Australian PM caught making genital joke with climate minister at COP31 - watch

During a private exchange between Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Climate Minister Chris Bowen at the COP31 summit in Turkey, a joke was made about phone radiation and male anatomy. The conversation, recorded by a news camera microphone, was later broadcast by Channel 7. Albanese joked that keeping phones away from the heart was to avoid interference with its rhythm, to which Bowen responded that it made "absolute sense".

The discussion then shifted to where the minister kept his phone, leading Albanese to ask if it was due to his genitals. Both men found the exchange amusing, with Bowen adding that keeping the phone in one's pants pocket may be more important than the heart. The Prime Minister's office stated that the two ministers were simply sharing a joke between meetings.

However, the Liberal party's deputy leader Jane Hume criticized the incident as "weird and gross," accusing the government of spending excessive funds and attracting ridicule rather than investment.