The Opposition has called on the PM to apologise for the remarks made during an already-controversial podcast appearance.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is under fire after his comments about melons given to him by Japan’s prime minister have been branded “insulting” by Tokyo’s former ambassador.
The controversy stems from a podcast interview last month where Albanese discussed the gift of crown melons, which are worth hundreds of dollars and are culturally significant in Japan.
During the Bush Deep podcast, the PM was discussing how his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi presented him with two melons.
“I’ll tell you something I got recently here that was pretty strange, but ended up being quite good, was a melon,” Albanese said.
“The Japanese prime minister brought a melon.”
Host Nikki Osborne questioned the way Takaichi managed to get the melon into Australia, asking, “How did she get that through customs? Did she smuggle it?”
The prime minister replied through laughter, “I don’t know, she brought a couple of melons”.
“She brought two?” Osborne said, pushing the melon-breast innuendo. “She just came in looking like Pamela Anderson?”
Albanese didn’t respond directly to Osborne’s comment about the famously big-breasted Baywatch actress, instead simply saying the melons gifted by the Japanese PM “were beautiful”.
Former Japanese ambassador ‘misinterpreted’ comments: Plibersek
Japan’s former ambassador to Canberra, Shingo Yagami, has written in The Australian that the comments were “insulting and unthoughtful”.
The prime minister’s office and government ministers have denied he made a crude joke, with the majority of the comments seemingly made by Osborne.
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek defended Albanese while appearing alongside One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce Sunrise Monday morning, saying viewers could make up their own minds after watching the clip.
“I think it was a complete misinterpretation from the former ambassador, a completely unnecessary interpretation of what the prime minister said,” Plibersek said.
“And I think people watching it for themselves can make their own minds up.”
Joyce said Albanese’s comments “demean the office of prime minister” and were a “dangerous thing to say”.
“Just like the Kylie Minogue comment (it’s) completely wrong, completely trying to be clever. It wasn’t clever,’’ he said.
Joyce referred to comments made in the same controversial podcast interview in which Albanese said he “would shag Kylie Minogue” in a game of “Shag, Marry, Date”.
The game involved Osborne asking the PM to say which of the three options he would choose for Minogue, Nicole Kidman and Rhonda Burchmore, with the iconic pop star taking a clean sweep.
“It just demeans the office of prime minister, and it certainly has created a massive problem with one of our major partners,” Joyce said.
Yagami said the strategic situation in the region means it’s a time for toiling and not for crude jokes at another’s expense.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called for the prime minister to apologise over the remarks.
“The comments were beneath the office of prime minister. They were insulting, and the prime minister should make a personal apology,” Taylor said at a press conference in Canberra on Monday.
The World Observer Media produces a daily online newspaper, a daily Arabic online newspaper and a monthly printed Arabic/English magazine and a weekly printed Arabic/English newspaper.
The World Observer Media’s mission is to entertain and educate all generation from the Ethnic Communities in Australia, who are interested in local, national and foreign information. 
