The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in hot water for a second comment he made during the same podcast recording he suggested he would sleep with Kylie Minogue
Australia’s Prime Minister is in hot water for another ‘ungracious’ comment — this time about his Japanese counterpart.
Weeks after apologising for suggesting he would ‘sh*g’ Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue while appearing on a podcast, Anthony Albanese was forced to deny he made a ‘sexist’ comment about Japanese leader Sanae Takaichi on Monday (August 10) during the same recording.
During the Bush Deep episode, Labor PM Albanese was asked what the ‘most crap’ gift he had received while in office. He replied with a ‘pretty strange’ present from Takaichi, who is Japan’s first female Prime Minister.
“The Japanese Prime Minister brought a melon,” Albanese explained. “It was a royal melon.”
Host Nikki Osborne interjected: “Did she smuggle it [into the country]?”
Albanese replied, holding his hands in front of his chest: “Got a couple melons!”
When Osborne suggested Takaichi ‘came in looking like Pamela Anderson’, Albanese hit back: “She brought two. And they’re beautiful.”
The former Japanese ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, slammed the comments in a column on Monday, calling them ‘sexist’ and ‘ungracious’.
He wrote: “The last thing she expected was to be so casually mocked by the trusted leader of Japan’s special strategic partner.
“However lighthearted it was intended to be, the recent joke delivered by PM Anthony Albanese at the expense of Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi is how he might be remembered by Japanese who most value the friendship with Australia.”
Commentators in Japan have also criticised Albanese, but the government has yet to comment. In Canberra, Labor opponents said the remarks were ‘grubby’ and ‘inappropriate’, reports The Age.
Opposition leader Angus Taylor said in a press conference: “The comments were beneath the office of Prime Minister. They were insulting, and the Prime Minister should make a personal apology.
“The hypocrisy of Labor and the prime minister on this topic knows no bounds, no bounds whatsoever.”
Albanese’s office hit back at the opposition. A statement said: “This assertion is wrong.”
Last month, Albanese apologised after being roundly criticised for suggesting he would ‘sh*g’ Kylie on the same podcast.
Asked by Osborne who he would date, sleep with, or marry between Aussie celebrities Kylie, Nicole Kidman, and Rhonda Burchmore, he said ‘Kylie, clearly’ to ‘all of the above’, when pressed by Osborne.
He initially dodged the question by pointing out he had recently got married to Jodie Haydon, his second wife.
The next federal election will take place in 2028, with Labor holding a slim lead over populist far-right party One Nation and traditional centre-right opponents Liberal-National coalition.
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