ABC presenter Patricia Karvelas criticizes the opposition for their mixed messages while offering an ‘EASY’ solution for the confused party: ‘Get a Whatsapp!’
- Political, business and union leaders prepare to attend the September employment summit
- Opposition party leaders send mixed signals about going to jobs summit
- The Liberal leader called the summit a “gimmick” while the Nationals leader wants to go
- Patricia Karvelas of ABC jokes that the opposition needed a Whatsapp to to coordinate
An ABC presenter mocked the opposition’s confusion over whether they want to go to the next jobs summit, suggesting they need to connect to the Whatsapp group messaging service to sort it out.
The Albanian government’s high-level skills and employment summit will take place in September and will feature political, business and trade union leaders.
Over the week there were mixed messages from the opposition with Liberal leader Peter Dutton calling the summit “a gimmick” but Nationals leader David Littleproud saying he would go if invited.
ABC radio host and political commentator Patricia Karvelas suggests that the opposition needs access to the Whatsapp group messaging service to work out a consistent response to the upcoming employment summit.
ABC radio host Patricia Karvelas said opposition parties had given mixed responses to the labor summit since it was announced and needed to act together.
“I do this prank all the time and I think it’s really funny, just get a WhatsApp group,” Karvelas suggested to the opposition while appearing on ABC’s Insiders show.
‘”What’s our line?” I mean it’s very easy. You can actually organize this quite easily. “What are we saying here? Shall we go?”
Karvelas noted that when the summit was first announced, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor was “demanding a seat at the table”, but since then both Mr Dutton and Deputy Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley , had described the meeting as a “trick”.
Only 100 seats are up for grabs for the meeting at Canberra’s Parliament House on September 1-2.
Liberal leader Peter Dutton called the jobs summit, scheduled for September, a “trick with the unions”.
With Mr. Dutton absent, the Greens will take his seat.
Karvelas said Dutton was taking a political risk by not attending because it might indicate he was not interested in participating in big national talks.
“The BCA (Business Council of Australia) will be there, big business will be there, it’s not just the unions as he says,” Karvelas said.
“It’s actually a more diverse group, so you don’t want to send a signal that you’re not interested in participating.”
The jobs summit is set to address critical worker shortages in some industries, as well as discuss a possible overhaul of the company bargaining system.
However, the union’s top body, the ACTU, has suggested a broader agenda to reshape the economy by having the government regulate prices and scrapping tax cuts for the wealthy.
Nationals leader David Littleproud said he would go to jobs if asked because rural and regional Australia “needs a strong voice”.
During the week, Mr Dutton called the summit a “trick with the unions”.
“We will support all kinds of good government policies … but we are not going to support gimmicks,” he said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he appreciated the unions’ ideas but they were not government policy.
Littleproud said it was “unfortunate” that he was not invited.
However, Littleproud said that, if asked, he would attend because regional and rural Australia “needed a strong voice” to represent it.
Australia’s critical shortage of workers in some industries will be one of the topics discussed at the jobs summit.
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