Jacinta Allan still digging

The Victorian minister who put herself in the limelight yesterday, Transport Minister Jacinta Allan, caused another train wreck for Labor, bumbling her way through an important interview with Laura Jayes and David Speers on Sky News. Ms Allan was incoherent as she failed to defend her decision, announced earlier in the day, to ban Sky News (owned by News Corp, publisher of The Australian) from railway station screens in central Melbourne because “hatred and racism have no place on our screens or in our community”. She cited the Sky News interview with far-right extremist Blair Cottrell, for which the station apologised, to justify what was an act of political censorship. The interview, however, was not screened on the tailored broadcast provided to the stations — a point over which Ms Allan seemed confused. In banning Sky News, Ms Allan, ironically, has censored the only station that has banned Cottrell, who is notorious for his anti-Jewish and anti-women rants and for wanting Adolf Hitler’s photo in every classroom. He also has appeared on the ABC (September 2016 and May last year), the Seven Network (January this year) and other outlets, which have not banned him