Strewth! What was the Aussie PM to do? Tell people that he doesn’t fancy Kylie? Australia’s paroxysm of indignation over a cheeky podcast is the very reason we get the politicians we do – wary, colourless, inauthentic and boring: EITHNE TYNAN

A few years before he died, Australian comedian Barry Humphries, creator of Dame Edna and philandering alcoholic politician Sir Les Patterson, gave an interview to The Oldie magazine in which he was asked to explain why Australians were so offended by Sir Les and his satirical characters.

He replied: ‘Australians are very traditional; It is extremely traditional! ‘You understand this seemingly easy-going thing. Actually… we like being bossed around.’

Judging by the relentless reaction to Australian Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese’s podcast gaffe this week, there may be something to it.

In case you missed it, ‘Albo’, as he is known, has apologized for his appearance on shock sports presenter comedian Nikki Osborne’s Bush Deep podcast after she forced him to make a childish comment or two.

Invited to play the ‘Make Love, Marry, Date’ game (a tamer version of the original ‘F***, Marry, Kill’ game), the Prime Minister was offered a choice between pop princess Kylie Minogue (58) and actresses Nicole Kidman (59) and Rhonda Burchmore (66) – an age-appropriate choice, it must be said, for the 63-year-old Prime Minister.

Albanese protested that he had only gotten married six months ago (which he did, and also told women’s rights campaigner Jodie Haydon about it), but the presenter insisted he had a choice, and he chose ‘Kylie, obviously’ for all three. ‘He’s great,’ he said.

Apparently, according to one man and woman, Australia didn’t react by saying ‘don’t worry mate, fair dinkum’. The cans were not cracked. No additional shrimp was added to Barbie.

Instead Australia descended into a tantrum, with Albanese immediately compared to Les Patterson.

A rather scathing column in The Australian thundered: ‘The response was ill-advised, degrading to the prime minister’s office, a bad reflection on Albanese’s family, embarrassing to him and, above all, a crude sexual objectification of Minogue.’

Australian media site Women’s Agenda said the problem wasn’t that Anthony Albanese was a huge fan of Kylie, but that he “agreed to play a game based entirely on sorting women into categories for male consumption: who he’ll sleep with, who he’ll marry, who he’ll date.”

My word is what to do. I didn’t know Australians took everything so seriously. Did everyone know? How can a people who leave half their words unfinished be so prone to anger? And do they forget that under Albanese’s watch, Australia has an equal number of men and women in parliament, senate and cabinet?

And did they consider that the person controlling this interview and manipulating the witness was a woman in the locker room and not a brother? This is not Trump’s Access Hollywood tape. In any case, Albanese revealed the lily of the liver by ‘absolutely’ apologizing for his comments, but it wasn’t enough. Australia’s pearl divers aren’t done with him yet. Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt is still freaking out, calling the Albanian ‘Prime Minister Benny Hill’.

She also asked ‘Why are Labour’s loud feminists so quiet today?’ This was pretty telling, I thought, as an example of a man holding women accountable for a man’s actions.

But I digress. Really, it’s hard to see what else Albanese could do if he agreed to appear on such a vulgar podcast.

With a poker at his base, he could hardly sit there and refuse to get into the spirit of the situation. If he had done this he would have been despised for putting a stick in his foundation. And since he doesn’t like Kylie Minogue, he couldn’t really let the idea go abroad. That would not be patriotic. So it was a no-win situation.

But this shows the risk politicians take when they try to reach young voters through new media, without foreseeing how new media might spill over into old media. After all, a podcast is not a publication; This is a narrow publication. An interviewer at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation couldn’t ask Albanese to play Shag Marry Date. But a podcast becomes a broadcast when the prime minister is on air and what he says makes all the headlines.

Our own political class has also made many mistakes regarding new media. Take analogue soul Bertie Ahern, who forgot that smartphones could take video while being subjected to racism on his doorstep in Dublin Centre. Take Leo Varadkar (another big Kylie fan) who roasted farmers on the Path To Power podcast with local Matt Cooper. In fact, let’s take the case of social media enthusiast Simon Harris, who mistakenly identified himself as a penis in his artificial intelligence social media post.

And this isn’t just true in new media. Pee ‘Try It Sometime’ Flynn managed to make a name for himself on the old television institution The Late Late Show. Brian Cowen looked disturbingly over-refreshed on former radio institution Morning Ireland. They really can set foot anywhere.

We heard David Cullinane’s ‘Up the Ra’ rant after the 2020 general election (no doubt he was hoping to achieve this by now, but no). We had Enda Kenny apologize for using the N-word; Gerry Adams apologizes for using the N-word; Eamon Ryan apologizes for using the N-word. The list goes on and on, and some of these gaffes are far more serious than saying you wouldn’t kick Kylie Minogue out of bed for eating whatever the Australian equivalent of Tayto is (and one shudders to imagine what the Vegemite-flavored abomination might be).

Amid this week’s fuss and stunned by her newfound global fame, presenter Nikki Osborne said: ‘It was a big risk for her.

‘I was not censored. They did not seek regulatory approval. ‘They let me in, did the craziest political interview ever, and then left with comedy gold.’

And all over the world politicians and their advisors will be saying: ‘What?! Didn’t they ask for regulatory approval?!’

Because such serious scrutiny is carried out before politicians are interviewed, the interviewees are evaluated and questions are requested to be given in advance. That’s why we find politicians cautious, colourless, fake and boring. And this may also be why those who challenge the convention—unapologetically—win elections, or think they do.

I see Minister of Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill launched the latest Women’s Health Action Plan yesterday. This will include €2 million in protection for women’s health research, an ‘upgrade’ to the free birth control scheme, specialist menopause and postnatal centers and all sorts of good things. Be fair, Minister, but if I can stop you there for a second. What us men and women in the midwest really like is a turnaround hospital that we can get to, ideally in less than two hours, and that won’t be packed to the rafters with the sick and wounded from four counties when we finally get there. Thank you if you don’t mind.