Woah! Tony Burke and Mathias Cormann go at it on live TV

While most politicians try to keep their cool in the election season, Former Immigration Minister Tony Burke and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann went into battle on live television last night.

The pair appeared on the ABC’s 7:30 Report where they discussed both party’s asylum-seeker policy.

It didn’t take long for them to get fired up and launch into a heated debate over the issue, with Mr Burke becoming quite upset by Senator Cormann’s words.

Mr Burke was answering a question about Labor’s policy when Senator Cormann interrupted him and accused him of not believing in the measures, which include boat turn-backs.

This was too much for Mr Burke who lashed out, unable to contain his rage.

“I’ve had 33 people die on my watch, don’t you tell me that I don’t believe this,” he yelled.

“Don’t you tell me after I’ve had those names on my desk.”

Mr Burke went on to say that while Labor’s policies on boats were the same as the government’s they had a different view on how to deal with asylum seekers in detention centres.

“We have a very different approach to Peter Dutton and a different approach to the government and an approach that people used to think was closer to Malcolm Turnbull’s views, except now they’ve seen, far from him changing the Liberal Party, the Liberal Party has changed him,” he said.

The exchange of words thrilled viewers who said this is the kind of action they want to see during an election campaign.

Commenting on Facebook, many people said we sick of politicians giving measured and prepared responses to questions and that it was refreshing to see some honesty and passion about Australia’s biggest issues.

Do you agree with them?

Would you like to see more interviews like this? Do you get sick of the way pollies usually answer questions?