An Australian mayor who invited ugly women to move to his outback mining town, saying even they would find a man there, has won the top “award” for the most sexist public comment of the year.
Mayor John Moloney of remote Mount Isa was chosen by the volume of boos, jeers and stamping of feet that greeted his nomination at the annual women-only Ernie Awards in the New South Wales parliament on Thursday night.
Moloney won the Golden Ernie for telling a newspaper that his town, where men outnumber women, was a place for “ugly ducklings to flourish into beautiful swans.”
He called on “beauty-disadvantaged” women to flock there, saying he often saw unattractive women in Mount Isa who looked like they were enjoying life in the northwestern Queensland town.
“Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face,” he said. “Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness.”
He later told national radio that obese women could even lose weight under the gaze of Mount Isa males.
“There’s a great incentive because there’s that much attention focused on them and they become interested in looking better — and in no time they just shed it,” he said.
Confronted by a protest by scores of insulted Mount Isa women, he said: “The protesters are blaming me for their looks.”
An unrepentant Moloney told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday that news of his remarks had sparked interest in Mount Isa among women internationally.
“I had a lot of e-mail responses from women around the world who wanted to come to Mount Isa and no doubt some of those people have come to Mount Isa and found the happiness they sought,” he said.
Western Australia’s state Treasurer Troy Buswell won the Political Ernie for sniffing the chair a female staffer had been sitting on and snapping the bra of another.
Nine Network television’s news chief John Westacott won the Media Ernie for saying “Sheilas do health and consumer stories — you want your blokes, your main guns, doing the real news stories.”
The awards, now in their 16th year, aim to shame men for outrageous sexism.
The Ernies’ chief organizer, former state parliamentarian Meredith Burgmann, read out the nominees and judges decreed the winners based on the volume of jeering.
“I think the message is ever vigilant, ever watchful, keeping people, keeping blokes on their toes and making sure that we name and shame them,” she said.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS