Australian reporter Charles Wooley has defended his controversial interview with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

In a profile for 60 Minutes that aired in Australia on Sunday night, Wooley called Ardern "attractive" and asked her and partner, Clarke Gayford, about their baby's conception date.

On Newstalk ZB on Monday, he responded to online outrage about his approach to the interview, he'd chosen not to ask Ardern about policy because that wasn't what Australian viewers were interested in.

60 Minutes Australia / YouTube Jacinda Ardern's awful Aussie interview.

"On 60 Minutes they want to see this wonderful couple. I just loved being with them, I thought they were so much fun, such a breath of fresh air, you know. it was just terrific to be with them," he said.

He compared online outrage over his approach to the thought police in George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984.

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The line of questioning in Sunday night's 60 Minutes Australia interview at times appeared to leave Jacinda Ardern visibly uncomfortable

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Wooley was backed by his network, Channel Nine, which said in a statement that that its political interviews were conducted "without fear or favour".

The network said in interviews with leaders including former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, ex-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, 60 Minutes reporters "have always asked the tough questions which the public has been wanting to hear, while also showing the human side of these individuals that we rarely get to see."

"Charles Wooley came away from his interview with Jacinda Ardern in awe of her poise, intelligence and everyday charm, which was reflected in the full story."

For her part, Ardern said in a press conference on Monday she "wasn't fazed" by the interview and she'd been asked similar questions by Kiwi journalists.

On the conception date question, she said: "You're assuming that I haven't been asked that question before by New Zealand media as well.... At the time certainly, I think that question threw me a little bit, but it would be going a bit far to say I was somehow offended by it. I wasn't. It's one I think put under the heading of too much information.

60 Minutes Australia / YouTube Australia's 60 Minutes aired a controversial interview with NZ PM Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford last weekend.

"I haven't spent a lot of time analysing it. Maybe I've lost all of my sensitivity, maybe it's just that I'm from Morrinsville, I don't know, but I just wasn't particularly fazed by any of it," she said.

THE PROFILE

Wooley followed Ardern to Waitangi, Parliament and her home, and interviewed her alongside Gayford.

Some thought Australian journalist Charles Wooley's interview with the New Zealand PM was "creepy".

Much of Wooley's profile was either devoted to the Ardern's impending arrival or fishing questions for "the first bloke" Gayford.

Charles Woolley is bloody painful. Was interested in the Jacinda Ardern interview on 60 Minutes but he made it cringeworthy. — Reg Roberts (@RugbyReg) February 25, 2018

The line of questioning at times appeared to leave Ardern and Gayford visibly uncomfortable, especially when Wooley announced that there was one, "really important political question I have to ask and that is what is the date that the baby is due?"

When provided with the answer ("June 17"), he then proceeded to muse that "it's interesting how many people have been counting back to the conception..as it were".

Cue bemused and anguished looks from the Kiwi couple, before Wooley, a father of six himself, added that "why shouldn't a child be conceived during an election campaign?"

Clearly keen to move on, Ardern attempted to quash the line of questioning by emphasising that the "election was done, over" before the baby's conception date.

In another segment, Wooley went out fishing with Gayford, seemingly only to allow him to make the suggestion that "Jacinda was the catch of the day".

Spending as much time talking to the other man in Ardern's life, Winston Peters, as Gayford, Wooley lavished praise on his main subject, highlighting her "no fuss, can do attitude", her ability to "handle delicate relations with New Zealand's 'first nations' people".

His attempted joke that Ardern "was not just the messiah" appeared to fall flat with her, while his summation was that, "I've met a lot of prime ministers in my time, none so young, not many so smart and never one so attractive".

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