No mates rates for the left in footy, by Andrew Bolt.

The AFL Tribunal has made a bad mistake by letting Malcolm Turnbull and Waleed Aly help a footballer mate escape full punishment.

Doesn’t it realise Australians are sick of the cultural elite looking after its own? Playing identity politics?

It seems not, because the tribunal on Tuesday banned Richmond’s Bachar Houli for only two weeks for knocking out Carlton’s Jed Lamb, after taking into account comments about him from Prime Minister Turnbull and a reference from Aly, the Gold Logie winner.

That is bizarre. Does this mean any footballer who doesn’t know Turnbull would have got the standard four-week ban instead?

Does that mean a player Aly didn’t like as much as he likes Houli, a fellow Muslim and star of Aly’s Tigers, would have been rubbed out for longer?

Again, the left is undermining the notion of one law for all. Even in football, it’s your identity group and who you know, not the merits of the case, that matter.