Bridget McKenzie is not having a great couple of days.

Yesterday, she was forced to apologise for saying this on the ABC:

The defence minister of Russia [Andrey Belousov] and the Chinese leader [Xi Jinping] both have made very public comments that they do not want to see Peter Dutton as the prime minister of our country.

There’s two world leaders who don’t want to see Peter Dutton become prime minister of our country. That’s all I’m saying. That’s Russia and China.”

The SMH’s Matthew Knott reports McKenzie had to say sorry shortly after:

“I made a mistake, I was wrong with what I said about the Russian defence minister and Chinese leader. I can’t verify it.”

Watching McKenzie on the Nine Network this morning, it seems McKenzie still needs to brush up on her foreign affairs. Asked by a Nine reporter why she made the comments in the first place, McKenzie said:

Well, I think it’s pretty clear from President Xi’s public commentary that he finds Albo a very handsome boy. He’s been very complimentary about the prime minister, and Russia has made it very, very clear. Russia’s made it very clear. They think the AUKUS … pact between Australia, the UK and the USA is a security risk for them in this region. And they’ve been very public about those comments. Now Peter Dutton drove that significant agreement when we were in government.

Except that wasn’t Xi who made the “handsome boy” comments. It was China’s premier, Li Qiang, who made those comments during Albanese’s visit to Beijing.

“People were saying that we have a handsome boy coming from Australia,” Li said in 2023.