The PM was hardly am-Bushed by Nikki Osborne in the Bush Deep podcast – he was a willing and enthusiastic volunteer. Image: Screenshot.
So now we all know the PM would like to shag Kylie Minogue, given half a chance.
First: good luck with that Albo.
Second: how edifying that he shared that with us.
Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia, has a bit of a problem: he just can’t do “cool” as well as he thinks he can.
If for no other reason than that, the PM needs to avoid interviews and media appearances with the hip crowd, the comedians, the cringeworthy, and the “gotcha” seekers.
Remember in February when he thought it a good idea to participate in a live-broadcast rapid-fire world association game in which he ended up calling former Australian of the Year Grace Tame “difficult”?
That didn’t play out too well for him, as the immediate backlash and his botched attempt at explaining it away showed.
Not having learnt his lesson from that unfortunate saga, Albo thought it a good idea to join an episode of the Bush Deep podcast (published late last week) with the hilarious Nikki Osborne.
The fact that Osborne’s character Bushie trades on humour and is deliberately inappropriate surely was a red flag for the PM?
Actually no, it was what the drawcard – or so it seems.
When the “interview” turned to questions of sex, Albo was all in.
Not only did he reveal that a South Sydney Rugby League team win was a good aphrodisiac for him and his wife Jodie Haydon, but he also allowed himself to be trapped in a game of “shag, marry, date”.
“Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman or Rhonda Burchmore?” the ‘Bush Barbie’ Osborne asked.
The PM made an initial, albeit flimsy, attempt not to answer by saying he’d only been married six months.
It would have been good if he ended there, but there was no way Bushie was going to let it go – that’s not the nature of games like that, and the PM should know it.
When asked a hypothetical question about what he’d do if his marriage went (ahem) “tits up” – a glaring red flag in itself – the Prime Minister didn’t hesitate to reveal his crush on Kylie Minogue.
“Oh, Kylie clearly,” he said.
“You’d marry Kylie and shag her and date her?” Osborne pressed.
“All of the above. She’s terrific,” came the prime ministerial response.
All kind of harmless, yeah? And what red-blooded Aussie male (and many a female even) hasn’t harboured a secret desire for Kylie?
The thing is, though, we don’t want or need to know if our Prime Minister is among them.
Again, there has been an immediate backlash to his fun little viral-chasing interview.
The ‘who would you rather?’ game is something Osborne asks all her guests, so there was no ambush there.
The PM knew it was coming. If he didn’t, his media minders weren’t doing their jobs.
And so, a string of horrified shadow ministers and independent MPs expressed their disgust, leaving Labor ministers to fumble through weak attempts to defend their boss (how many more times are they going to give us the numbers of women on the front bench?) The game itself might be a bit of a laugh, but it is demeaning to women – it actually asks the interviewee to publicly compare and rate women.
How enlightened.
This year began with Labor’s own Assistant Minister for Women, Rebecca White, having to apologise for joining in an overheard private game in December last year of “shoot, shag or marry” about male Liberal MPs.
The PM accepted that apology, yet his offence is much worse; he played the game – about women – on a highly watched social media channel.
By Monday (6 July), the Prime Minister released a statement through his office acknowledging the awfulness of what he had done: “I apologise unequivocally for the comments,” he said.
Let’s hope he apologised directly to his wife.
And where’s his apology to the nation for believing he is exactly the cool, fun kind of dude Australians want in their Prime Minister?
Meanwhile, as he travels around the Pacific this week dealing with serious issues in international relations, Albo is making headlines much further afield for his embarrassing schoolboy antics.
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
