{"id":51919,"date":"2026-07-16T11:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/51919\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T11:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:34:17","slug":"learnt-my-lesson-albanese-breaks-silence-on-bush-deep-podcast-scandal-after-melons-and-shag-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/51919\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Learnt my lesson’: Albanese breaks silence on Bush Deep podcast scandal after ‘melons’ and ‘shag’ comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

His comments follow weeks of criticism over jokes he made about his sex life, innuendo about the Japanese PM, and his participation in a game of \u201cshag, marry, date\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Albanese initially issued an apology statement after suggesting he would \u201cshag\u201d Kylie Minogue, but did not publicly and personally apologise for his broader remarks.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the ABC on Thursday, Mr Albanese said, \u201cLook, I\u2019ve dealt with that issue,\u201d when asked about the scandalous podcast appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two things you need to do if you’ve made a mistake. One is to apologise. Second is to learn the lessons from it. And I\u2019ve done both,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The comments marked Mr Albanese\u2019s first public response to the backlash surrounding his appearance on the Bush Deep podcast, filmed at The Lodge.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister faced criticism after taking part in a \u201cshag, marry, date\u201d segment in which he chose Kylie Minogue for \u201call of the above\u201d.<\/p>\n

During the podcast, Mr Albanese also joked about a melon gift from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, saying she had a \u201ccouple of melons\u201d and \u201cthey\u2019re beautiful\u201d.<\/p>\n

The interview also included discussion of Mr Albanese\u2019s marriage to Ms Haydon after the host joked about whether the couple were \u201cstill bonking like rabbits\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you know, when we have time\u2026 After the footy. It\u2019s always a good aphrodisiac, a South (Sydney Rabbitohs) win,\u201d Mr Albanese said.<\/p>\n

Mr Albanese\u2019s net approval rating improved three points<\/a> following the backlash to the podcast, but he remained firmly in negative territory at -18 per cent.<\/p>\n

The improvement was driven largely by male voters, with Mr Albanese\u2019s net satisfaction rating among men rising from -25 per cent to -16 per cent.<\/p>\n

Among women, however, the movement went the other way, with Mr Albanese\u2019s net satisfaction falling from -16 per cent to -19 per cent.<\/p>\n

The podcast triggered criticism from Coalition and One Nation MPs, who argued the Prime Minister had exercised poor judgement.<\/p>\n

Liberal MP Aaron Violi told Sky News the episode was a \u201clesson about common decency\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Prime Minister has let himself down, he\u2019s let the office of Prime Minister down,\u201d Mr Violi said amid the fallout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel actually really sorry for his wife Jodie Haydon to hear their personal details talked about publicly. It\u2019s really disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact the Prime Minister went on it, the fact he thought it was appropriate to talk about Kylie Minogue in that way or his own personal life says a lot about him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said Mr Albanese had \u201cfallen into a trap\u201d by answering the questions but stopped short of calling for a broader attack on the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019ll tell you who is going to have their way with me if I ever say something like that. It would be the Australian people,\u201d Mr Joyce said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, no, we just can\u2019t answer questions like that, and thank you very much, but no, thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His comments follow weeks of criticism over jokes he made about his sex life, innuendo about the Japanese…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36750,1647,36747,1757,483,22,4917,4920,21,4918,36748,5730,36749,156,30551,13876,489,36746],"class_list":["post-51919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-aaron-violi","tag-abc","tag-albanese-breaks-silence-on-podcast-scandal-after-mangos-and-shag-comments","tag-albanese-government","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-au","tag-auspol","tag-australian-politics","tag-austrlia","tag-barnaby-joyce","tag-bush-deep","tag-japanese-prime-minister","tag-jodie-haydon","tag-labor","tag-pm","tag-podcast","tag-prime-minister","tag-shag-marry-date"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}