No playing favourites with ABC journalists as Dutton vows to slash broadcaster’s ‘waste’

Opposition leader Peter Dutton tightens a giant wheel nut on the campaign trail. Will he tighten the screws on the ABC too if he becomes PM? Photograph: Mick Tsikas/EPA

It’s only week one of the election campaign but Peter Dutton has made it abundantly clear how he feels about the ABC’s funding and its journalists. Pressed repeatedly by 2GB broadcaster Ben Fordham to name his favourite ABC journalist, Dutton came up with no one.

“My favourite ABC journalist, I might have to go back a fair way, Ben, to identify that,” he told the Nine-owned Sydney radio station.