Labor’s Clare O’Neil had a bit more fun with that:

Military jobs are really tough, and I know a lot of really bloody tough women, and that’s why Labor can be absolutely unequivocal about this. Our government is completely supportive of women serving across the ADF.

You know, we’ve got issues with our recruitment and personnel in the Australian Defence Force. What is it going to mean if we just exclude half of the population from serving in these critical roles? Peter Dutton is going to have to clean up this mess today. We can’t have a Defence Minister of this country that doesn’t support women in military combat roles. That absolutely cannot happen. And as you point out, Nat, I don’t understand why they sacked a Liberal candidate yesterday for sharing these views, when actually the Shadow Defence Minister has these views. It is just an absolute mess over there in Liberal Party HQ, and I’ll be keen to see how Peter Dutton tries to reconcile all these things today.