If there’s one thing more reliable than a Murdoch headline claiming Western civilisation is under threat, it’s Sky News finding new and exciting ways to blame Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for absolutely everything, everywhere, all at once.
In what has reached fever-pitch commentary, the network has decided that Albo is personally responsible for diplomatic fumbles, global tension, opposition staffing woes, the disappearance of your recycling bin, and possibly the extinction of bees.
So far, they’ve come up with two favourites: his supposed diplomatic shame at the G7, and his allegedly sluggish response to America’s strikes on Iran. Both have been packaged with Sky’s signature flair for drama, disappointment, and just a hint of post-coal nostalgia.
Let’s take a walk through the list of Albanese’s alleged offences – Sky-style.
G7: Albo Fails to Meet Trump – The Snub Heard Round the Studio
Sky News has been breathlessly lamenting Albanese’s failure to secure a one-on-one with Donald Trump at the G7 summit in June – an omission they’ve painted as a diplomatic death sentence. One host described it as a “brutal snub,” while another suggested Australia had been cast adrift from its most important ally: a man currently in multiple legal battles and who left the G7 early to inspect a golf course bunker.
They’ve conveniently left out Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s statement that the Trump administration regretted the missed meeting and reaffirmed AUKUS commitments. But no matter – according to Sky, if Albo didn’t corner Trump in a hallway and exchange hat pins, the alliance is in ruins.
There’s also the curious subtext that meeting Donald Trump is the gold standard for foreign policy success, which is a bit like saying you’ve nailed diplomacy because you once got a like from Elon Musk.
Iran: A Response, But Not Fast Enough for Sky
When the U.S. launched military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June, Albanese responded – just not quickly enough for Sky, which ran headlines suggesting the Prime Minister had taken a long nap while the world was on fire.
Former PMs Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, apparently on permanent Sky News contributor status, pounced. Abbott, peering sternly over his glasses, declared it “bizarre.” Morrison called it “weak,” possibly forgetting he once vanished to Hawaii during bushfires.
The channel also huffed and puffed about Albanese not immediately convening the national security committee – because, clearly, nothing signals good leadership like calling emergency meetings before you’ve had a full briefing.
The implication? That Albo is asleep at the wheel while history happens. The reality? He responded within a day with a calm, considered statement, rather than firing off a tweetstorm or holding a press conference in hi-vis.
As they used to say in the adverts, “But wait, there’s more.” As an exclusive bonus to AIMN readers Sky News have sent in their not-so-favourite scandals. Reading them is optional.
Meeting Xi Before Trump? Treason, Obviously
Sky took grave offence when Albanese met with Chinese President Xi Jinping before catching up with Trump – suggesting he was “prioritising Beijing over Washington,” as if the PM were playing favourites in the geopolitical schoolyard.
Never mind the timing, diplomacy, or that global leaders often juggle schedules. To Sky, this was evidence that Albanese had sold us out and would soon be offering Mandarin lessons in Parliament.
Staffing Cuts = Dictatorship
Domestically, Albanese’s decision to cut opposition staffing after a supermajority win was branded by Sky as “vindictive,” “arrogant,” and somewhere between Stalin and Darth Vader on the leadership spectrum.
The fact that he had a landslide electoral mandate? Irrelevant. In Skyland, reducing political staff = silencing dissent = democratic collapse. Next stop: thought police.
Albo’s Alleged Vanishing Act
(Missing in Action, or Just Not on Sky’s Timeline)
Finally, there’s the vague but persistent claim that Albanese has been “MIA” since the G7 – pushed on social media and quickly echoed on-air.
Cancelled NATO trip? Lack of a hot-take on the Iran-Israel standoff? Clearly, the Prime Minister has vanished into the Bermuda Triangle of foreign policy. Or – more likely – he just hasn’t been providing the fast-paced performative outrage Sky News seems to crave.
The Sky Cycle: Fire, Rinse, Repeat
The formula is simple: take a moment, strip away context, and shout until someone trends. Wong’s clarification about the G7? Ignored. The complexities of global conflict? Skipped. Australia’s actual diplomatic role? Downplayed.
The Bigger Picture
Sky’s coverage is driven by a clear narrative: Albanese is weak, distracted, possibly left-wing (the horror!), and always just one step away from turning Australia into a People’s Republic.
Emotive language, recycled talking points, and selective outrage are standard tools of the trade. Facts, nuance, and foreign affairs context? Less so.
Dear reader, we need your support
Independent sites such as The AIMN provide a platform for public interest journalists. From its humble beginning in January 2013, The AIMN has grown into one of the most trusted and popular independent media organisations.
One of the reasons we have succeeded has been due to the support we receive from our readers through their financial contributions.
With increasing costs to maintain The AIMN, we need this continued support.
Your donation – large or small – to help with the running costs of this site will be greatly appreciated.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
If Albo stays in Australia, he’s weak and out of touch. If he travels overseas to the likes of the G7, he’s Airbus Albo.
SKY after dark always on the job !
Classic negative PR tactics and to target the centre on sociocultural agitprop while disappearing the right, to try split the centre or ALP vote.
No doubt imported from Fox News on same vs Democrats and anything centrist with input of Koch Network climate science denial & faux free markets, with the Tanton Network anti-immigrant MAGA Tanton Network.
Locally, not only were NewsCorp management in Sydney following Tucker Carlson to infer Murdochs’ strategy, but alleged by NYT & Media Matters (2022) embedded and rampant white Christian nationalism.
The latter includes bigotry, anti-immigrant tropes, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, the great replacement, Soros conspiracy & denigration of Ukraine’s Jewish leader Zelenskyy (for Putin, Trump & Netanyahu).
However, many are muttering that the origins are more pre WWII Weimar era Germany with NSDAP & complicit media targeting the centre via Frankfurt School’s ‘cultural Marxism’ (wink wink Jews &/or the left); fast forward Columbia and other US universities……
News from the sky high sty oinks away its lies and propaganda, unaware that reasonable people know what reeking shit is sold, slanted, slurred, slopped, slagged, for suckers. The old head turd, mighty source of endless misfit filth, hates away, egofixatedly…
Sky News isn’t news, it’s opinion pieces, all of which are as biased as Sky claims the ABC to be. I doubt any one takes Sky News seriously, do they?
I subscribed to Sky once, can’t remember why and soon cancelled but I keep getting their shit. The headlines areenough to encourage me not to read further.
Seriously, who gives a flying fig what Sky (Lie) News has to say on ANY issue? Anyone with an IQ ratio in double digits KNOWS that this despicable, Z-rated Murdoch-owned, totally right-wing biased media is overflowing with talentless, shrieking, racist and misogynistic hacks who have made it their life’s ambition to stoop to any low, low level of deviousness in order to get Murdoch’s elitist “mates” in the LNP across the electoral line! Just inhaling the non-stop, lying, totally right-wing biased and racist crap that spews out of Sky (Lie) News 24:7 is enough to either corrupt one’s mind, make any fair-minded Australian want to heave and/or lower your IQ down to single digits!
Who gives a damn if that megalomaniacal lunatic, Trump, “snubs” Australia. It is doubtful that the intellectual midget, Trump, could locate Australia on a map let alone know, or care, about maintaining a mature, diplomatic relationship with our nation’s Prime Minister. Not only is the born-to-rule fascist, Trump, succeeding in isolating his nation from the world, raving on about invading the Danish protectorate of Greenland, insulting (once) long-standing allies like Australia, the UK and Canada, unbelievably referring to the independent nation of Canada as the 51st State and appearing to have zero respect for the AUKUS Treaty, Trump just gets more irrational as each day goes by! Quite frankly, any intelligent, self-respecting, foresightful and compassionate political leader outside of America would be CRAZY to have ANYTHING to do with Trump! Despite that, Sky (Lie) News seems determined to put the Trump-supporting LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance ahead of all reason and logic in its treacherous concern about a crazed narcissist (Trump) seemingly snubbing our PM when, indeed, Trump is sticking his middle finger up at the whole world! There can be no doubt that Trump ticks every box as a dangerously undemocratic dictator; an arrogant self-promoting narcissist who won’t be happy until he starts Word War 3 for no other valid reason than “just because I can!”
Not only is Trump a shameless, recidivist misogynistic predator with a long-standing, total disrespect for women and has, indeed, proven himself to be a vindictive, mentally unhinged, power-obsessed tyrant, he is an inept SIX TIMES’ BANKRUPT and an unapologetic CONVICTED CRIMINAL with ZERO regard for anything or anyone EXCEPT the egomaniac staring back at himself from his mirror every morning! Trump’s disrespectful, contemptuous snub of Australia’s Prime Minister at the recent G7 Summit is a RED FLAG WARNING as to Trump’s childishly immature, vindictive nature and (undeserved) arrogance against any leader who refuses to either “toe the line” or jump to attention by refusing to submit to Trump’s irrational demands that are tainted with Trump’s self-serving, narcissistic and insular view of the world. Indeed, Trump is mad, bad and very dangerous to everything intelligent, compassionate American, Australian and most European citizens value. Trump has PROVEN himself to be an irrational, divisive, attention-seeking tantrum-throwing intellectual midget who is fully prepared to destroy everything in his playpen (ie the close relationship and respect that American allies ONCE had for America which, tragically, Trump has now negatively impacted for the long term) in order to enforce his ultimate ambition: “It’s either MY way or the highway!”.
If there was EVER an insane, erratic, truly dangerous and totally vacuous political psychopath willing to annihilate everything and everyone who stands in his path to absolute psychotic power, Trump is it! As such, it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that Albanese (and other Australian political leaders) now, indeed, DISTANCE our nation from this irrational sociopath (Trump) and NEVER EVER allow Australia to get involved in another one of America’s dirty little wars again! If the Vietnamese, Iraqi and Syrian wars have taught us ANYTHING, it is that Trump’s twisted version of America can be compared to a big schoolyard bully willing to lord it over smaller nations (including Australia) in order to get what they want and they don’t care how LOW they have to stoop to get it!
Australia must NEVER forget that during WW2, America was quite prepared to allow Hitler to invade Europe and do NOTHING! Hitler was terrorising Europe for more than 2-1/2 years before the United States finally decided to enter World War II … and the ONLY reason the United States officially entered the war on December 11, 1941, was because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The fact is that America stood by, watched and DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to assist Australia (supposedly an ally) whilst the Japanese army marched down the Malay peninsular and reached Darwin! Indeed, the Japanese army even managed to invade Sydney when they launched a midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour during World War II. On the night of May 31st to June 1st, 1942, three Japanese midget submarines entered the harbor in an attempt to attack Allied warships, including the cruisers HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago – and the Americans seemingly didn’t give a damn – so much for American “loyalty” to its so-called allies, eh? Despite this treacherous betrayal of Australia by a disloyal and ungrateful America during WW2, the Australian government (the LNP at the time who proved themselves to be crawling American sycophants) were willing to later sacrifice the lives of countless Australian soldiers during the American-led wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and its illegal invasion of Iraq and Syria!
If the Australian government is foolish enough to align our nation with the treacherous, thoroughly disloyal Donald Trump, we are supporting a dangerously undemocratic, backstabbing psychopath who not only maintains a condescending contempt for Australia – and other nations that America ONCE considered allies – but are supporting a dangerous, self-serving and inherently corrupt tyrant with ZERO moral fibre who has neither the compassion nor intelligence to control his EGO which is now so stratospheric, it requires an oxygen mask! Indeed, if the serial adulterer, Trump, is prepared to betray his own wife over and over again, where do you think Australia stands in relation to Trump’s #1 Priority which, of course, is himself and his worrying level of undemocratic, fascist power.
Katie, are you suggesting that I shouldn’t have published this piece?
Roswell ??? Whereabouts in my comment does it suggest you shouldn’t have published your article? Actually, everything I have stated 100% agrees with your views on the malignant, blatantly right-wing biased Sky News and, most certainly, condemns everything that is so dangerous and heinous about Trump.
Murdoch Media Manipulation Monopoly does not report news , it creates entertainment for their audiences, that are falling because in these times credible objective opinion is only found on citizen wbesites like AIMN.
.
Note the changes last week at Sty TV with the slashing of the so-called ”news delivered differently”support programme of 17 excruciating years duration. When we want American style rubbish we can find it on the Internet!!