Watch your back Alec Baldwin, Malcolm Turnbull‘s coming for your job.
At this year’s Mid Winter Ball, where the party leaders famously poke fun at themselves and other politicians, the Prime Minister impersonated Donald Trump and their meeting in New York last month.
The ball, which is packed with journalists and politicians, is meant to be off-the-record, but veteran reporter Laurie Oakes broke the story because he couldn’t care less about “protocol”.
“The PM presumably thought Mr Trump would never find out because journalists attending the ball are supposed to agree not to report what happens,” he explained.
“But I don’t go to the ball, and an audio tape has just happened to leak.”
The speech, in which Turnbull joked about Trump having “this Russian guy” to help him win polls, has taken the American media by storm – probably just because they’re excited they get to use Aussie slang.
The Hollywood Reporter started their story with “Strewth, this is awkward”, while the New York Post went for the classic, “By crikey, an audio recording of the Australian prime minister mocking President Trump was leaked”.
The House of Cards Twitter also got in on the action.
If you think the PM is stressed by a late night barrage of tweets you are sorely mistaken.
Speaking to Melbourne radio station 3AW yesterday afternoon, Mr Turnbull insisted he’d stick to reading out sections from the Budget papers instead at next year’s Mid Winter Ball — “that’ll pack ’em in”.
Joe Hockey, Australia’s ambassador to the US, was straight on the jokes as well.
“No, the administration hasn’t rung us up and I haven’t been hauled into the White House and been sent back to Australia … so far as I’m aware — although I saw a series of black cars outside,” Mr Hockey reportedly said.
Despite Trump’s tendency to be quite, er, sensitive, the US Embassy in Canberra told News Corp Australia they weren’t worried about the speech.
“We understand that last night’s event is equivalent to our own White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”
“We take this with the good humour that was intended.”
Interesting to note that Trump skipped out on said White House Correspondent’s Dinner this year – the first president to do so in 36 years. Even Ronald Regan spoke at the event via telephone, and he’d been shot days earlier, so he might not be a fan of getting publicly roasted…
However, there’s been some talk that it was Bill Shorten’s office that leaked the video.
“Bill Shorten will have to clarify today whether it is true that his office was behind leaking those secret recordings and if so why had they thought that it was a good idea to do so,” said Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.
But Bill isn’t having any of it.
“This is completely wrong,” a spokesman said in a statement. “Senator Cormann should apologise for this disgraceful lie.”
And just like that, a funny speech descends to Australian politics’ typical dramatic rhetoric.
Let’s face it, Australia’s recent track record with keeping a PM for a whole term isn’t great. So at least ~~when~~ if Turnbull gets overthrown, he’s already filmed an audition tape for Saturday Night Live.
