Oh dear.
An over-enthusiastic prime minister has just accidentally shoulder-charged eight-year-old Luca Fauvette during a soccer game while campaigning in the seat of Braddon in Tasmania.
“Where’s Luca,where’s Luca? He’s probably gone off to hospital!”Scott Morrison joked after the accident,to a big roar.
Luca is said to be fine and was up and running around straight after the PM’s vigorous tackle,according to our travelling reporter James Massola.
The moment was captured by our news photographerJames Brickwood,who has been travelling with Morrison throughout the entire campaign.
“No one is safe from the bulldozer,” Labor’s campaign spokesman,Jason Clare,has quipped.
But Massola reports that the incident did not dent the enthusiastic welcome given to the PM,who pledged $3.5 million for a new grandstand,upgrades to the pitch and lighting at the Devonport Strikers soccer club.
Morrison himself leaned into the joke,telling the children’s parents that he looked forward to returning when the grandstand needed bulldozing.
“I think that when that grandstand comes down,I hear it might need a bit of a bulldozer to knock it down,so I might be able to help with that,” he said.
Luca’s coach,Keegan Smith,said it was no big deal.
“He’s fine,he jumped up and had a big smile ... it’s not that big a deal,” he said.
“I said to him,‘Luca are you alright?’,and he had a smile on his face. He just had to shoot off;it wasn’t bad. We just finished a bit later than we usually do so he probably had to go with mum and dad.”
Read more: