“Tim’s gay isn’t he?” Sattler asks Prime Minister.
6PR drive announcer Howard Sattler went a step too far in his interview with a “disrespectful and irrelevent” line of questioning to PM Julia Gillard, asking her several times if her partner, Tim Mathieson, is gay. “That’s absurd,” she replied.
“He’s a hairdresser isn’t he?” Sattler put to a speechless Gillard in a line of questioning he said was “testing myths.”
Sattler: “You hear it. He must be gay, he’s a hairdresser… But you’ve heard it, it’s not me saying it, it’s what people say.”
Gillard: “To all the hairdressers out there, including to all the men who are listening, I don’t think in life one can actually look at a whole profession full of different human beings and say, ‘Gee, we know something about every one of those human beings’. I mean, it’s absurd, isn’t it?”
Sattler: “You can confirm that he’s not?”
Gillard: “Howard, don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.” Sattler: “No, but are you in a heterosexual relationship? That’s all I’m asking!”
Gillard: “Let me just bring you back to earth. You and I have just talked about me and Tim living at The Lodge.
“We live there together as a couple, you know that. Yes, on the internet, you know, there are lots of, you know, what I’ve referred to in the past as nutjobs, and I’m happy to use the expression again; people who peddle and circulate vile and offensive things.”
Fairfax Radio has suspended Sattler pending an internal inquiry.
6 PR Program Manager Martin Boylen has made the following statement:
Today Howard Sattler, Drive presenter on Perth radio station 6PR, put a number of questions to Prime Minister Julia Gillard regarding the sexuality of her partner, Tim Mathieson.
These questions sought to establish if there was a basis in fact to rumours circulating about the couple’s relationship.
The PM answered Mr Sattler’s questions with dignity and some patience.
Fairfax Radio management has reviewed this interview and considers that the questions posed by Mr Sattler were disrespectful and irrelevant to the political debate.
Mr Sattler apologised later in the program for his line of questioning. The management of FRN also extends its sincere apologies to the Prime Minister and her partner.