ABC's Annabel Crabb sparks fierce debate over bold election night fashion statement alongside Antony Green: 'What is she wearing?'
ABC's veteran political journalist Annabel Crabb has shocked viewers on election night over her choice of tie.
During the evening's coverage of 'Australia Votes', Crabb joined a panel of pundits on Saturday evening as the polling centres closed along the east coast.
But some viewers were less concerned with exit poll results, taking to social media to comment on the journalist's choice of attire, namely her strange tie.
The formal suit was paired with a large pink tie that created a ripple shape and, on camera, looked to be made of a material similar to leather.
'What's going on with Annabel Crabb's tie? Is it made of leather?' someone asked on X, zooming in on the item of clothing.
This was echoed by another: 'What the f*** is Annabel Crabb wearing around her neck?'
One viewer compared the offending garment to an 'ox tongue' while another joked: 'Must be very cold in the ABC studios.'
'Annabel Crabb is forced to wear a hot water bottle across her chest.'
Australians are anxiously waiting to hear who will lead the nation for the next three years, with polls closed on the east coast, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
The first official exit poll has already indicated that Labor is on track for another three years in office.
But independents and Greens' preferences could push it in Labor's favour in some keys seats.
But one Queensland senator, James McGrath, has claimed he doesn't think Australia will know who the PM is during the night.
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The Guardian
15 hours ago
- The Guardian
WA senator Dorinda Cox accuses Greens of being ‘deeply racist' and says ‘I am not a bully'
The former Greens senator Dorinda Cox has accused the Greens of being 'deeply racist' and insisted that she has never been a bully. Cox, a Noongar Yamatji woman and Western Australian senator, announced last Monday she had defected to Labor, saying her views were more closely aligned with Labor than the Greens. In a resignation letter sent to Greens leader Larissa Waters' office on Tuesday night, Cox claimed the party had 'cultural problems they refuse to acknowledge or address' and that she had experienced an 'unremitting campaign of bullying and dishonest claims'. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'I have seen and survived trauma, discrimination and harassment in previous work environments. I have seen the impact of psycho social violence on my family and my community. I am not, and have never been, a bully. I do not perpetrate it,' she said. Cox has been the subject of a number of workplace behaviour complaints, as first reported by the Nine newspapers last October. At the time, the WA senator apologised for 'the distress this may have caused' but said there had been 'significant missing context' in the reports of bullying allegations within her office. Cox said in her letter that at the time she resigned, there were no grievances pending against her in the party's conflict resolution process, and none had been put to her during the period she was a senator. 'The Greens failed me as its last First Nations MP, and continue to fail First Nations people,' Cox wrote. 'In my experience, the Greens tolerate a culture that permits violence against First Nations women within its structures. In this respect, the party is deeply racist. 'Instead of dealing with its toxic culture, the Greens sought to shut me down. The Greens failed in their duty of care for my staff and me, and disregarded the reported and obvious impact of what was occurring.' Cox accused the federal and Western Australian Greens' leadership for embracing 'untrue' claims and amplifying them. The WA Greens announced an external inquiry into grievances it received against Cox in mid-January by former staff members within the party after the allegations were publicly reported. The inquiry has now ceased. The WA Greens said 'the co-convenors of Greens (WA) went to great lengths to ensure the process was culturally safe and delivered due process to all parties'. An Australian Greens spokesperson said the claims were 'disappointing' and ignored the 'substantive work undertaken by the party to find a resolution to the complaints made both by and against Senator Cox, and to address the breakdown in her relationship with Greens' First Nations members'. 'As the IPSC [Independent Parliamentary Standards Committee] and PWSS [Parliamentary Workplace Support Service] are the bodies created by Parliament to address complaints from staff, they can continue to investigate ongoing matters. This is unchanged by the senator's decision to move to a party that continues to destroy First Nations cultural history through approving coal and gas projects.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Anthony Albanese was asked about historical bullying complaints against Cox last Monday. The prime minister said Labor had 'examined everything that had been considered in the past' and felt that the 'issues were dealt with appropriately'. In October 2024, Cox said she took responsibility for 'any shortcomings' in her office and apologised for any distress that may have been caused but said there had been 'significant missing context' in the reports of bullying allegations within her office. Cox said she had an 'immense amount of respect and gratitude to my team who prepare and support me for the work I undertake' and that she had 'always taken a proactive approach to staff wellbeing, including my own' and had undertaken executive coaching and mentoring from former MPs. Cox's former colleague, Lidia Thorpe, revealed last week she was one of the people to complain to the parliamentary watchdog about Cox, disputing Albanese's claim that allegations about Cox had been 'dealt with'. Thorpe, a former Greens senator who is now independent, said she raised a complaint against Cox in late 2022 to the Greens' leader's office and PWSS. Thorpe formally submitted the complaint to the PWSS in March 2023. Thorpe said on Wednesday her case remained unresolved because Cox declined to attend a mediation. Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung senator, told ABC on Wednesday morning she had also experienced racism in the Greens. 'There's a lot of work that the Greens and many other organisations need to do to stamp [racism] out, particularly the parliament of this country,' she said.
The Guardian
16 hours ago
- The Guardian
Flying shoes, a viral BLM speech and that leather jacket: Q+A's most memorable moments
After 18 years, the national broadcasters flagship program, Q+A, is dead. ABC confirmed the axing on Wednesday, a day after staff were warned of cuts. The ABC's news director, Justin Stevens, said it was time for the broadcaster to 'rethink how audiences want to interact and to evolve how we can engage with the public to include as many Australians as possible in national conversations'. The weekly discussion program was launched in 2007 by executive producer Peter McEvoy and host Tony Jones, and in its early years was highly influential, regularly making headlines and setting the news agenda. Let's reflect on some of its most memorable moments. Actor Meyne Wyatt's powerful monologue, in June 2020 at the height of global Black Lives Matter protests, recounted his experiences across the spectrum of racism – from micro-aggressions to outright hatred. 'Silence is violence. Complacency is complicity. I don't want to be quiet. I don't want to be humble. I don't want to sit down,' so part of his speech, pulled from his semi-autobiographical play, City of Gold, went. It racked up more than three million views, and saw him included on 2021's Time100 Next list of emerging leaders. 'It was last minute; George Floyd had died, #BlackLivesMatter was at its height. Q+A wanted to focus on the treatment of Aboriginal people here,' Meyne told Guardian Australia in 2022. 'I was aware I was representing – I had to bring it.' An audience member hurled his shoes at John Howard, the former prime minister who signed Australia up to the Iraq war, after demanding he defend his decision to send 2,000 troops to support the US-led 2003 invasion. 'That's for the Iraqi dead!' Peter Gray shouted as he flung the shoes during a 2010 episode of the program. Gray was then escorted from the studio. Howard had a close relationship with George W Bush and Australia was one of the first countries to commit troops to Bush's 'coalition of the willing'. 'I thought it was justified,' Howard said during the broadcast. 'I think there were errors made after the military operation ended. I think there were too few troops and I think a mistake was made in disbanding the Iraqi army. But I will continue to defend … the original decision on the basis on which it was taken.' At that point, Gray stood up and threw his shoes – mimicking the shoe-throwing protest against Bush in Baghdad in 2009. A criminologist and former detective in the audience lectured politicians in 2024 for failing women and putting politics above the reality of deaths caused by domestic violence. 'How dare you! How dare you go into politics, in an environment like this, when one woman is murdered every four days, and all you … can do is immediately talk about politics? That is just disgraceful,' Vincent Hurley said to federal senators Murray Watt and Bridget McKenzie, and NSW opposition leader Mark Speakman. 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From 'being the feminist for our times, to end up talking like that for cheap laughs about another woman was a really sad thing,' Gillard said in 2014. Q+A became the most complained about ABC program of 2023, with a single November episode on the war in Gaza receiving almost 1,000 complaints, most of which accused the show of pro-Israel bias. That episode was particularly sensitive, host Patricia Karvelas had said at the start, and was recorded without a live studio audience, and with heavy police presence outside. The tense episode featured Labor MP Tim Watts, former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma, Israel & Jewish Affairs Council chair, Mark Leibler, Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president, Nasser Mashni, and UN special rapporteur, Francesca Albanese. After the program, Albanese told Crikey the standard of Australia's media discourse was 'very basic'. Many viewers accused Karvelas on social media of not questioning members of the panel – especially Mashni and Albanese – fairly, or giving them equal time to speak. An investigation by the ABC's ombudsman said the episode presented highly polarising views in a fair and balanced way. The program as a whole received 2,100 complaints in 2023, according to ABC's ombudsman. Audience member Duncan Storrar laid out his situation in 2016: 'You're gonna lift the tax-free threshold for rich people. If you lift my tax-free threshold, that changes my life. That means that I get to say to my little girls, 'Daddy's not broke this weekend. We can go to the pictures'.' His question to then assistant treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer continued: 'I've got a disability and a low education, that means I've spent my whole life working for minimum wage … Rich people don't even notice their tax-free threshold lift. 'Why don't I get it? Why do they get it?' The part-time truck driver then became the focus of savage media coverage, particularly in the Newscorp press. ABC broadcaster Jon Faine grilled the outlet on its 'value system'. Many rallied online in support of Storrar, who thanked them, but told ABC's Media Watch, 'I didn't want this'. National director of lobby group GetUp!, Simon Sheikh, lost consciousness live on air in 2012. He slumped over the desk, before sitting back up after a few seconds and being helped off stage. He later posted that he was in hospital. Labor's climate change minister at the time, Greg Combet, rushed over to help. Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella, sitting right next to Sheikh, looked on in surprise and was criticised on social media for her reaction. GetUp! urged people to stop criticising her. 'It was an extraordinary circumstance and everyone was shocked,' the group said in a statement shared online. Mirabella said later: 'I thought initially he was just bent over laughing, because that's what you see, and turned around to try and get a better look and I – like everyone else on the panel – was just stunned.' Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Jacqui Lambie clashed in 2017, after the Tasmanian senator said all Muslims who supported sharia law should be deported from Australia, in a Trump-style ban. The author and Youth Without Borders founder responded that she was frustrated by uninformed comments about Islam, and that people were 'willing to completely negate any of my rights as a human being, a woman, as a person with agency simply because they have an idea about what my faith is about'. Lambie said: 'There is one law in this country and it is the Australian law … it is not sharia law, not in this country. Not in my day.' To which Abdel-Magied protested: 'You don't know anything about my religion,' adding that Islam specified the precedence of 'the law of the land that you are on'. Then-host Tony Jones had to intervene: 'Can I say, shouting at each other does not help. So please stop.' Lambie told Abdel-Magied to 'stop playing the victim. Your ban got lifted, get over it.' Abdel-Magied later wrote about the furious public response to her comments, describing herself as 'the most publicly hated Muslim in Australia'. A pro-Putin member of the audience was dramatically booted out of the studio in 2022 by then host Stan Grant after he asked a pro-Russia question. The audience member asked: 'As someone who comes from the Russian community here in Australia, I've been pretty outraged by the narrative created by our media depicting the Ukraine as 'the good guy' and Russia as 'the bad guy'.' 'Believe it or not, there are a lot of Russians here and around the world that support what Putin is doing in the Ukraine, myself included. Since 2014, the Ukrainian government together with Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion have besieged the Russian populations in the Donbas killing an estimated 13,000 people according to the United Nations,' he went on, prompting shouts of 'lies' from the audience. 'My question is: where was your outpouring of grief and concern for those thousands of mostly Russians?' Grant corrected the figures, noting the UN figure referred to the number of people killed in the conflict on both sides to date, and after a brief discussion the program moved on to other issues. But a few minutes later, he brought the conversation back: 'Something has been bothering me, I have to admit … people here have been talking about family who are suffering and people who are dying. You supported what's happening, hearing that people are dying. Can I just say – I'm just not comfortable with you being here. Could you please leave?' The audience applauded, as the audience member initially resisted, then left the studio. Grant said the question was not vetted by producers. The pro-Russian audience member said it was 'not true' the question was unvetted, but that he had made an 'addition' when asking it. Malcolm Turnbull's famous leather jacket made frequent appearances with the former prime minister on the Q+A panel. When Turnbull appeared on Q+A without the jacket, it made headlines. He later auctioned it for charity on eBay and raised $1,800 for Sydney's Wayside Chapel.
The Herald Scotland
19 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Spirit of Tasmania ferry scandal threatens to sink government
For six months, the Tasmanian Government has wrestled with its decision spend £450m on two new ferries to link it with Australia, despite not having ports large enough to accommodate them. In a startling mirror-image of Scotland's own ferry fiasco, costs to build the both the dual-fuel ferries and their berths have ballooned since the plan was laid down – and now the ports are not expected to be ready till next year at the earliest. Since December, one of the ferries – Spirit of Tasmania IV – has languished at the Port of Leith in Edinburgh, at a cost of £22,000 per week to the Tasmanian taxpayer. And this week the bill came due for the state's Liberal premier Jeremy Rockliff, who faced the collapse of his 'rainbow coalition' and lost a no confidence vote, with the ferries one of several reasons he had lost the faith of parliament. In October, the scandal cost the frontbench position of the government's Treasurer and Deputy Premier Tasmanian Liberal Michael Ferguson. Tasmania's ferry fiasco is not too dissimilar to Scotland's woes (Image: Jane Barlow) Now the state stands poised to head to the polls if a new deal cannot be worked out and a replacement for Mr Rockcliff be found. Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Spirit of Tasmania in Scotland isn't going anywhere soon. While Spirit IV was docked at Leith, its state-owned operator, TT-Line, searched for an someone to lease it until the port was completed in Tasmania. But negotiations collapsed in early March. The state government told TT-Line to bring Spirit IV back to Tasmania and it was due to depart on 26 May, before being delayed by poor weather. During that time, engineers found technical problems with the ship's liquefied natural gas systems. 'The government is awaiting further details in relation to a new expected departure date, but it is understood that this work will take some time,' the state's transport minister, Eric Abetz, said last week. READ MORE: Huge fiasco ship mothballed in Scotland at a cost of £23k a week 'Farcical': Newly-built ferry to be mothballed in Edinburgh 'for two years' When questioned about the delays in parliament, Abetz accused the Labor opposition of 'talking [the ferry] down all the time'. 'I say thank goodness for the weather, because she might have been well into the deep oceans and then suffer a mechanical issue, the full extent of which I am not appraised of,' Abetz said. 'We want to make sure the ship is safe and, even more importantly, the crew is safe. We will do whatever is necessary to ensure the protection of the crew.' However, the ship has become something of a tourist attraction in Edinburgh, despite its status as a national embarrassment Down Under. Ian Stirling, who founded a whisky distillery right next to where the Spirit of Tasmania is docked, told the Guardian his long-term nautical neighbour has delivered patrons, with a side of political drama.
