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The office of Opposition leader Peter Dutton has admitted he “shouldn’t have used” the phrase “limp-wrist”, a term with historical anti-gay connotations, during a foreign policy event in Sydney on Thursday.
Asked at the Lowy Institute for his view on the Chinese naval task group which conducted live-fire drills off Australia’s coast in February, Dutton described the actions as a “show of force”, before criticising Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s handling of the matter.
“It was the weakest, most limp-wrist response you could see from a leader, and frankly, none of his leaders, Liberal or Labor, would have provided the response that the prime minister did,” Dutton told the audience.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the adjective ‘limp-wristed’ is “an extremely offensive word used to describe a man whose behaviour is thought to be typical of a gay person”.
A spokesperson for the Opposition leader later told SBS: “it was a phrase that shouldn’t have been used, and no offence was intended from Mr Dutton.”
Asked about the remarks, Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the ABC Dutton was: “a bloke who opposed marriage equality, it’s an unsurprising use of language from him”.
Pressed about whether the language was offensive, she said “people can draw their own conclusions about the term he used.”
A member of the Liberal Party who did not want to be named told SBS News the language perpetuated an “offensive stereotype”.
Asked about the comments, Opposition treasury spokesperson Angus Taylor said they were an “absolutely acceptable choice of words when it comes to the approach he [Albanese] is taking”, but did not repeat them.
“I mean he’s weak, he’s a wet lettuce,” he told reporters in Sydney.
Independent MP Allegra Spender also responded to the remarks, calling them “completely inappropriate & offensive to many in the LGBTQ+ community”.
“By all means criticise the govt response, but don’t do so in a way that plays into offensive stereotypes about gay men,” she wrote in a post on X.
The comments followed a long-ranging foreign policy speech, where Dutton again warned against Australia joining a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, confirmed he would side with Israel at the United Nations, and take a stronger approach on the Pacific.
He told the Lowy Institute if he won power, his first international trip would be to Washington to meet Donald Trump, expressing optimism that he would find “common ground” with the US president.
But Dutton was also critical of the Trump administration’s shutdown of USAID, warning cuts to American aid projects in the Indo-Pacific are “detrimental to the collective interests in the region.”
“I think there is a place for Australia to advocate for some of that funding to return, and we can do that in a respectful way with the United States,” he said.
“The most important element that we could bring to the table, I hope the government’s doing this now, is identifying individual programs that have been cut, and advocating for them to be stood up again, and for the Americans to re-engage.”
Senator Wong confirmed her department is already assessing “where a reduction in US AID may be most problematic” in the Pacific.
“Of course, we engage with countries of the region and advocate for the region wherever we can.”
