Finally, after five and a half weeks of incredibly dull electioneering, Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday delivered the campaign moment we all needed — no, deserved — when, just days after referring to himself as a “bit of a bulldozer”, he crash-tackled a young boy into the ground during a game of soccer in Tasmania.
The seven-year-old boy, who plays under-eights in the Devonport City Soccer Club, was unharmed. And look, as far as tackles go, Morrison did a pretty solid job of protecting him, as the endless hours of footage I’ve watched on social media will show (arm behind the back, twist to take most of the fall, etc etc). But what wasn’t fine was the Australian internet. It went off like, well, like a PM at an under-eights soccer training session!
First off, the moment was instantly memefied, with the Greens coming in hot…
… and the Young Libs proving that while they may get the benefits of intergenerational wealth, they sure as hell don’t get memes.
Then came the lists of all the things Morrison won’t tackle:
And plenty of takes on how, sure, it was an accident, but it still shows a very icky side of Morrison that kinda makes people’s skin crawl:
Next up we got the theories: that Morrison tackled a small child to distract Australia from Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese’s address to the National Press Club. That would’ve been a weird strategy meeting.
The headlines followed pretty quickly. And props to every publication that got “bulldozer” into the headline, but the winner goes to Gizmodo for this one: Australia’s Weirdo Prime Minister Tackles Child to the Ground, Birthing New Meme.
But the coverage didn’t stop there — and now we get to the truly icky party of the situation. Acting Minister for Education Stuart Robert (a man who has a few things to tackle as well) fronted up on Radio National this morning and was asked about the tackle. His response perfectly encapsulated the Coalition’s attitude to blame-shifting, as he described the event as “an error by both of them”.
Yes, according to the man in charge of education in this country, the seven-year-old was equally to blame for being tackled to the ground by a full-grown man during a casual training session in a non-contact sport. Righto.
But all ick and reactions aside, the whole saga really does bring up one very important question for the opposition leader: if Albanese can’t tackle a small child, how will he tackle China!?
