Politics

Here’s A Clip Of Bill Shorten Asking A Grown Adult Man If He’s Enjoying His School Holidays

Oh, Bill.

by Joseph Earp  17 April 2019
Bill Shorten asks a grown man if he's having a good school holidays

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If you’re Bill Shorten, you have a pretty straightforward path to an election victory come May 18.

After all, the Liberals have spent the last few years making a concerted effort to tear themselves into absolute tatters. When they’re not squabbling with each other, they’re making accidental racist faux pas or just generally slinking down the polls.

But if you are indeed Bill Shorten, you’re also hampered by a significant hurdle. That being the fact that sometimes you struggle to talk to other human beings without coming across like a robot.

Case in point: please feast your eyes on this video of Shorten asking a fully grown man how he is enjoying his school holidays, which is art.

A few things right off the bat. I suppose, if you were feeling generous, you could argue that Shorten assumed that the man was the father to a school-aged child. But that line of defence: A) makes the video less funny, and thus sucks, and B) means that Shorten reckons that having your kids home from school with you is a great source of joy, rather than the unending nightmare all parents know that it is.

Anyway, the real meat of the video isn’t only in Shorten’s question — it’s also in the incredible back and forth that follows it.

SHORTEN: Hope you’re having an okay school holidays. [Laughs awkwardly.]

FULLY-GROWN MAN: Uh, yeah, well, doesn’t affect me. So —

SHORTEN: Nah, I know. I get that.

“I get that.” What does he get? That fully-grown men don’t attend school? Okay. Well then why’d he ask after the man’s school holidays no less than three seconds ago? Is he backflipping that fast?

Look, it’s that, or he’s giving the archetypal non-commital response that you offer up whenever you have no idea what someone’s just said to you — pleasant laughter, followed by inoffensive word salad.

Either way: what a video.

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