LATIKA M BOURKE: Anthony Albanese podcast backflip leaves Tanya Plibersek exposed after weeks defending PM

Speaking to the ABC’s 730, Mr Albanese finally admitted what has been blindingly obvious to everyone, except him, until now.

“Clearly that was an error,” he said, of his disastrous appearance on the Bush Deep podcast.

The smutty conversation was a train wreck from the minute he accepted comedian Nikki Osborne’s brief of presenting the real him and not talking about politics.

That should have carried a high-risk warning. But the prime minister relished the invitation, lobbed at him and accepted through his Instagram DMs and embarked on a boorish, smut-laden chat that canvassed whether he would shag popstar Kylie Minogue, discussed scheduling sex with his second wife Jodie Haydon after the aphrodisiac watching their Rabbitohs football club play and leaned-in to a joke that compared the gift of Japanese melon fruits given to him by that country’s first woman leader to Pamela Anderson’s boob implants.

But just last Friday, Mr Albanese insisted during multiple media appearances that every Australian who saw him hold up his hands around his chest as the melons were referenced did not see what they thought they saw, laughably insisting that it all came down to a point about whether he gesticulates when he speaks.

“When I give interviews, anyone who has sat down with me, and there’s a bit of footage of me doing interviews, sitting on chairs, will say that I don’t do them with my arms crossed. And so certainly, as the interpretation that some have put on this is simply not correct,” he told reporters.

He gave the same excuse again later in the day on television and at a later press conference.

He also denied knowing that he would be given the question about shagging Kylie Minogue — a quiz Ms Osborne says is her signature question and features in every episode.

If he honestly did not know, he and his office are incompetent, as they failed to do their basic job by watching the podcaster’s previous episodes to know what might be coming up.

Why other cabinet ministers and MPs felt it was their job to defend this level of ineptitude is incomprehensible. It was a case of a sheep bleating first, thinking never.

Last night, Mr Albanese conceded he had buyer’s remorse about agreeing to appear on Bush Deep.

“Of course, if I had my time again, which you don’t, then I wouldn’t have done that podcast. We have a view which is trying to talk to as many people as possible, but clearly that was an error,” he said.

There’s just one big problem. If the error was so obvious, to the point that you now wish you could turn back time, why did so many Labor women defend this to the public?

Why did Labor MPs and ministers all tell the public that the prime minister did no wrong? And will they now have a change of heart?