Melbourne radio presenter Neil Mitchell calls out Labor’s Bill Shorten over Twitter video

Top radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell has blasted Bill Shorten over a segment of a TV panel debate the government services minister posted to his Twitter account, which he claims was selectively edited. 

The pair had a fiery clash during a Today Show segment on Tuesday with Mitchell unleashing on Labor for their proposed changes to superannuation policy, slamming a cap on tax concessions for balances greater than $3million as ‘class warfare’.

Shorten then shared a 46 second clip of the segment to Twitter where he rips into Mitchell and suggests that the Radio 3AW presenter only cared about the profits of major companies and banks. 

That prompted Mitchell to furiously tweet back at Mr Shorten, claiming he only shared a portion of the debate that made the Labor figure look like a ‘genius’ – and where the radio host’s arguments were not fairly presented. 

‘You’ve done it again! Selective editing. If I did that to you on air you would rightly be screaming!’ Mitchell erupted. 

‘Post the whole debate not just your genius.’

In the video, Mr Shorten told Today host Karl Stefanovic: ‘The real issue is that we’ve got a cost of living crisis. The mortgage rates are going up. The government’s making difficult and genuine decisions to try and help relieve pressure on families.’

He then responded to comments from Mitchell, saying, ‘but there was something Neil said earlier where he said somehow for me criticising massive profits by the banks, that somehow it’s class warfare.’

‘I’m just not going to genuflect in front of the top end of town and say, “Thanks very much for making massive profits, putting the price of food up, for taking more money off the mortgage rates”.’

During Shorten’s spray, Mitchell groans and rests his head on his hand as Shorten continues on the attack. 

‘Neil, why is it that it’s wrong to criticise companies in a time of inflation, where the people getting up this morning going to work, see everything going up, and just saying to the companies and the banks, you know hey – just slow down,’ Mr Shorten said. 

Mitchell lambasted Mr Shorten over selectively choosing a segment of the debate to upload to his Twitter account that made him look good and reflected on the broadcaster poorly

The government services minister was critical of the banks and giant corporations making ‘massive profits’ while regular Aussies were doing it tough

He claimed Mitchell was only concerned about the profits made by major companies and the banks 

What wasn’t shown in the segment was Mitchell’s spray about the Albanese government’s ‘class warfare’. 

‘I don’t know about Bill and the profits though. What are you going to do, Bill? Are you going to nationalise everything? Stop them (companies) getting profits?’ he said.

‘This is part of the class war thing that you’re embracing. High profit is not necessarily bad, it means they employ more people, it means the economy’s going well.’ 

While some Twitter users supported Mitchell’s criticism of Shorten, others felt the Labor minister was correct in his assertion that the radio presenter was only sticking up for the banks and giant corporations over regular Aussies doing it tough.