Peter Dutton accused Wednesday 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson of ‘left-wing analysis’ during a sometimes tense interview on the ABC current affairs programme.
Ferguson had asked the Opposition Leader, following the decision to implement the revised Phase 3 tax cut package, about his position on opinion polls showing him backing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“I guess what I’m saying is that it’s been a rough first week here for you. Do you also feel like your political momentum is slipping?’ Ferguson introduced Mr Dutton.
He snapped back at the question.
“I just think it’s such an ABC perspective, if I may say so. “The whole culture that’s left within the ABC so far seems to permeate a lot of questions when you go to a program like this,” he replied.
Peter Dutton (right) accused presenter Sarah Ferguson (left) of ‘left-wing analysis’ on Wednesday at 7.30 am during a sometimes tense interview in the current affairs program ABC
“I don’t think other journalists put that analysis out there, argument from the Guardian and some other left-wing online publications.”
Mr Dutton returned to the question of his performance and challenged Ferguson, pointing out that ‘we are currently 52/48 in Newspoll’.
When she said the coalition should take the lead after the Albanian government’s struggles with the cost of living and its broken election promise on tax cuts, he hit back again.
“We’ve gone up about 20 points in the last 12 months, which you wouldn’t recognize in this program, but that’s the reality.”
Ferguson had asked the Opposition Leader after the decision to push through the revised Phase 3 tax cut package about his position in the opinion polls showing him backing the Prime Minister.
Earlier, Ferguson had asked him why he had asked the press gallery: “Did you find me a criminal?”
“Isn’t that an astonishing question for an opposition leader to ask the press?” she asked.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Dutton had laughed off Malcolm Turnbull’s description of him as a “thug” in the ABC documentary Nemesis.
“Well, I was asked by a journalist who I have known for many, many years to respond to that comment and I asked the journalist, who knows me well, if she had ever found me to be a person of that character,” Mr Dutton responded to Ferguson.
When it was suggested that his “political momentum was slipping away”, Dutton accused Ferguson of bias and taking cues from left-wing online publications such as the Guardian.
“Of course not, because it was a fabrication and a selfish comment.”
“I think the Australian public has left that era behind them. I lead an opposition party that is more united than any other party in recent political history, on both sides of politics.”
Mr Dutton had declined to take part in Nemesis, which tracks the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison Coalition governments.