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US TV personality John Oliver has been left dumbfounded by images of Australia’s head of office eating, not one, but two raw onions.
Oliver made a name for himself as a shrewd, fast-talking commentator, but videos of Prime Minister Tony Abbott tucking into an onion were met with incredulity.
The footage is from Mr Abbott’s tour of a Tasmanian farm and a subsequent onion-themed appearance at Parliament House, earlier this year.
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Apparently Oliver hadn’t been privy to the PM’s penchant for the pungent vegetable, before an audience member at a recent Australian show brought it to his attention.
During a post-show question and answer with Oliver in Sydney, audience member David Potter asked what the host thought of the onion ordeal.
“He ate an onion like a two-year-old eats an onion, thinking: ‘it’s round and I’ve seen round apples. Is this an apple?’ No. He did not do that,” Oliver said after he was shown the video.
“He ate two, get the f*** out. The skin was on, what’s he doing?
“He needs constant supervision that man.
“It’s not a great advertisement to compulsory voting that man. You get bored and you just see what you can do.”
Mr Abbott has previously been a target of Oliver’s late night talk show.
A 2014 segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ripped in to Mr Abbott’s leadership and has previously referred to him as a “car crash of a human being”.