate policy is called “internal ructions” rather than “existential threat”. #Insiders

the #Insiders launch into telling viewers what Labor politicians think, which as right wing commentators (anyone who perceives Morrison as centrist is coming from the right wing) they are wholly unqualified to do.

Hartcher has instructions for Labor. Thanks, Pete! #Insiders

the Nationals’ pro-coal mine policy position is put to Medhora. She repeats the “internal ructions” line and observes that the Nationals and Labor are “out of step with their own communities” on coal. #Insiders

another clip of Albanese. No word on the Liberals climate-acceleration policies being “out of step” with survival of our species. Speers says there are unhappy (unnamed) Labor politicians. Cutting edge stuff. #Insiders

on the actual federal government and its actual climate policies, Murphy repeats her speculative fantasy which ignores the fact that Scott Morrison is the leader of the hard right faction in the Liberal Party room #Insiders

ahahaha on a panel gabbling endlessly about Labor, Hartcher says *Labor* can not stop talking about itself. He says Labor is the dominant story this week as tho men like him have nothing to do with this coverage. #Insiders

then Hartcher tells us what the entire Australian electorate thinks like that is possible #Insiders

congrats on 10 years in the press gallery, Shalaila! She agrees that “people don’t care” about the horse race nonsense that political journalists endlessly indulge on shows like #Insiders

interview. Frydenberg runs through all his talking points in response to the first question. Which means he won’t have anything left and we are in for a very repetitive exchange #Insiders

cites every Liberal Party politician’s gave economist, Chris Richardson, whose searing analysis is that the Australian economy is a glass half full. Sophisticated stuff #Insiders

Speers: will debt get up to a trillion dollars?
Frydenberg: yes.
Speers:...
Frydenberg: before the crisis “welfare dependency was at a 30 year low”.
#Insiders

recall the Morrison policy, as human services minister, treasurer and prime minister has been to drive people off income support using cruel punitive measures, including the unlawful #Robodebt program and driving people to an early grave. #Insiders

lmao the press gallery practice muddling job-keeper and -seeker and pretending the coronavirus supplement is a jobseeker rate rise is so entrenched that Frydenberg corrects Speers when he asks if any of the trillion dollar debt will go on “keeping” the higher rate. #Insiders

oops I was wrong about Frydenberg running out of talking points. He has a second set of talking points for the Queensland campaign strategy refresh that Morrison launched last week. #Insiders

handouts to tourism announcements incoming. The handouts will be “targeted”, says Frydenberg. Not said: like sports grants, community funds and bushfire recovery money, the handouts will be targeted to seats the Liberals and Nationals hold/want to win. #Insiders

why does the government not require businesses in profit to return jobkeeper money? The program was designed to deal with optics of people lined up outside centrelink says Frydenberg [paraphrased]. #Insiders

Frydenberg drops his headline-seeking word, which is “pufferfish”. #Insiders

the murdoch-appeasing mess his government is making of relations with google and facebook. Frydenberg name drops zuck, claims the incoherent nonsense is “world-leading” and fuck all else. #Insiders

leaving the most pressing real world issue to last, Speers asks about [a future] vaccine rollout. Given the thing has not started, this is largely speculative. Frydenberg mouths the approved #CovidCampaigning lines. #Insiders

instead of challenging a federal government minister on the shifting sands of vaccine dose numbers, promises and announcements, Speers lets Frydenberg take political credit for public trust in the TGA etc and puts the issue to the panel instead. #Insiders

vaccine nationalism is alive and well, says Hartcher, which seems to be his way of describing how wealthy countries like the UK and USA have fucked up their pandemic response and then used their wealth to take huge numbers of doses. #Insiders

the inconsistent Morrison government messaging on dosage numbers, rollout etc is described as “shifting timelines” and not necessarily the government’s fault by Medhora. She notes the government has not reined in its backbenchers who are spreading misinformation. #Insiders

this is the issue of the year, says Murphy, and there is vaccine politics. Like Hartcher, she speaks for the entire country, saying “the country is hanging out for” and then (again) puts her personal opinion that centres on the hope nonsense. #Insiders

she has been reading about Europe and the United States over the break, says Murphy, and says “some of [vaccine management] is in the governments control, and some of this is not within the governments control”. #Insiders

regular reminder that the federal government response to international circumstances is wholly with the federal governments control. #Insiders

I missed whatever Hartcher was saying about the trillion dollar debt run up by Morrison, Turnbull and Abbott sorry. #Insiders

once jobkeeper is withdrawn youth unemployment and underemployment will go up, says Medhora. She says “the treasurer left the door open for more targeted support” but misses the fact that “targeted” means constituencies targeted by Liberal Party HQ, not need. #Insiders

the insurrection in DC. Hartcher calls it “unthinkable” which is patently false, and segues to implications for Morrison government climate policy. “The opportunity is there for Morrison to take it”, says Hartcher, with no word on his pro-coal policies. #Insiders

the Q goes to Murphy who starts early and then apologises “sorry, love” (sic) for talking over Speers. She calls “Australia” a “pariah”, and paints the prime minister as someone who “loves coal, he loves gas” god all this “love” framing is fucking weird. #Insiders

#TalkingPictures mentions Invasion Day nomenclature but not the ABC capitulation to Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, or not directly. https://twitter.com/insidersabc/status/1355650750299430914

#FinalObservations 1: Medhora notes the AOTY Grace Tame on survivors of child sexual abuse and grooming. She says now is the time to make lasting change in this space.

#FinalObservations 2 is Hartcher calling China a “fascist great power”? Is that what he said? To which Murphy replies “well said”? I hope I heard that wrong. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 3 is Katharine Murphy inexplicably elevating the significance of a Liberal Party pre-selection process involving talentless hack Kevin Andrews whose terror-mongering pursuit of Dr Mohammad Haneef was a hugely expensive disgrace. #Insiders

we go out with a clip of Albanese talking to kids and not getting much traction chortle chortle #Insiders

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

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