The mayor of an Australian outback mining town who suggested that "beauty disadvantaged" women might want to move to his male-dominated municipality has now finally achieved formal recognition to match his international notoriety: the official title of sexist of the year.

John Malony, the mayor of Mount Isa in northern Queensland, where men outnumber woman five to one, made the headlines in August for his unusual appeal.

"Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face," he said by way of encouragement.

Malony received the top prize at the Golden Ernie awards, a women-only event held at the New South Wales state parliament in Sydney, where recipients are chosen by the volume of boos, jeers and foot-stamping.

The founder of the awards – named after Ernie Ecob, a trade union leader renowned for his sexist remarks – said the motto of the event was "keep them nervous".

"I think the message is ever vigilant, ever watchful, keeping blokes on their toes and making sure that we name and shame them," Meredith Burgmann, a New South Wales MP, told state radio.

Malony narrowly pipped Troy Buswell, the former opposition leader in western Australia, who won the political Ernie after being accused earlier this year of sniffing a female colleague's chair and snapping a bra strap.

The Channel Nine TV network won two gongs, one for sacking a senior female reporter while she was on maternity leave. At the time, the network's head of news, John Westacott, reportedly said female reporters should be sexually attractive.

"Sheilas do health and consumer stories. You want your blokes, your main guns, doing the real news stories," he said.

A sports presenter for the channel won the sporting award for, among other actions, attaching an image of the face of a female newspaper sports writer to a mannequin and groping it while on television.

Sophie Mirabella, an MP for the Liberal party, took home the Elaine award, handed to women undermining their own gender, for taunting Australia's deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, for being childless.