JA’s old joke isn’t news

FORMER Bennelong MP John Alexander’s old joke isn’t news; it’s a dirty trick from the ALP and the media fell for it.

Right from the start, the “joke” was obviously offensive and if he had said it as an MP it would have been the modern definition of a scandal.

But let’s look at the facts. It happened 22 years ago when he was the referee on a TV show called Gladiators. It was clearly said at a private party at a pub which apparently was attended by people who worked on the show.

But the reason it’s not news, is because the video is old, very old. In fact it had been on YouTube since 2011. Funny how it never came up when he re-contested the seat he won in 2010 in 2013 or in 2016.

The video was used by Labor to send a not so subtle dog whistle to Bennelong’s large Asian community that he is an old school racist.

Alexander may be many things, but he’s not a racist.

Labor is throwing everything at this seat, not just because they’d like the prize, but because if they can slice his close to 10% margin it will scare the more than 40 government MPs who hold their seat by less than 10%.

Even if they cut his winning margin by half to just 5% that would mean 23 government MPs would lose their seats too at an election. That’s more than enough people to panic and dump Turnbull at the first chance they get.

Why are we still paying Xenophon to pull the strings in the Senate?

IT’S a disgrace that we are still paying for Nick Xenophon even though he’s quit the Senate.

This week we learnt he’s taken up a job as a staffer for the man who replaced him in the Senate. He’s getting paid $1500 a week to work for Senator Rex Patrick.

Does anyone believe Xenophon is taking orders from anyone, let alone the senator he hand-picked to replace him?

Xenophon claims he will quit the new job in the “coming weeks”, but that’s not the point.

Can you imagine the outrage if Clive Palmer did it, or god forbid Pauline Hanson did if she left her job as a senator for One Nation?

Yet again, we see the press gallery give Xenophon a free pass. This is beyond red hot and should be seen as such by reporters who know better.

Can we just watch cricket without feeling guilty?

THE diversity police are going after Channel Nine for its cricket commentary team.

Twitter went into full outrage mode when a photo of the team was posted to promote the Ashes. All the usual rubbish about too many white people and no women on the team lead one scribe to pen a long piece about male privilege and took the line-up as an insult to our wonderfully successful women’s team.

What crap. The team always has and always should be made up of former captains and champions who know the game better than anyone else.

Is there a role for women? Absolutely. Should they have someone from the visiting nation? Of course. But we are into the silly season when we start picking people on their skin colour or gender rather than their ability to call the game.

Paul Murray is a broadcaster at Sky News who can be seen on Paul Murray LIVE, Monday to Friday at 9-11pm AEDT. Joining Paul this Monday night on the program are Paul Murray LIVE regulars Janine Perrett, Graham Richardson and Ross Cameron.