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A male Labor politician has been forced to apologise for demanding to know whether Foreign Minister Julie Bishop ordered flowers and other decorations for an event because she is a woman.
South Australian senator Alex Gallacher??? was making inquiries about a budget night party hosted by Ms Bishop and attended by ambassadors and dignitaries.
"Given that the 38th foreign minister is probably the only female on the list of Australian foreign ministers, were there decorations including flowers?" he asked.
Senator Gallacher a former Transport Workers Union heavyweight, also asked an extensive list of questions about the invitation list, menu and price of beverages served at the event - all of which were referred to Ms Bishop's office by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Liberal senator Zed Seselja???, representing Ms Bishop at the Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday, objected to the line of questioning as irrelevant.
"I'm not really sure of what the relevance was ??? that because it's a female foreign minister we have to know about decorations and flowers?" he asked.
"I would have thought that if a Coalition senator had asked that, perhaps Senator [Penny] Wong would be up in arms right now."
Senator Wong, Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman, scoffed at that suggestion and said she should not be expected to comment on "anything to do with gender or race".
Senator Gallacher returned to the hearing after lunch to apologise for the "imputation" of his remarks, and declared it was not his intention to offend.
"Before lunch there was imputations taken from a line of questioning that I put in respect to the foreign minister which were clearly not my intention," he said.
"There's no intention in any way, shape or form to align motives aligning to the sex or otherwise of the foreign minister. Whether I asked about flowers or not is not a question that was relevant in that way.
"So if anybody took offence I sincerely apologise for that."
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Ms Bishop said: "This might come as a shock to [Labor's] Senator Gallacher but Australia's first female foreign minister spends her time focusing on serious issues of Australia's national security and other important matters of state."
Senator Wong also released a statement in which she said Ms Bishop's gender was irrelevant to her performance as foreign minister.
However, she added, "if Coalition senators are so outraged at such language, I look forward to them taking action against Senator [Ian] MacDonald who last week referred to me as a 'precious petal' and told me to 'get out of the kitchen'".
Labor leader Bill Shorten has also been contacted for comment.
