Bob Edlin: Sex and leadership.....

Sex and leadership – Albanese says sorry for his indiscretion but Trump fights on in the courts

Australian supporters of the Socceroos went viral during the 2026 FIFA World Cup for an anti-Donald Trump chant.

The chant – widely circulated on social media – had simple lyrics:

“Aussie boys are on a bender,

Donald Trump is a sex offender.”

Back home, Aussies were disapproving of their Prime Minister for the offence of responding to a question – when pressed – about extra-marital rump-pumpy.

He has apologised.

The ABC reported:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has apologised “unequivocally” for saying he would shag Kylie Minogue during a game on a podcast.

In the episode of the Bush Deep podcast, published on Friday, the prime minister was asked by host Nikki Osborne to play a game of “shag, marry, date”.

“Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman or Rhonda Burchmore?” Osborne asked the prime minister.

Mr Albanese did not initially answer, and said he had “only just got married” and was “only six months in”.

But when pressed about what would happen if his marriage broke down, Mr Albanese said, “Oh, Kylie clearly.”

“You’d marry Kylie and shag her and date her?” Osborne asked.

“All of the above,” Mr Albanese replied.

During the podcast, Albanese also made comments about his sex life with wife Jodie Haydon and said that a South Sydney Rugby League team win was a good aphrodisiac.

On Monday this week, he released a statement through his office apologising.

“I apologise unequivocally for the comments,” he said.

A curious aspect of the controversy is that all the fire has been directed at Albanese – but:

Osborne asks all her guests the same set of questions at the end of her podcast, including a rendition of “shag. marry, date,” although the names of the women generally change.

Apparently it is okay to ask the question. Answering is where offence is caused.

Mind you, bearing in mind the thrust of the questions that are always asked, Community Strong MP Zali Steggall had a point when she said Albanese should never have participated in the game.

Similarly, Shadow Communications Minister Sarah Henderson condemned the prime minister, saying:

“Rather than politely decline to engage, Mr Albanese got into the gutter with his grubby remarks, which show extremely poor judgement at a time when trust in Labor is collapsing.”

Couldn’t his media advisers dissuade him from exercising that poor judgement?

Perhaps more important, how will Australian voters react to Albanese’s folly?

A national Newspoll, conducted June 22–25 from a sample of 1,235, gave Labor 33% of the primary vote (up three since the previous Newspoll three weeks earlier), One Nation 29% (down two), the Coalition 17% (down one to a new record low in Newspoll), the Greens 13% (up two) and all Others 8% (down two).

Albanese’s net approval gained seven points to -17 (57% dissatisfied, 40% satisfied), off his record low in the previous Newspoll.

In the USA, where Socceroo fans wowed the world by singing their chant, support for Donald Trump has been slipping, but not necessarily because of his sexual romps.

American voters had a fair idea of his attitude to marital fidelity before electing him President for a second term in 2024.

In May 2023, a nine-person federal jury concluded, by the civil preponderance standard used in tort trials, that Trump sexually abused Elizabeth Jean Carroll, an American journalist, author, and advice columnist, in the mid‑1990s and defamed her with later statements.

This week a federal judge ordered the release of $5.8 million to Carroll .

According to The Hill:

District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Carroll should receive the funds, which were placed in an escrow account while Trump appealed a verdict that found him liable for defaming Carroll.

During his first term in the Oval Office, Trump said Carroll’s claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in Manhattan were a “con job” and “hoax.”

A jury determined his statements were defamatory and negatively impacted Carroll professionally.

The Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal to overturn the case without an explanation or reasoning last week.

Carroll’s attorney said the high court’s decision signals that Trump should end his pursuit to overturn the 2023 verdict awarding the Elle magazine columnist millions of dollars in damages.

Carroll’s legal award has grown from $5 million to about $5.8 million because of court-ordered interest.

Trump’s attorneys asked that the funds awarded to Carroll remain in the court escrow account while “timely petition for rehearing remains pending before the Supreme Court.”

His legal team argued Trump would suffer “irreparable harm,” while Carroll was not improperly disadvantaged by waiting.

Trump’s lawyers appealed Kaplan’s ruling less than an hour after it was issued.

That civil finding in 2023 was affirmed by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2024.

This was a civil liability determination, designed to compensate a plaintiff under New York law, not a criminal guilty verdict, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt and can carry prison time.

The jurors found Carroll had proven sexual abuse but did not find she proved rape, a narrower criminal-style allegation, and the judge later explained that the jury’s ruling on sexual abuse made certain post‑verdict statements “substantially true” for purposes of defamation law.

Judge rulings before trial permitted testimony from other women who had separately alleged misconduct by Trump and portions of a 2005 recording in which Trump described non‑consensual kissing and grabbing.

We know Trump is busy playing golf, improving the Washington landscape, settling wars around the world and what-have-you.

But it would be great to have him appear on the podcast and answer the question that got Albanese into trouble.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.