POLITICIANS invite trouble when they open their mouths and insert their feet when the microphones are running, as West Australian Liberal Don Randall discovered yesterday.
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His description of the ABC as the ''gayBC'' earned him condemnation across cyberspace, renunciation from his own leader, Tony Abbott, and a lashing from the journalists' union.
Mr Randall let slip his exotic opinion of the national broadcaster as he headed in to Parliament. Journalists and camera crews lie in wait for politicians each morning at the doors to the House of Representatives and the Senate, seeking their views on any subject that might suit the news cycle.
Mr Randall was happy enough to accept an invitation for a brief interview and was shepherded to the preordained spot before the cameras. Such positions are marked on the ground by a white card. Yesterday, the card bore an ABC logo.
''Your ABC,'' quipped a reporter as Mr Randall took his position. ''Not my ABC - gayBC,'' he retorted. It wasn't original - another West Australian MP, the former maverick Labor member for Kalgoorlie, Graeme Campbell, used the term in the early 1990s on the ABC's 7.30 Report after spending the afternoon drinking.
Mr Randall's comment, picked up by microphones, went down like a Zeppelin in flames when it was broadcast yesterday.
Mr Abbott's office issued a statement declaring it was ''tacky'' and should not have been said. A senior official of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance accused Mr Randall of previously complaining about the media without backing up his claims with evidence, and there was a clamour of damnation on internet sites and Twitter.
