Mathias Cormann denies his 'economic girlie-man' insult is sexist

Australia’s finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has denied making any gender-specific insult in labelling the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, as an “economic girlie man”.

Labor’s leader in the Senate, Penny Wong, said the remark – made during an interview about the budget stalemate on Saturday – sent an inappropriate message to girls that they were weak.

“I don’t think using girlie as an insult is the sort of thing a cabinet minister or any serious political leader should be saying,” Wong told Sky News on Sunday.

“I just think if we use girl as an insult what are we telling our sons and our daughters about being a girl? You’re saying it’s somehow less confident, weak, whatever the imputation – I just don’t think that’s sensible.

“Imagine if we used any racial term in the way it was used. I think we would all be outraged for the same reasons.”

Cormann sought to defend his comments after Labor and the Greens suggested they were reflective of a government that had just one woman in the 19-member cabinet.

“I am not talking about girls. I am talking about economic girlie men,’’ the minister told News Corp’s Sunday papers.

“I don’t think there’s anything gender-specific here. Not girls, girlies; it’s very different. I hope you are not going to say I am a sexist misogynist.’’

In a further statement issued on Sunday, Cormann said his comment was intended to point out that Shorten could not secure Labor support for Labor’s own previously budgeted savings measures.

“No amount of confected outrage from Bill Shorten, Labor and the Greens can detract from the fact that he is too weak to repair the budget mess Labor left behind,” Cormann said.

“Economic girlie men has come to adopt its own meaning. It is not in any way intended as a reflection on girls, it is entirely intended as a reflection on Bill Shorten.”

The finance minister was responding to Shorten’s claim that the budget was “more likely to get back to surplus under a Labor government than this current mob”.

Adapting a phrase used by the former Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cormann told Sky News: “The problem that the Labor Party has today is that Bill Shorten is an economic girlie man. He doesn’t have what it takes to repair the budget mess that they have left behind.”

The education minister, Christopher Pyne, described his colleague’s remark as “colourful” language.

“I have to say it’s unusual for Mathias to use a colourful phrase,” Pyne told Sky News.

“I think the point that Mathias was making is that Bill Shorten wants to have it both ways; he wants to have his cake and eat it too, which is very nice if you can get it, but quite frankly it’s not that easy.”

Pyne said the Australian people knew “that you have to be firm in controlling the treasury”.

The Greens senator Senator Larissa Waters said women would be appalled that Cormann had “chosen to use gender as a derogatory attack”.

“What more can you expect from a government with just one woman in cabinet and a prime minister who thinks women should be at home ironing,” Waters said.

Schwarzenegger used the phrase in a 2004 Republican convention speech: “To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy I say don’t be economic girlie men.”

Last month, the satirical ABC program Mad as Hell featured an actor playing a fictional spokesman for Cormann telling host Shaun Micallef: “You’re being an economic girlie man.”

During a Senate debate in September 2005 about the full privatisation of Telstra, the Labor senator Ursula Stephens said: “This is much, much more than I can say for [former Liberal MP] Alby Schultz, who has acted as a ‘telecommunications girly man’.”