Hooh boy. Peter Dutton just experienced a spectacular case of foot-in-mouth on The TODAY Show this morning, and if you’re wondering what it looks like when you realise you’re in serious trouble with your boss, and your boss happens to be the Prime Minister – it’s this:
ICYMI yesterday, Papua New Guinea announced that they would be closing the detention centre on Manus Island, throwing into question what would happen to the 850 men now illegally detained there, and what this would mean for Australia‘s off-shore detention policy – which Dutton, as Immigration Minister, is unfortunately in charge of.
Malcolm Turnbull yesterday confessed that he could not provide “a definitive road map” on how Australia would respond, which The Age‘s political editor Michael Gordon skewed as being “the understatement of his prime ministership“.
But along came Peter Dutton, who directly undermined Turnbull’s comments not 24 hours later under the withering questioning of Karl Stefanovic.
“Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has admitted he’s known for months they were planning to shut the Manus Island detention centre, contradiction comments made by the Prime Minister over the crisis just yesterday,” said a gleeful Karlos on The TODAY Show this morning.
Karlos then went in with a lethal mix of contempt and disgust.
“Gee I tell you what, when the Prime Minister finds out you’ve said that you’ve known for months, that this was coming, and made the announcement yesterday that you had no roadmap – it doesn’t say much about your planning, it doesn’t say much about his planning,” he said.
“How long does it take the Prime Minister to come up with a roadmap?”
Longer than six months, evidently.
Dutton says he knew about Manus Island closure since 2015, in contradiction with PM’s comments. #auspol #9Today https://t.co/bZbPyzyKOI
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) April 27, 2016
The end of Dutton’s political career? One can only hope.
Source / Photo: The TODAY Show.
