Deveny joked about Bindi Irwin

An Australian comedian has been sacked as a newspaper comments after Tweeting jokes about Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin’s 11-year-old daughter.

Writing about the red-carpet arrivals at the Logie awards for the Australian TV industry, Catherine Deveny wrote: ‘I do so hope Bindi Irwin gets laid.’

The comments attracted 200 complaints online – enough for the editor of Melbourne newspaper The Age to drop her from her weekly column. But the decision has split the online community, with several posts in support of the left-wing comedian as well as more glad to see the back of her.

Deveny defended her comments, saying she was using satire ‘to expose celebrity raunch culture and the sexual objectification of women, which is rife on the red carpet’.

She added that humour was ‘deeply subjective’, adding: ‘It was just passing notes in class, but suddenly these notes are being projected into the sky and taken out of context.’

Deveny also made a joke referring to the former chat show host Rove McManus’s first wife Belinda Emmett, who died of cancer four years ago, at the age of 32. She said of McManus’s new wife Tasma Walton: ‘Rove and Tasma look so cute ... hope she doesn't die, too.’

The Age’s editor-in-chief, Paul Ramadge, said: ‘We are appreciative of the columns Catherine has written for The Age over several years but the views she has expressed recently on Twitter are not in keeping with the standards we set at The Age.’

Just over a month ago, stand-up Fiona O’Loughlin provoked another media storm after joking about Bindi Irwin, who is now a TV celebrity in her own right. On the pop quiz Spicks and Specks, O’Loughlin called the girl ‘a bit creepy’ and ‘a freak show’.

Published: 4 May 2010