Politics

Everyone’s Taking The Piss Out Of Michaelia Cash For Hiding Behind A Whiteboard

Cash me outside.

by Max Koslowski  2 March 2018

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Michaelia Cash has had a tough past couple of days.

On Wednesday the Liberal senator from Western Australia and Minister for Jobs made some pretty bizarre comments about female staffers in Bill Shorten’s office:

“I’m happy to sit here and name every young woman in Mr Shorten’s office about which rumours in this place abound,” Cash said in a Senate Estimates hearing. “If you want to go down that path today I will do it.”

“Do you want me to start naming them and have Mr Shorten deny any of the rumours that have been circulating in this building now for many, many years? Dangerous path to go down and you know it.”

After a clanger like that, it’s understandable that a politician would want to avoid the media. But no one thought Cash would go to the lengths she went to: she literally hid behind a whiteboard to avoid journalists.

But unfortunately for Cash, the stunt only fed the media. And it produced some interesting, and very funny, results.

Sky News host Paul Murray actually started his nightly show from behind a whiteboard, as part of his criticism of Cash’s tactics.

Cash Whiteboard

EDITORIAL: When they are bringing out the whiteboards politics has jumped the shark.#pmlive 9-11pm AEDT Sky News Australia

Posted by Paul Murray LIVE on Thursday, 1 March 2018

“This way I’ll be able to be on this side of the whiteboard, you’ll be on that side of the whiteboard, and neither of us will know what’s going on. Seriously, this is what Australian politics was today,” Murray said.

To be honest, I prefer his show with the whiteboard blocking him from view.

But once Murray slid the whiteboard to the side, he actually made a really good point:

“There’s only one thing you should do – and that’s apologise,” he said. “And yet again, we get ourselves into a scenario where what should be a two hour story, becomes a 48 hour carry on, that will become a 72 hour scandal.”

Others in the media also had fun mocking #whiteboardgate. Ewin Hannan of The Australian uploaded this whiteboard dress rehearsal to Twitter:

Even federal ministers are piling on – this morning, Christopher Pyne told Nine that Cash should do without the whiteboard next time.

“People should put their whiteboards away and go through the normal process,” Pyne said.

What a mess.