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Aussie TV in trouble over sex & the PM
Source: Agencies |
September 21, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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AUSTRALIA'S national broadcaster faced calls for a review of funding yesterday over a television comedy scene with a fictional Prime Minister Julia Gillard draped in a national flag after having sex on her office floor.
Conservative opposition lawmakers said the Australian Broadcasting Corp had overstepped good taste with a scene in which actors playing Gillard and her partner Tim Mathieson cuddled naked and used the flag - with its historic ties to Great Britain and Australia's Queen Elizabeth - as a sheet.
"Having sex in the prime minister's office under the Australian flag is the last straw for me. It is sick. I'm offended and we should take a stand," one lawmaker told a closed door meeting of MPs, a conservative spokesman revealed.
Another MP called for a rethink of taxpayer funding for the ABC, saying the program degraded the office of prime minister, currently held by center-left Labor rival Gillard, while monarchists said the use of the flag was disrespectful.
"I think a bit more discretion when using the flag is appropriate, even when you are trying to make a joke," Australians for Constitutional Monarch head David Flint told Australian media.
Comments on newspaper websites were also scathing about the show "At Home With Julia", which is based around the fictional home life of the country's first female leader.
"Rude, negative, abusive, disrespectful and now grubby," a viewer named Andrea Moore wrote on The Australian newspaper's website.
Gillard herself has laughed off controversy over the satire, but a government protocol officer said the national flag, with its stars and Britain's Union Jack in one corner, should not have been shown lying on the ground.
Conservative opposition lawmakers said the Australian Broadcasting Corp had overstepped good taste with a scene in which actors playing Gillard and her partner Tim Mathieson cuddled naked and used the flag - with its historic ties to Great Britain and Australia's Queen Elizabeth - as a sheet.
"Having sex in the prime minister's office under the Australian flag is the last straw for me. It is sick. I'm offended and we should take a stand," one lawmaker told a closed door meeting of MPs, a conservative spokesman revealed.
Another MP called for a rethink of taxpayer funding for the ABC, saying the program degraded the office of prime minister, currently held by center-left Labor rival Gillard, while monarchists said the use of the flag was disrespectful.
"I think a bit more discretion when using the flag is appropriate, even when you are trying to make a joke," Australians for Constitutional Monarch head David Flint told Australian media.
Comments on newspaper websites were also scathing about the show "At Home With Julia", which is based around the fictional home life of the country's first female leader.
"Rude, negative, abusive, disrespectful and now grubby," a viewer named Andrea Moore wrote on The Australian newspaper's website.
Gillard herself has laughed off controversy over the satire, but a government protocol officer said the national flag, with its stars and Britain's Union Jack in one corner, should not have been shown lying on the ground.
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