Kylie MinogueAustralian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has issued an official apology after comments made about Kylie Minogue during a recent podcast appearance.
The comments in question were made during an episode of comedienne Nikki Osborne’s Bush Deep podcast, in which she affects the alter-ego of ‘Bushie’.
During the very casual chat, Osborne launched a series of rapid-fire questions, asking the PM whether he would “shag, marry, [or] date” Minogue, Nicole Kidman, or Rhonda Burchmore.
“I've just got married, I'm only six months in,” Albanese responded, referring to his November marriage to Jodie Haydon. “If it goes tits-up, let's just pretend,” added Osborne, attempting to get the PM to play along.
“Kylie, clearly,” Albanese responded, noting that she falls into “all of the above” categories. “She’s terrific.”
The comments also followed an earlier portion of the interview in which Osborne asked if Albanese and Haydon were “still bonking like rabbits” given they’re still in the “honeymoon period” of their wedding.
“Well, when we have time,” he quipped. “After the footy. It’s always a good aphrodisiac, a Souths [Sydney Rabbitohs] win.”
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As the Canberra Times reports, backlash to Albanese’s comments has led to a number of other figures weighing in, while the Prime Minister’s office issued a brief apology for his comments.
“I apologise unequivocally for the comments,” he said.
Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety Sarah Henderson labelled Albanese’s comments as “disrespectful to women, embarrassing to Australians” and claimed they “demean the office of Prime Minister”.
“Rather than politely decline to engage, Mr Albanese got into the gutter with his grubby remarks which show extremely poor judgement at a time when trust in Labor is collapsing,” Ms Henderson wrote on social media.
“Mr Albanese's crude locker room talk makes a mockery of Labor's claim to be champions of women. How low can this Prime Minister go? Australians deserve better than this.”
However, Albanese also had a number of defenders in his corner, including Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who praised the Prime Minister’s attitude to women and noted podcast interviews were subject to different standards than regular political interviews.
“The government that the prime minister leads is the first government in the nation’s history which has had an equality in terms of the numbers of men and women in cabinet,” Mr Marles explained on ABC Radio.
"From time to time, we obviously do different interviews to the one we are doing now, but I think the other point to make here is that the government that the PM leads is the first in history that has had equality in terms of the number of men and women in cabinet," he added.
Minister for Social Services Tanya Pilbersek also defended Albanese’s comments, telling Sunrise that despite the comments, his record on women is strong, while downplaying the seriousness of the incident.
"If what the Prime Minister's saying is that he's a fan of Kylie Minogue, I guess that puts him in a with millions of other Australians, including me,” Ms Pilbersek said. “I'm a big fan of Kylie's as well.”
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce also weighed in on Sunrise, claiming Albanese’s comments were beneath the office of the Prime Minister.
"He doesn't need to play a stupid game,” Joyce opined, claiming that he had been in the same situation he “would have avoided the question, like most people."
