Culture

Karl Stefanovic Forced Christopher Pyne To Change A Tyre To Prove He’s A “Fixer” On The Today Show This Morning

He actually did pretty well!

by Maddie James  20 March 2015

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In the midst of all the onion-eating/Nazi referencing Liberal Party antics this week, you might have missed Education Minister Christopher Pyne announce plans to remove funding for 1700 research jobs. And then tell Sky News the very next day that the jobs were no longer at risk, because of how great a “fixer” he is. What a champion.

Naturally, it fell to Australian hero Karl Stefanovic to sort him out. In a segment on the Today show this morning with Labor MP Anthony Albanese, Mr Pyne began to defend his new title: “I fixed the curriculum, fixing teacher training, fixing independent public schooling, fixing parental engagement in schools, I mean the list is endless.” Stefanovic couldn’t resist, leading him to the carpark outside Channel Nine Studios to prove his worth as “fixer” of Australia’s education system by changing newsreader Sylvia Jeffreys’ car tyre. If you’re questioning why an elected official would do this, you’re clearly not familiar with how weird breakfast television is at quarter past six in the morning.

“How good are you at fixing things?” Karl asked. “What I’ve got prepared here for you is to put this tyre back on Sylvia’s car. All you need to do is put the tyre on.” Pyne eventually succeeded, but not without delivering some typically Pyne-esque comments: “There’s only one nut there. I had a ram with one nut called Bosun. He was extremely successful.” This is why other countries make fun of us, guys.

Anthony Albanese stood by watching, doing “absolutely f-all” according to Pyne, and throwing shade at every opportunity. After Pyne asked loudly “where are the nuts?”, Albanese fired back, “Not the first time he’s said that.” Seriously, early morning breakfast television defies all rules of logic.

And since he might not be able to deliver on his university deregulation plan, at least he might be able to get some more fixing in later on.