US author recorded a call with Australian minister’s office about a dispute over his maiden speech to parliament

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Naomi Wolf has reignited her row with Australia’s energy minister, Angus Taylor, publishing a recording of a heated phone call with his office.

On Thursday morning the US author said she called Taylor’s parliamentary office requesting a “formal correction” to the Hansard record of his maiden speech, asking that Taylor “tell Parliament please that I was not campaigning against Xmas in any way?”

She tweeted several excerpts before publishing the 29-minute recording in full.

In 2013 Taylor referred to Wolf in his maiden speech to parliament while recounting an anecdote about “political correctness” and a dispute about a Christmas tree at Oxford University in 1991, when he was a Rhodes scholar.

When Wolf was alerted to the speech on Monday she pointed out that she was not at Oxford in 1991 and accused the minister of “antisemitic dogwhistling”.

Naomi Wolf accuses Angus Taylor of 'antisemitic dogwhistle' and false claim about Oxford University Read more

In the call with Taylor’s staffer, Wolf repeatedly requested that his office issue a public correction to say she was not at Oxford at the same time as him, and that she was not part of a group of people campaigning against Christmas.

In his 2013 speech Taylor said: “It was 1991, and a young Naomi Wolf lived a couple of doors down the corridor. Several graduate students, mostly from the north-east of the US, decided we should abandon the Christmas tree in the common room because some people might be offended. I was astounded.

“In our times, the world over, the foundation of democracy – free speech – and the foundation of capitalism – property rights – are being chipped away by shrill elitist voices who insist that they know what is best for people who are not remotely like them.”

The anecdote was repeated in a 2014 profile in the Australian Financial Review. Taylor’s staffer told Wolf that was the AFR’s reporting, and not a claim sourced from Taylor’s office.

Wolf said on Monday she was “long back in the US” and no longer at Oxford by 1991.

“I was a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford 1985-88,” Wolf said. “Angus Taylor recalls me in a fever dream at Oxford in 1991 among those warring on Xmas. I was in NYC. Plus I love Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa. Flattered to be on this mythological hate list.”

“Catch that anti-Semitic dogwhistle – elitist people ‘who know what’s best for people who are not remotely like them.’ Referring to Jews like me whom Angus Taylor imagined to be among the warriors against xmas in Oxford in 1991.”

Taylor rejected the accusation he was antisemitic, with a spokesman noting that his grandmother was Jewish.

His office insisted Taylor recalled seeing Wolf at Oxford, although they clarified the minister’s speech was not referring to Wolf as one of the graduates who campaigned against the Christmas tree.

Taylor is the subject of multiple controversies, including a NSW police investigation after his office provided a doctored document to the media as part of a political attack on the lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore.

A Senate committee this week found Taylor “consciously used his position as an MP and minister” to try to influence an investigation into clearing of grasslands at a property he and his family part-own, and recommended the prime minister order an inquiry.

Taylor’s office has been contacted for a response to Wolf’s claims.

It is not the first time an Australian federal minister has sparred with a US celebrity. In 2017 the then deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, made international headlines after he threatened to have Johnny Depp’s dogs put down when the actor bypassed customs to bring them into the country. Pistol and Boo were flown home before Joyce’s deadline.

In June, Wolf’s latest book release was cancelled in the US and future versions corrected in the UK after she admitted live on air that it contained at least two errors.

In an interview on BBC Radio 3, broadcaster Matthew Sweet pointed out that Wolf had misunderstood the historical term “death recorded” while writing her book Outrages.

While Wolf believed it meant an execution, Sweet said it was a term that allowed judges to record a death without carrying out an execution. Wolf has said she was thankful for the correction, that it only affected two pages and did not affect the thesis of the book.