In politics, it’s often the little stuff that gets you. Those, and the cover ups – just ask Richard Nixon.
Anthony Albanese is fast discovering that trying to lie and run cover over seemingly trivial stuff will bit you in the arse and not let go. When he made his crude remarks about Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi’s “melons”, it was embarrassing enough. By refusing to admit his gross blunder, let alone apologise for it, Albanese is just digging himself deeper by the day. By flocking to his defence, his party is doing the same to themselves.
The scandal is raising such an almighty stink that it’s polluting everything Albanese touches. Even a $2.5 billion taxpayer bung to prop up the Tomago aluminium smelter, a rare chance for Labor to try and reclaim their ‘Party of the Worker’ misnomer, couldn’t escape the reek.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has intervened to shield Anthony Albanese from questions about a lewd podcast where he discussed the Japanese leader’s ‘melons’ and ‘shagging’ Kylie Minogue, demanding reporters only ask about the Tomago bailout.
Fielding a question from the Australian, the prime minister stumbled and failed to explain what his hand gestures near his chest meant when discussing Sanae Takaichi’s diplomatic gift, before Mr Minns stepped in to prevent further questions.
So, there was a Labor prime minister in blue-collar heartland Newcastle, trying to look statesmanlike about ‘national interest’ and jobs for a thousand workers, when a simple question about the podcast hand gestures near his chest sent him stumbling. NSW Premier Chris Minns, ever the loyal Labor handbag, leapt in like a loyal guard dog.
“Go and ask 1000 workers what they care about today,” Mr Minns interjected.
“Honestly this is the biggest announcement for this region in a generation, can we just talk about it for five minutes.”
And that’s just the problem, isn’t it, Chris? Saving not just jobs in Newcastle (at whatever cost to the taxpayer) and propping up our defence capability ought to be a big deal. Even if it raises awkward questions about the government’s Net Zero agenda driving defence-critical heavy industry from our shores.
Instead, though, a floundering government has made it all about a prime minister who thinks the high office – the PM’s official residence, the Lodge, no less – is a late-night comedy stage for a safari-suited podcaster and whisky-fuelled double entendres.
Albanese insists he’s answered the question ‘many times’. He’s lied about and dodged it. He certainly hasn’t satisfied the Japanese government’s outraged sense of propriety. All he’s done is leave a trail of blood in the parliamentary waters – and the sharks are gearing up for the feeding frenzy. The coalition, Greens, One Nation and the crossbench have now forced the Senate to demand the full correspondence from Tokyo by Monday. Only Labor voted against it. When even the Greens are on it, you know the cover up is starting to smell like week-old whale carcass.
This is pure Albo. The same man who can fall off a stage on camera and deny it happened. The same man who promised power bill cuts and tax freezes with a straight face while the opposite quietly occurred. Now he’s got the whole Labor sisterhood racing out as human shields, the same women who foam at the mouth over ‘misogyny’ the second a Liberal looks sideways at his watch (and all to shield a Labor-appointed speaker who made crude comments about women’s genitals).
Is it any wonder that people have lost faith in politicians when our prime minister is a purveyor of smut and repeatedly appears to have what can only be described as a pathological aversion to the truth?
Exactly. It’s one thing to make a crass joke about prized Japanese crown melons and Pamela Anderson while cupping the air in front of your chest. It’s another to gaslight the entire country into believing they didn’t just see what they saw. Daniel Andrews would be proud of the technique.
The podcast wasn’t even live. It was recorded at the Lodge. Someone in the prime minister’s office watched the raw footage of their boss discussing “shagging” Kylie Minogue and making melon gestures about Japan’s first female leader and decided this was the sophisticated diplomacy Australia needed in 2026. ‘DJ Albo’ playing to the TikTok gallery while our most important Indo-Pacific relationship takes collateral damage.
Give me a daggy John Howard in his tracksuit any day.
Albanese tries to win over the Zoomers, when he’s really only playing to the peanut gallery of sad old men who can't zip up their leather jackets (worn despite never having ridden a motorbike in their lives) because of their beer guts, wobbling around on Record Store Day. Howard never needed to prove he was cool to 20-somethings. He just got on with the job of being prime minister. Albanese’s desperation to be liked by the influencer class is starting to look pathological. The office he occupies is not a content farm. Every time he treats it like one, he diminishes it a little further. Please, God, don’t let him start up an OnlyFans.
As for the Labor women defending him: spare us the lectures about kinder, gentler parliaments and gender quotas. When it was time to defend the indefensible, they fell into line like trained poodles. Their outrage is strictly reserved for the other side.
Albanese still refuses to personally apologise to Takaichi or to the Australian public. Humility, it seems, is the one quality he cannot fake. Until he finds some, every announcement he makes, from smelter bailouts to budget spin, will carry the lingering stink of the dodging, lies and cover ups. The little stuff always does.
