It all started with a seemingly innocuous joke. During a dinner to celebrate the Rural Women’s Awards in Parliament House on Tuesday night, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dropped an off-script remark about a discussion with Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto concerning beef exports. “When we had dinner – beautiful Australian beef .
.. not the live export .
.. we made sure it was dead.
” It’s fair to say the rather limp gag failed to land. Despite the joke not making it into the version of the speech distributed to media, it was quickly swooped on by the federal opposition, and some farmers’ groups, who are very upset about the government’s decision to ban live sheep exports. The Coalition did not see the funny side of Anthony Albanese’s beef joke Credit: John Shakespeare In a press release hammered out on Wednesday morning, Nationals leader David Littleproud said farmers were “disgusted to the core” by Albo’s comments.
Campaigners from an agriculture group called “Keep the Sheep” were extremely upset, Littleproud said. “A joke in extremely poor taste by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shows he holds Western Australia and our live export trade in complete contempt,” shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash thundered. The good old days when Liberals and Nationals fought tooth and nail to give Australians the right to say far more offensive things seem forgotten.
Farmers are no laughing matter. The PM’s office, meanwhile, maintained that Albo.