Former Chairman of The Dow Chemical Company, Andrew Liveris AO and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young clashed during ABC’s Thursday night program ‘Q&A’, on the topic of Australia’s fossil fuels use.
Speaking on the panel, Andrew Liveris discussed Australia’s need to have a “fossilfeed stock”, which the Greek Australian described as “all of your modern life”.
“If you want a chemistry lesson,” he said, referring to the other panellists, “I’ll help you out the back.”
Liveris was criticised by South Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young for being “patronising” about the issue.
“I’m not the one shaking my finger at people, mate,” she shot back.
Q&A host Hamish McDonald asked the panellists to “try and keep it respectful” before Mr Liveris accused Ms Hanson-Young of “yelling” at him.
It was among several tense moments between the two panelists as discussions continued around the Morrison government’s gas-fired recovery plan.
Within minutes of the program ending, Queensland Greens took to Twitter to chastise Mr Liveris’ behaviour and McDonald’s failure to step in.
“Women should be able to appear on @QandA & speak without being spoken down to, interrupted, mocked, patronised, have a finger pointed at them & spoken over the top of,” the party tweeted.
“That was appalling behaviour from Andrew Liveris & disappointing to see it not called out by the host #qanda.”
Tensions continued on the panel between Mr Liveris and former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who called out the Greek Australian businessman for allegedly lying about how many Australian jobs there were in industries using gas as feed stock.
Mr Liveris said there were 850,000 jobs.
“I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re way out off the chart,” Mr Turnbull told him.
“Malcolm, I use the same people you use for research. When you were Prime Minister. Go talk to the people in Canberra,” Mr Liveris said.
“I don’t mind you mansplaining me,” Mr Turnbull said, appearing to reference the earlier spat with Ms Hanson-Young.
“I’m not, mate,” Mr Liveris fired back. “That’s a pretty cheap shot.”
