Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishBuyer’s remorse at SkyApparently the powers-that-be at Sky News Australia weren’t exactly thrilled with the ‘stacked’ audience of supposedly independent swing voters at its first leaders debate.Question after question sounded like what you might expect to hear asked at an ABC dinner party rather than on Sky News after dark.After some digging, it turns out Sky’s debate audience was actually chosen by the same market research company used by ABC’s Q+A program to find its lefty crowd every Monday night.So that’s why Sky News suddenly turned into Bizarro World for an evening.Now, three years is a long time between drinks, but we’re confidently predicting Sky will go elsewhere next time it hosts a leaders debate on the campaign trail. The powers-that-be at Sky News weren’t exactly thrilled with the left-leaning audience at the leaders debate. One woman (left) asked Peter Dutton (right) and Anthony Albanese a pointed question about the Israel-Gaza warLiberals’ lesson in stupidityVictoria likes to think of itself as the education state – that’s literally the line used on its number plates.Which is why it was so odd that the Coalition decided to pick a fight with the state’s universities by coming up with a new higher education policy that takes an axe to international student numbers.Higher education is Australia’s second largest export industry after mining, and Victoria leads the way. Who came up with this vote-losing policy? Presumably the shadow education minister Sarah Henderson, who is meant to be a Victorian.It’s the equivalent of a WA Liberal suggesting a mining tax. Shadow education minister Sarah Henderson (pictured), who is meant to be a Victorian, presumably signed off on the Coalition’s new higher education policy that takes an axe to international student numbers. Good luck winning those marginal seats in MelbournePeter Dutton had been tracking rather well in Melbourne marginal seats, capitalising on the unpopularity of the long-in-the-tooth state Labor government.Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a certainly skill – it’s just not one that’s especially becoming in a shadow minister. Independents… united? If being an independent MP is your thing, surely paying for a joint billboard with another ‘independent’ isn’t playing into that narrative?Yet that is exactly what teal ‘independents’ Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggall have done, as you can see.The teals froth at the mouth at the suggestion they are a de facto political party, yet all evidence points in exactly that direction.Even if they have found a way around having to identity as a political party, as these billboards clearly demonstrate, they certainly aren’t the ‘independents’ they sanctimoniously claim to be. The teals lose their minds when you dare to suggest they are a political party. But how do these two ‘independent’ candidates explain this billboard?Remember me? No? The better Albo does on the campaign trail the more his Treasurer Jim Chalmers appears to be struggling with relevance deprivation syndrome.So much so that he recently called a media conference just to tell the RBA that Trump’s tariffs mean it should cut rates next month. The better Albo does on the campaign trail the more his Treasurer Jim Chalmers appears to be struggling with relevance deprivation syndromeChanneling former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate John McCain, Jim then suspended his campaign to meet with bank CEOs for a chinwag about the economic turmoil ahead. McCain had, of course, famously suspended his 2008 presidential campaign briefly to attend to the Wall Street meltdown.No one within the Labor Party had the heart to tell our Treasurer that suspending his campaign went largely unnoticed, other than the strategically leaked news item that appeared on, you guessed it, the ABC.He’s been as much of a non-entity in this election campaign as the shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, and that’s saying something! Jim had hoped that he’d get all the credit for an election win coming off the back of his Budget, but it seems more likely that voters casting their ballots for Labor might struggle to even name who the Treasurer is. Team Albo is laughing its way to victory already… assuming the PM doesn’t find a way to derail between now and May 3.Enemies become friends on the campaign trail There is no denying that Anthony Albanese had a much better first week in this year’s election campaign than he did back in 2022.On that occasion, day one was dominated by him not knowing the cash rate.The question was asked by Stela Todorovic, then a journo, now a press secretary for none other than Mr Albanese. Stela Todorovic, the journo who stumped Albo on the cash rate during the 2022 campaign trail, is now his press secretary as he sets his sights on a second term. Smart moveIt was clever thinking by the PM once in office to hire the same reporter who made his life difficult on the last campaign so she couldn’t do it again.That doesn’t explain him also appointing former Guardian political editor Katherine Murphy to his comms unit, of course, but we assume he knew the left-wing news site wouldn’t exactly lurch to the right without her.This is a teaser for tomorrow’s edition of Inside Mail, the weekly media and politics column exclusively for Mail+ subscribers
Keep Reading
