The ball went straight towards cameraman Ghaith Nadir who was filming the exchange, resulting in a bloodied forehead.
The ball went straight towards cameraman Ghaith Nadir who was filming the exchange, resulting in a bloodied forehead.
- Breaking
- Politics
- Federal
- Australia votes
By Natassia Chrysanthos
Updated April 5, 2025 — 11.51amfirst published at 11.12am
It was a classic case of a picture opportunity gone wrong.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was in Darwin this morning, where he stopped to make a funding announcement for a local footy club, the Palmerston Magpies.
Dutton and his entourage, including Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price, then headed down to the oval for a casual kick with a group of children.
A group of cameramen took their positions to get the shot the Coalition’s media team had come for. But after kicking the footy back and forth, one from Dutton’s boot went awry.
The ball went straight towards 10 News First cameraman Ghaith Nadir who was filming the exchange, knocking his camera into his head and resulting in a bloodied forehead. Nadir gave his gear to a colleague and took a towel to his head.
After Nadir gave a thumbs up while walking off the field, Dutton quipped: “That’s your exclusive footage too, mate.”
After Nadir was attended to by his media colleagues and Australian Federal Police personnel, Dutton approached him to check he was alright.
The opposition leader offered him a beer in apology, according to his spokesman, and the pair shook hands.
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Nadir laughed with colleagues afterwards, a bandage wrapped around his head. Dutton jokingly denied it was his Scott Morrison moment, a reference to the former prime minister’s tackle-gone-wrong with a child in the 2022 election campaign.
“I was expecting him to mark it, I was sure he could take the shot,” Dutton told Sky News.
“He’s good. I just saw him then, so hopefully he’s able to get it dressed properly but the AFP did a great job.”
Morrison’s foray onto the soccer pitch during the 2022 campaign became one of the defining images of that federal election. He had joined children in a game at the Devonport Strikers soccer club, shedding his suit jacket within moments of his arrival.
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Children cheered and one declared him “better than Ronaldo”, before the then-prime minister accidentally tackled seven-year-old Luca Fauvette and both crashed to the ground.
“Where’s Luca, where’s Luca? He’s probably gone off to hospital!” he joked after the accident, to a big roar.
More to come
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Natassia Chrysanthos is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, reporting on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via Twitter or email.
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