PETER VAN ONSELEN: Albanese's most senior female ministers are humiliating themselves to defend his melons joke... as he resembles the oily bloke at the end of the bar

By PETER VAN ONSELEN, POLITICAL EDITOR, AUSTRALIA Published: 01:20, 12 August 2026 | Updated: 01:20, 12 August 2026 Your browser does not support iframes. Anthony Albanese didn't just make a grubby joke about the breasts of Japan's first female Prime Minister. He denied what Australians saw with their own eyes, refused to give a basic apology and watched senior Labor women humiliate themselves in his defence. The original act was crude. His belligerent denial is even more revealing. The video of Albo is entirely unambiguous. Discussing the crown melons Sanae Takaichi gave him, Albo cupped his hands at his chest: 'She brought two, as you do.' Host Nikki Osborne supplied the Pamela Anderson punchline. Albo then leaned in: 'She brought two, and they're beautiful.' Only inside Labor's hermetically sealed moral universe is Albo making any form of serious comment. If the gesture wasn't about breasts, what was it for?  Labor's official position is that voters should distrust their own lying eyes and swallow the PM's retrospectively sanitised version of events. Australians aren't that stupid. Nor was this a stray phrase in an otherwise dignified exchange. It formed part of an extraordinary trifecta of sexually-charged stupidity in a single podcast. Between agreeing he'd 'shag' Kylie Minogue if his marriage went 'tits up', and responding to a question about whether he and his wife Jodie Haydon were still 'bonking like rabbits' by calling a Rabbitohs win 'always a good aphrodisiac', Albo also found time to mime the anatomy of a foreign prime minister. One lapse is stupidity. Three in one sitting is a total collapse of judgment. Albo eventually issued a one-sentence apology when the Kylie Minogue comments exploded into headlines. The Japanese PM should be so lucky. Incidentally the footage of the gift-giving only showed one melon being handed over to Albanese. Is it possible Albo made up getting two for the sake of his grubby podcast gag? Surely not. One melon or two? Albanese accepts a melon from the Japanese PM  The gesture that sparked a hundred headlines  Asked twice in Question Time to apologise directly to Takaichi, Albo refused, reciting talking points about the Australia-Japan relationship. It was the verbal equivalent of hiding behind the flag. A decent PM would have killed the issue in 20 seconds: It was an ill-judged joke. I intended no disrespect. I'm sorry. Instead, Albo chose arrogance, protecting his fragile ego rather than showing basic respect to a foreign leader. But relax, Labor's senior women have investigated Labor's senior man and found nothing to concern them. Minister for Women Katy Gallagher declined to evaluate the chest gesture, preferring to accept the PM's assurance that the public had misinterpreted it. How courageous. The Minister for Women's job, it seems, is to defend women - right up until it inconveniences the man who gave her the portfolio. Penny Wong initially advised everyone to be 'gracious' about Albo's Kylie apology. Now that he refuses to apologise for the melon gesture, Wong accuses critics of 'confecting' a diplomatic issue. Then there is Tanya Plibersek, who repeatedly branded the obvious interpretation '100 per cent wrong' and offered the risible defence that the melons were 'a lovely gift'. No kidding. The gift was lovely. What Albo turned it into was the problem. Plibersek's performance was the most depressing of all. Albo has spent years treating her as an internal rival, shoving her sideways into hospital pass portfolios and demotions.  He sidelined her, yet she volunteered to be his human shield, torching her own credibility to protect his. Imagine Tony Abbott or Scott Morrison sitting in The Lodge, miming breasts, talking about shagging Kylie Minogue and sex after the footy.  Does anyone seriously believe Labor would treat it as harmless comedy? Especially hypocrites such as Wong? Tanya Plibersek - often seen as an internal rival to Albanese - faithfully defended his melons gesture... in the most depressing performance of all  There would be press conferences, parliamentary motions and furious speeches about systemic misogyny. Every Liberal woman standing silently behind them would be branded an enabler. And Labor would be right. That's what makes Labor's current behaviour so contemptible. For Labor, misogyny is determined not by the conduct of the man responsible, but by his political affiliation. A conservative's clumsy joke exposes the rotten patriarchal foundations of the system.  A Labor Prime Minister's breast gag about a foreign leader is merely a 'misinterpretation'. Misogyny, Labor style, is a sin only the other side can commit. The excuse that Tokyo hasn't escalated the matter is pathetic. Friendly governments routinely avoid public diplomatic disputes. Takaichi shouldn't have to lodge a formal complaint for Australia's PM to realise that reducing her historic achievement to an anatomical punchline was beneath him. More importantly it was beneath the office he holds. This isn't really about the alliance. It's about whether the Prime Minister behaved decently. He clearly did not. And, also, let's be frank: women in Australia aren't exactly clamouring to think about Albo sexually. Most would prefer to keep that image out of their heads entirely. But after the Kylie fantasy, the Souths 'bonking' boast and the grubby melon gesture, Albo has made it uncomfortably unavoidable.  The cumulative effect isn't cheeky or larrikin-like. It's plain smarmy. A PM increasingly resembling the bloke at the end of the bar who mistakes his own innuendo for charm is deeply unbecoming.  This isn't about cancelling comedy. Prime ministers are allowed to be human. But there is nothing amusing about turning the first woman to lead a vital strategic partner into a cheap breast gag. What makes this corrosive is the breathtaking hypocrisy. Labor has weaponised the language of misogyny for years, claiming the moral high ground so often that it now views it as private property.  Yet confronted with an unmistakable lapse from its own leader, those principles evaporated. The Minister for Women became his character witness. The Foreign Minister attacked those raising the issue. A senior feminist told Australians to disbelieve their own eyes. That isn't feminism, it's factional loyalty dressed up as principle. A gender equal cabinet is no victory for equality if the women are expected to sanitise the conduct of the powerful man sitting above them. Albo could have shown humility. Instead he chose belligerence. His female ministers could have shown principle. Instead they chose obedience.