This is the very awkward moment a Sky News presenter looks away from the camera as a government backbencher talks non-stop about the Liberal Party.
Jennifer Bechwati politely let Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz continue talking for an excruciating one minute and 23 seconds.
As the former Abbott government minister talks about the need for the Liberal Party to win over One Nation voters, she looks away from the camera for six seconds.
Fill-in Sky News presenter Jennifer Bechwati looks away from the camera as Liberal senator Eric Abetz talks about the need to win back One Nation voters
In a segment covering whether Queensland’s Liberal National Party needs to demerge to win One Nation voters, as suggested this week by Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, she nods politely but keeps a stony expression.
Queensland LNP senator James McGrath had described talk of demerging his party as ‘bats*** crazy’ however Senator Abetz stuck to some political platitudes.
‘One way we can bring those voters back into the fold is to concentrate on those issues that genuinely matter,’ Senator Abetz said.
In another awkward part of the interview, Ms Bechwati let Senator Abetz talk uninterrupted for another whole minute.
As Senator Abetz, a conservative opponent of gay marriage, described the Liberal Party as a ‘broad church’, the fill-in presenter stared at the camera, appearing on the verge of falling asleep.
Sky News host Jennifer Bechwati appears on the verge of falling asleep as Senator Eric Abetz keeps talking
Jennifer Bechwati, who is normally a Sky political reporter, was reluctant to interrupt on TV
‘It does need to genuinely incorporate the thought leaders of both sections of the party or all streams of party thinking and I’m not sure that the conservative element has been embraced as it might be and as it should be,’ the backbencher said.
However Ms Bechwati, who is normally a Canberra-based political reporter for Sky News, failed to use this opportunity to ask Senator Abetz if conservatives in the party like himself or former prime minister Tony Abbott needed to be brought back into cabinet.
Or whether Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a Liberal Party moderate, needed to change his policies that may be alienating conservative voters, considering the Liberal Party’s primary vote has recently fallen to a record low of 34 per cent.
Instead, she let the Liberal Party politician criticise the Labor Party.
‘The alternative is Bill Shorten who would run the country as a trade union leader,’ he said.