ABC Journo Barrie Cassidy Asks Clive Palmer If He’s “The Loosest Unit In Parliament” On ‘Insiders’
No one tell the ABC what "loose unit" means.
It was the twittley-twoo heard ’round the world:
Clive Palmer’s video message to now-former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop has worked a treat. Bishop resigned the Speakership yesterday afternoon, presumably to dedicate herself to the task of expunging the image of a wild-eyed Palmer saying the words “goodbye” and “Bronwyn” in every conceivable order at a steadily-increasing volume from her subconscious.
Bizarrely, Bishop’s resignation makes Palmer’s crazy Goodbye videos two-for-two in the prediction stakes: his first one was aimed at former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, who managed to lose government in his first term despite having almost every single seat in state Parliament. His follow-up effort, which went online on Thursday, has been watched 160,000 times, because that’s what happens when an elected Member of Parliament goes slightly mad and films it on his smartphone.
People’s feelings on the whole thing were ably summed up by this searingly insightful comment left below the original video on Palmer’s Facebook:
That is clearly a popular claim, as well as a very interesting one. Whether or not Palmer is in fact Parliament’s loosest unit is genuinely up for debate: those videos and the fact that he’s a mining billionaire dinosaur park enthusiast put him in the running, but he hasn’t threatened to kill any celebrity’s dogs, slapped on a pair of speed dealer sunnies on request, or bitten into a single raw onion.
But regardless of the answer, it may be one of the most important questions of the modern political era. Which is presumably why Insiders host, former Labor Prime Ministerial press secretary and respected ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy asked Palmer about it when he interviewed him on the show yesterday:
It’s probable that Cassidy isn’t aware of the true meaning of ‘loose unit’, and simply assumed it meant something like ‘idiot’ or ‘unpredictable’. Probable. But not certain. Only in Australia could a senior political journalist be induced to ask a prominent politician whether his behaviour is akin to that of a Darude music video.