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“It’s something that we experience every day in the Australian media. So I think the journalists are there to try to keep politicians accountable, and they’re entitled to ask difficult questions,” she told Seven’s Sunrise.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers also backed Lyons, saying: “Journalists have a job to do and as far as I can tell, that journalist was just doing his job in Washington, DC.”
The president appeared to confirm a long-speculated meeting with Albanese during his exchange with Lyons, saying: “You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you. You set a very bad tone.”
The prime minister will fly to New York on Saturday to attend the United Nations General Assembly, where Australia will formally recognise a Palestinian state.
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The opposition has consistently criticised Albanese for not securing a meeting with the president. The leaders have spoken on the phone multiple times.
“The president and our prime minister enjoy a really warm relationship,” O’Neil said. “They’re working it through and intending to meet.”
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, also speaking on Sunrise, said confirmation of the meeting was “the scoop of the year” from the ABC, and backed O’Neil’s statement on journalists’ rights.
“There is going to be a meeting between President Trump and Anthony Albanese, which is great news,” McKenzie said. “In the home of free speech, there’s nothing wrong with journalists asking tough questions.”
But Canavan, McKenzie’s Nationals colleague, said he was not “worked up” about Trump’s remarks and questioned why an Australian journalist was investigating the Trump administration.
“I don’t want my taxpayer dollars going … to an Australian journalist to go over to the US and do all this stuff. [The ABC] get a billion dollars a year. Enough is enough,” Canavan told Nine’s Today on Wednesday morning.
Canavan claimed the ABC had “been spreading lies about the Trump administration”, citing a 2018 report on the president’s ties to Russia. The broadcaster has stood by the report.
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