'It was wrong, insensitive': PM apologises for Tourette's comment
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has apologised for making “unkind and hurtful” comments in parliament on Tuesday, when he mocked opposition frontbenchers by asking if they had Tourette syndrome.
The remark came in an exchange during question time, which is broadcast nationwide, when Coalition MPs interjected in the chamber as Albanese was being asked about tax changes.
“This nonsense that they carry on with ... Have you got Tourette’s or something?” Albanese asked shadow treasurer Angus Taylor and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, using the neurodevelopmental disorder as an insult. “You know, you just sit there, babble, babble, babble,” he said.
Tourette syndrome is a disorder that involves repetitive movements or unwanted sounds, or tics, that can’t be easily controlled.
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Albanese quickly withdrew the comment on Tuesday afternoon. “I withdraw. I withdraw. I withdraw and apologise,” he said. But he was lashed by opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston and Greens disability spokesman Jordon Steele-John, who urged him to properly apologise.
The prime minister expanded his apology in parliament on Tuesday night to a largely empty chamber. “Today, in question time, I made comments that were unkind and hurtful,” he said.
“I knew it was wrong as soon as I made the comment. I apologised and I withdrew as soon as I said it.
“But it shouldn’t have happened. And I also want to apologise to all Australians who suffer from this disability. I regret saying it. It was wrong. It was insensitive. And I apologise.”
Mandy Maysey, president of the Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia, who has three children with the disorder, said Albanese’s apology felt a bit hollow. “He didn’t refer to Tourette syndrome. He is happy to throw Tourette syndrome across the floor as an insult but when he made his apology he said ‘people with this disability’,” she said.
Maysey said people in the public often used Tourette’s as a punchline or insult, and the Prime Minister doing so in parliament would set the wrong example. “Often you can’t go anywhere without people looking at you funny or even just being insulting ... It is really quite a distressing condition to have.
“Tourette syndrome affects one in 100 individuals in Australia and then you have got the wider community, the families that suffer with it as well. It is socially isolating and for him to just flippantly use it in such an offhanded manner speaks volumes.”
Steele-John had earlier said disabled people deserved better. “If our PM could stop using disability as the butt of his jokes that would be great. Casual ableism is still ableism,” he said.
Ruston described it as “absolutely despicable behaviour”. “Mocking a disability is no laughing matter,” she said. “Australians living with Tourette’s deserve the PM’s respect, not his ridicule.”
She repeated her criticism on Wednesday morning, after the Prime Minister’s apology, and extended her condemnation to other Labor MPs.
“One of the most disgusting things about his comment is that if you listen to the laughter of those behind him, it wasn’t just the Prime Minister, there were a whole heap of his colleagues who thought it was funny to mock someone with a disability,” Ruston said on 2GB.
Liberal Senator Jane Hume on Wednesday morning said the comment had been an insight into Albanese’s character, but Housing Minister Clare O’Neil defended the Prime Minister.
“Jane, you and I both make mistakes in our work in politics. What matters is how we deal with it afterwards and I think it was good he didn’t pretend he hadn’t done the wrong thing,” O’Neil said on Seven’s Sunrise.
“He immediately acknowledged it and made that apology.”
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