Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has described Anna Wintour’s comments as “a bit tacky” after she slammed both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Margaret Court.
Speaking in Melbourne on Thursday, the Vogue editor-in-chief said Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared “backward in all senses” on LGBTIQ issues. She also described herself as ‘alarmed’ by his record.
Peter Dutton
Peter Dutton then spoke to Channel Nine’s Today.
“I thought it was a bit tacky actually, to be honest.
“Somebody coming here to criticise, to make a statement that wasn’t factually correct anyway, is pretty shabby.
“I mean, she thrives on media and attention… Good luck.”
In her speech, Anna Wintour pointed to the government’s delay on repealing religious exemptions that currently allow LGBT students to be expelled from religious schools.
She said no expelling students over their sexual orientation should not require clarification.
“A government should protect its people and not make it unclear whether they will be accepted.
“We are struggling with these issues in the US too.”
Anna Wintour: rename arena
Wintour also took tennis legend Margaret Court to task for her history of homophobic statements. She suggested renaming the Margaret Court Arena to show “intolerance has no place in tennis.”
“I find it’s inconsistent with the sport for Margaret Court’s name to be on the stadium that does so much to bring all people together across their differences,” she said.
Court, who is now a Christian minister, has previously compared the “gay lobby” to Hitler’s Nazi regime for trying to “get in the minds of children”, complained that tennis is “full of lesbians”, and blaming the devil for transgender people.
Margaret Court dismissed Wintour’s remarks as ‘sad’. She suggested calls for the renaming of the arena proved the threat to religious freedom.
“The saddest thing is someone coming from America and telling us in this nation what to do,” she told PerthNow.
“I’ve loved my nation, played for my nation. There’s probably no one who has been more supportive of, or spoke more highly of, the game of tennis.”
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