#fail: Turnbull coup sends state Libs into Twitter meltdown
Malcolm Turnbull’s dramatic coup might have been a social media sensation but it appears to have sent the state Liberal Party into a Twitter meltdown.
John Gardner, Opposition Police spokesman and partyroom whip, last night sent a colleague some stern direction on how to spin the federal ructions.
The problem was, he inadvertently posted the missive on Twitter instead.
“Be careful in your presentation about the federal spill,” he tweeted.
“Lots of our party members find the leadership change deeply confronting.”
In a separate tweet that begins mid-sentence, he appears to urge that while the matter is a “decision for us, to be sure”, state party members should “be a touch cautious”.
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Gardner sheepishly told InDaily this morning that he was trying to “send a private SMS to a party member who was being a bit ebullient, and accidentally sent it to my Twitter SMS”.
He immediately discovered his mistake “when it sent me a ‘we have put your tweet up’ message”, and promptly deleted the posts.
Gardner shrugged off the social media fail, blaming “clumsy fingers” and saying: “The thing people say these days is: ‘It is what it is.’”
“It was a private SMS,” he said, emphasising that the intended recipient was a party member but not an MP.
“I was giving advice to a friend.”
Social media was alight with delighted SA Liberal sympathisers on Monday night, with one former staffer to a moderate-wing MP taking to Facebook to declare: “Woohoo! Malcolm Turnbull is finally PM of Australia.”
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State Liberal backbencher Vincent Tarzia was a bit ebullient himself on Twitter as the coup unfolded on Monday.
As the Canberra press gallery awaited word from the embattled Tony Abbott after Turnbull’s stunning challenge, the MP for Hartley tweeted: “SkyNews and popcorn”.
It’s understood he realised the error of his ways and deleted the insensitive post even before a stern reminder from state leader Steven Marshall’s office.
But not before it was spied by the SA Labor Party’s official Twitter account moderator, who fired back: “Glad you’re enjoying this. With the leaks coming out of the SA Libs, you might get a front row seat soon.”
Both Gardner and Tarzia are protégés of the Liberal Party’s moderate wing, whose powerbrokers Simon Birmingham and Christopher Pyne have been publicly implicated in the spill that saw Abbott dumped as Prime Minister.
InDaily revealed this year that a “secretariat” operating out of Marshall’s office had been schooling up state Liberal MPs on how to use social media, with a dossier dishing up advice about the workings of Twitter and Facebook.
“Twitter is an essential social media tool,” it explained.
“When a tweet is re-tweeted by other Members, it exposes our message to more people.”
Which is not always such a good thing.
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