Australian Senator Penny Wong has made a name for herself as a progressive politician. Wong, an openly gay Labor Party senator who currently serves as Leader of the Opposition, is pretty blunt with her colleagues when they treat her disrespectfully. Especially if they interrupt her.
While speaking to the Australian Senate on Wednesday, Wong was suddenly cut off by Liberal National Sen. Ian Macdonald, a regular occurrence in the Senate. Wong kept her cool and fought back after the floor continued to respect her speaking time.
“Thank you, Mr. President, the Senator Macdonald really does have an unhealthy obsession with me,” Wong joked. “But I digress.”
Sen. Wong tried to pick up from where she left off, but Sen. Macdonald continued to heckle Wong by telling her that she’s “not my type.” So Wong fired back, shutting him down.
“You’re not my type either, mate, don’t worry about it,” she said.
Twitter quickly fell in love with Wong’s response, saying how Macdonald’s interruption—and Wong’s subsequent response—perfectly captures how women can silence the manterrupters who try to speak over them.
https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/877434041162543104
https://twitter.com/joshgnosis/status/877414625976868866
Typical miserable old fart comment from a very nasty Senator Ian MacDonald to Senator Penny Wong, who outsmarts him continuously #RESIGN
— 💧Bprophetable ⧖ (@bprophetable) June 21, 2017
This isn’t the first time that Wong has criticized Macdonald’s behavior, either. After a study revealed that women in Parliament are more likely to be interrupted by male politicians, Wong targeted Macdonald for his behavior, saying that he regularly interrupts women on the floor without respecting their time.
“This study will come as no surprise to anyone who has witnessed the atrocious behavior of Coalition senators like Ian Macdonald and Barry O’Sullivan in their abuse and hectoring of witnesses such as Gillian Triggs,” Wong told BuzzFeed News. “It’s another argument for why the Liberals need to do more to get more women into parliament—just 26 percent of government senators are women, compared to 57 percent on the Labor side”