Labor has been labelled hypocritical on sexism by the government, after senator Doug Cameron said employment minister Michaelia Cash needed to "hold the hands" of a male colleague to do her job.
The NSW Labor senator made the comments during a late night debate over the government's plan to introduce a registered organisation commission, one of the two industrial relations bills that triggered July's double dissolution election.
Cameron implied Cash needed to have her hand held by finance minister Mathias Cormann during the long debate, which resulted in the bill passing after 2a.m.
"Are you not answering the question or are you getting advice from senator Cormann not to respond?" he asked.
"I know you need senator Cormann there to hold your hand," he said. "Senator Cormann, I know you have to be there to hold the minister's hand."
"The minister cannot handle the bill on her own. She needs senator Cormann there to chaperone her through this bill... I've never seen this before, a senior minister in the government, to have you sit there and hold her hand and chaperone them through this bill."
Liberal senator James Paterson interrupted and asked Cameron to withdraw his comments, but he refused. Instead, Cameron called on Cash to stop "being so mediocre" and hiding behind her colleagues.
Finance minister Cormann slammed the comments as "juvenile, pathetic and patronising", adding that Cash had done an "outstanding" job.
Cash said she wasn't offended by the comments. She told BuzzFeed News “how Labor senators behave is a matter for them... It is now a matter for senator Wong as Senate leader to determine what sort of behaviour she deems acceptable”. But the minister's colleagues have lined up to support her.
Coalition senators told BuzzFeed News they were disappointed more wasn't made of the comments, which they consider "sexist" and "hypocritical" given Labor leader Bill Shorten's promise to call out women being disrespected.
Another added that Cameron, a former vice president of the ACTU, was exhibiting the exact bullying union behaviour the government's industrial relations bills aimed to extinguish.
Labor's Senate leader Penny Wong told BuzzFeed News she didn't think Cameron's remarks were sexist, rather they were intended as a "comment on senator Cash's competence".
This isn't the first time the Labor senator has been caught making gendered comments to female politicians. In February, he called Cash and Liberal MP Linda Reynolds "silly schoolgirls" during a debate on unions. Cameron later apologised.