Suspended 2CC announcer Jorian Gardner believes he is the victim of an “over-reaction from management” after being stood down from presenting duties for at least a week after making an on-air joke about “upskirting” the Prime Minister.

The remark that drew the ire of management was a suggestion during the station’s breakfast show that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy should wear a “penis cam” during cabvarchar(15) meetings so he could film up the skirt of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

In a Canberra Times story, Gardner apologised to listeners, before comparing his indiscretions with those of Kyle Sandilands.

“I acknowledge that the jokes this morning were inappropriate and I apologise to anyone who may have been offended, but think it is a massive over-reaction from management to suspend my on-air commitments until further notice.

“This is the same type of ban imposed on Kyle Sandilands when he interviewed a 14 year old girl about her sexual experiences – only to find out she had been raped.

“I hardly think a bad-taste joke about Julia Gillard and Stephen Conroy is really in the same league.”

2CC Program Director Pete Davidson has told radioinfo he cannot comment further on the incident, but confirmed his statement in the Canberra Times that Gardner  “certainly breached the commercial radio codes of practice as far as decency codes are concerned.”

“We wanted to send a message to Jorian that it’s not acceptable. We’ve decided that from our point of view we needed to take this action. It’s not a long suspension, but we needed to send the message that this wouldn’t be tolerated.”