Aussie union boss floors Paul Henry with Kiwi, small audience jibes

There's been more grief for Paul Henry across the Tasman, with the Channel 10 Breakfast host coming off second-best in a verbal joust with union boss David Noonan.

Henry attempted to push Noonan into apologising for a Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union protest, blocking a Melbourne street.

Noonan hit back with jibes about Henry's nationality, and the size of this audience.

According to media commentary site Mumbrella, Henry was impressed by Noonan's cheeky comeback. "It's like we were separated at birth," he's quoted as saying later.

But at the time, the exchange ended in several seconds of awkward silence:

A transcript:

Paul Henry: Do you want to apologise to the taxpayers and the people of Melbourne who’d like to use that street and the taxpayers who’re funding the police activity there.

Do you want to apologise to those people now?

David Noonan: Well you know Paul I think you’ve got a particular political view of the world.

You were bought over in the last few months from New Zealand.

Mate, construction workers in New Zealand earn a lot less than they do in Australia and the sort of right wing shock jock stuff you want to go on with really isn’t going to faze me.

We have a right a right to peaceful protest. We’ve got an important issue here and cheap shots like that really aren’t going to impress anybody.

Paul Henry: Right, so no apologies. Thanks for joining us this morning, David.

David Noonan: So no apologies to you mate. And no apologies for the fact your show has so few viewers.

[An awkward pause follows, before the camera cuts away to a news headline update before Henry comes back onscreen]

Paul Henry: Alrighty. I disagree with almost everything he said with the exception of the too few viewers thing. That is a shame.

Meanwhile - either because he's on a Snickers high, gripped by fin de siècle madness or just because he's Paul Henry - the ex-pat appears to be taking a damn the torpedoes approach to his behaviour in from of Channel 10 brass.

In the clip above, from last month, he recounts, "Actually I got hopelessly drunk on Friday afternoon, and management were there – you know, God – and I was drunk and I picked up a piece of food on my fork and stuck it into my cheek …. It hurt too. I was trying to pretend it was a party trick. I’m making a new mouth … forking myself!”

(Hat Tip to Dan News for spotting these clips.)