Australia prime minister Anthony Albanese pledges a fitting tribute

Barry Humphries is to be given a state funeral in Australia, prime minister Anthony Albanese has said.

Calling him ‘the quintessential Australian character,’ the premier said. ‘We will honour him at a state funeral. He is someone who has brought tremendous joy to generations of Australians’.

Albanese – who is visiting Britain for the Coronation – made the pledge while speaking to TalkTV’s Piers Morgan.

He said: ‘Barry Humphries brought an Australian larrikinism to life. Australians have a particular sense of humour. I think British humour is different from American humour. Barry Humphries could only have come from Australia…what [he] would say is taking the piss out of ourselves.

‘He did it so well and for such a long period of time. So [his death] was a big loss for the Australian arts community… there was a great deal of mourning of him.’

Morgan inevitably brought up the issue of ‘cancel culture’, arguing that Humphries – like  Monty Python, Fawlty Towers and Blackadder – ‘almost certainly wouldn't survive the modern curse of cancel culture, because of the inappropriateness’.

And he asked Albanese to comment on Melbourne International Comedy Festival renaming its Barry award after Humphries made comments widely seen as transphobic. In 2016, the comedian said any trans woman was ‘a mutilated man, that’s all’ – and two years later he said being transgender was ‘a fashion’.

The prime minster responded: ‘’I wasn't even aware of that, I must say, until recent recent times, and and I think people can legitimately can put forward their concerns about someone's comments. But at the same time, I think that we've got to be able to laugh at ourselves. The idea of cancel culture is, in my view, a sad development… And so often things get taken out of context.’

But Albanese declined to rise to Morgan’s bait of outright condemning the Melbourne comedy festival, saying only: ‘It's good. that a tribute is now being made to Barry Humphries. And there will be a state funeral for Barry Humphries as well, co-hosted by the New South Wales and the Victorian governments and the Australian Government.

‘We'll be paying tribute to him at a state funeral. He is someone who has given an enormous amount of pleasure to generations of Australians.

‘I know that a range of people who are friends of mine knew him very well. I didn’t. But I know how warmly he was regarded by people in Australia and in the UK.’

Humphries died at the age of 89 on April 22, surrounded by family, having been readmitted to St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney   following complications from hip surgery he underwent following a fall at his home in February.

Published: 3 May 2023