Australia is in the news again for something ill-considered.

Last week it was an ‘onion slippage’ controversy, and this week it’s Pamela Anderson.

Anderson has urged the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison (below), to bring Julian Assange to Australia, but Morrison shut that down pretty quickly.

Maybe he’s heard that Assange is acting like a spoilt teenage boy at the Ecuadorian embassy to the detriment of his tie-wearing cat.

In his statement rejecting Anderson’s plea, he also decided to bro out a bit, and this is where things get icky.

Morrison said he had “plenty of mates who have asked me if they can be my special envoy to sort out the issue with Pamela”, reports BBC.

The above quip was made on a radio programme in response to the following statement from Anderson:

“Get Julian his passport back and take him back home to Australian and be proud of him, and throw him a parade when he gets home,” she told Australia’s 60 Minutes programme.

…On Sunday, Ms Anderson wrote in an open letter: “You trivialized and laughed about the suffering of an Australian and his family.

“You followed it with smutty, unnecessary comments about a woman voicing her political opinion.”

Naturally, Morrison used the standard sexist defence, saying that it was “light-hearted” (in other words, Pam should learn to take a joke), but other Australian politicians weren’t having it.

Several Australian politicians backed her criticism of Mr Morrison’s language, even if some disputed her views on Mr Assange’s case.

Labor Senator Kristina Keneally tweeted: “It’s high time men, including @ScottMorrisonMP, stopped using a woman’s sexuality & appearance to denigrate her political arguments.”

Independent Senator Derryn Hinch add that Mr Morrison “really should not have said it”.

Australia has a bad track record of late when it comes to political correctness. They don’t seem to be getting the memo – they even held an “it’s okay to be white” vote.

They really need to take stock and get with the times.

[source:bbc]