If you had an important, public-facing job and someone invited you to play “shag, marry, date” – on a popular podcast – what would you do?
If it were me, I’d probably laugh, wink and shrug, and say something innocuous that made it sound like I was playing along – something along the lines of, “Now that would be telling!” – before changing the subject as fast as humanly possible.
Unless, of course, I was Anthony Albanese.
When quizzed by the comedian Nikki Osborne, host of the Bush Deep podcast (which, incidentally, has around half a million followers on Instagram) during a 20-minute interview – on whether he would “shag, marry or date” Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman or Australian entertainer Rhonda Burchmore – the prime minister of Australia failed to spot the trap he was walking into. He simply strolled right in, hands casually in his pockets… and answered the question.
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Albanese (who married his partner Jodie Haydon in November) initially protested, responding: “I’ve just got married, I’m only six months in!” But he then added: “Oh, Kylie, clearly.”
“You’d marry Kylie, and shag her, and date her?” Osborne asked.
“All of the above,” Albanese said. “She’s terrific.”
One MP branded his remarks “entirely inappropriate”, while another said they were “disrespectful to women… and demean the office of prime minister”.
And, in a one-line statement issued early on Monday, Albanese (clearly cringing) said: “I apologise unequivocally for the comments.”
But he should have known better. Much better. As a podcast host, Osborne’s whole schtick is being grating, blunt and crude, playing the part of a “wildly inappropriate journalist” who asks questions “no one else would dare”. I admire her for it, because what she so cleverly managed to do was strip away the veneer of formality of office – the highest office in the land – and expose Albanese as a man.
He’s not the first politician caught saying misogynistic things, by any stretch – just look at US President Donald Trump, who called a female journalist “piggy” and was exposed by a leaked recording in 2005 saying “when you’re a star, you can do anything [to women]”. Or a worryingly high number of Reform UK members (no surprise, perhaps, when their leader – Nigel Farage – excuses sexist comments as “laddish banter”). So we might ask ourselves: why does this keep happening? Why do men in power keep getting caught out? Are the media really “out to get them”, as so many claim?
I’m going to go all Occam’s razor on you and say that the simplest answer is usually the right one: it seems to me that these powerful men aren’t being “tricked” into saying things they don’t really mean – they’re being tricked into saying what they do mean.
And for too many men – powerful or not – what they think about women is pretty degrading. Albanese is the prime minister. He’s supposed to lead by example. He’s certainly not meant to reduce women to sexual objects or commodities that can be judged by what men would “do” to them, and he really shouldn’t be talking about class acts like Kylie – with her decades of experience and activism – as though she were a doll to be discussed and leered over. He’s not meant to imply to an entire nation of voters – particularly younger generations – that women are “fair game” (or a “game”, at all).
And the fact that he does – when he’s not being grilled at PMQs, but is simply asked a “fun question” on a podcast – speaks volumes.
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