Not clever: Ray Hadley and Peter Dutton under fire over radio interview
An on air exchange between immigration minister Peter Dutton and radio jock Ray Hadley is drawing accusations of sexism this morning, after the duo yesterday dedicated several minutes to mocking the intelligence of a Greens senator.
Mr Dutton was speaking on Hadley’s 2GB program yesterday afternoon when the conversation turned to Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
The minister and the presenter traded barbs at Ms Hanson Young’s expense, most of which were aimed at her intelligence and claims she had fabricated stories about abuse of immigration detainees.
Mr Dutton told Hadley Ms Hanson-Young had a long track record of making up incidents about the government’s controversial off-shore immigration detention centres and reports about being spied on during a recent visit to Naura.
The minister then recounted a gaffe by the Greens Senator in which she appeared to mistake the fictional television program Sea Patrol for a documentary early last year.
Coincidentally, Hadley had a song cued about just that incident, and played it immediately.
Despite the good timing, a spokeswoman for Mr Dutton told Yahoo!7 News the exchange was not planned in advance, despite Mr Dutton appearing to set up Hadley for the song.
Set to the tune of Youth Group’s hit song Forever Young, the track featured Ms Hanson Young’s Sea Patrol gaffe heavily, interspersed with clips from Home and Away and lyrics such as: “Sarah Hanson-Young, I don't want to hear Sarah Hanson-Young. I'm sure she'll be quite mad forever, forever, not clever.”
The conversation has sparked allegations of sexism against Hadley and Mr Dutton from another Greens Senator, Larissa Waters.
Ms Waters told Fairfax Media the exchange was “sexist claptrap” from a minister who was trying to intimidate a political opponent.
"Unfortunately this sort of pathetic attack on a young woman doing her job exceedingly well in the Parliament just demonstrates what a problem with sexism we still have in the Parliament and sadly in the nation more broadly," Ms Waters said.
"It would be helpful if the minister spent more time cleaning up the child abuse inside his detention centres than trying to intimidate those who scrutinise the government's policies," she said.
Ms Waters complaint comes just weeks after Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s office moved to officially complain about an interview with shock jock Kyle Sandilands in which he was labelled an “insensitive wanker”.
Mr Joyce’s complaint came shortly after communications minister Malcolm Turnbull suggested the ABC’s Leigh Sales should have taken a “less aggressive” approach to her post-budget interview with Treasurer Joe Hockey.
