Albanese says he regrets the hot-mic joke with Chris Bowen, but calls it banter between friends

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has apologised for a crude exchange with Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen that was caught by a news camera microphone at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye.

“Of course I regret that, I apologise,” Mr Albanese told reporters on Sunday. He described the moment as a private conversation, as the two men believed, between friends having some light-hearted banter, and said no one was hurt or harmed.

What was said?

The exchange happened on Friday, shortly before a business roundtable on renewable energy investment began. As Mr Albanese slipped his phone into his jacket pocket, he said he had heard phones should be kept away from the heart because they can interfere with its rhythm.

Mr Bowen joked that the phone was a little radioactive and said his trouser pocket was the bigger worry. Mr Albanese asked, using a crude term, whether that was because of his genitals. Mr Bowen agreed and said they were arguably more important than the heart.

A news camera microphone, set up to record the opening remarks, captured the exchange. It did not appear to be heard by anyone else in the room, and it went to air on Channel 7 after it was noticed in production.

What has the government said?

The Prime Minister’s office said the two men were having a joke between meetings. Labor frontbencher Murray Watt said it was simply people having a joke.

Mr Bowen has not commented publicly. He remains in Antalya as co-president of the COP31 negotiations, a role Australia secured when it agreed to let Türkiye host the summit instead of Adelaide.

Why is the Opposition making so much of it?

The Coalition called the exchange “weird and gross” and said the two men behaved like teenage schoolboys. Liberal deputy leader Jane Hume said on Sunday that it undermined the government’s climate message, and called the government clowns.

The criticism lands on a minister the Coalition was already targeting. Ms Hume had argued that Mr Bowen should be focused on rising petrol and diesel prices at home rather than on the summit.

Was there anything in the joke?

Not much, on the science. Australia’s radiation safety agency, ARPANSA, says there is no established evidence that the radio waves from mobile phones cause health effects at the levels people are exposed to.

There is one real piece of advice behind the Prime Minister’s line about the heart. People with pacemakers and some other implanted heart devices are generally told to keep a phone about 15 centimetres from the device, for example by not carrying it in a shirt pocket over the implant. That is about interference with the device, not damage to the heart itself.

Where is the Prime Minister now?

Mr Albanese is in Manila for the ASEAN summit and goes on to Shenzhen, China, for the APEC leaders’ meeting on Wednesday. Hot-mic moments rarely change much on their own, but this one gives the Opposition a ready line against two of the government’s most senior figures on climate while both are overseas representing Australia.