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June 13th, 2013 
THE chef who released the offensive menu depicting Julia Gillard as a quail says Mal Brough has his “full sympathy”.
David Carter admitted he has no evidence the LNP candidate and former Howard Government Minister had seen the menu on the night of a function in Brisbane.
Mr Carter, who said he was not a member of the Labor Party but admitted to Sky News he had posted offensive tweets previously about Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, had lost his job at the café months before the March function.
He released the menu, a picture of which was taken off a staff member’s Facebook page, because it was offensive to Ms Gillard.
“I had no idea this was going to go this viral and have this kind of an impact. Of course he (Mal Brough) has my full sympathy,” Mr Carter said.
Earlier, Opposition leader Tony Abbott asked people to “move on” after a restaurant owner owned up to being the author of a bad-taste menu carrying a highly-offensive description of the Prime Minister.
Mr Abbott said he understood that people would find “tacky, tasteless comments” offensive, but it was important to get the facts straight on this case.
It emerged yesterday a menu linked to a Liberal Party fundraiser held in March in part claimed to offer: “Julia Gillard Kentucky fried quail- small breasts, huge thighs”. It then makes a third, cruder reference.
“It wasn’t seen by anyone at the event,” Mr Abbott said.
David Carter, the chef who released the offensive menu depicting Julia Gillard as a quail.
“It was never distributed to people at the event.
“It was a tacky joke that never made it out of the kitchen.
“I think now that we know the facts everyone can all move on.”
Government ministers have questioned restaurateur Joe Richards confession that he drafted the offensive menu, with Finance Minister Penny Wong saying it was “odd and convenient” that he was taking the fall.
“You would have to wonder how it is that this explanation has only now come to light,” Senator Wong told the Seven Network.
“It seems a little odd and convenient, this explanation.”
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek questioned why Mr Richard’s confession was distributed by Mr Abbott’s office.
She said the explanation should be taken “with a grain of salt as an after-the-fact justification”.
But Mr Abbott said it was perfectly appropriate that his office distribute Mr Richards’s letter.
“The restaurant-owner, funnily enough, doesn’t actually have a media staff,” he said.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has blasted the Liberals for being ‘sexist’. Picture: Theo Fakos
Treasurer Wayne Swan says it is “almost inconceivable” that people attending the fundraiser did not see the menu.
“This is a vile act by those that were at the lunch,” Mr Swan said today.
“The stories that have been told by various participants simply don’t add up.
“To my way of thinking, it’s almost inconceivable that this menu was not sighted by participants at the lunch and I don’t think we’ve heard a convincing case from any of the participants that it wasn’t seen by people.”
He said he stood by his demands that Mal Brough be sacked as a candidate over the issue.
Mal Brough says he has copped a barrage of abuse over the dirty menu.
But he says people should accept now that he and his colleagues were in no way involved in drafting the disgusting description of the Prime Minister, nor did they see it.
He said the restaurant-owner’s confession in no way resulted from LNP pressure.
“I never saw any menu,” the former Howard minister and Qld LNP candidate said from the Sunshine Coast.
“We’ve got people that we could not even pick up in our own oceans who are dead trying to get here and we`re focusing on things that didn’t even happen,” he said.
Mr Brough said it was up to the community to decide whether he deserved their vote.
“Some of the vitriol to the office here has been extraordinary,” he said.
The fundraiser held for Brough was attended by about 20 people, including shadow treasurer Joe Hockey.
Mr Brough apologised and Mr Hockey said he did not recall seeing the “offensive and inappropriate” menu.
The Opposition released an email from the alleged author of the menu Mr Richards, a businessman and owner of the restaurant which hosted the March 28 dinner.
PM met by protesters in Fremantle
He allegedly told Mr Brough’s office by email that he had created the mock menu as “a joke, never for public distribution”.
He went on to write: “Unfortunately a staff member saw the mock menu, and unbeknown to me posted it on Facebook.”
But a chef who leaked the menu says he’s sure it would have been seen by those in attendance, 3AW radio reports.
Dave Carter is a former employee of the venue and says he saw the menu posted on the owner’s Facebook page.
The owner has apologised and says the menu never hit the tables and was never seen by the public but Mr Carter doubts that.
“I have very little doubt that Joe would have shown everyone there. Normally at these functions there is some kind of a joke, some kind of a gag and Joe Richards is the type of person that makes sure everyone sees it and everyone knows about it.”
Ms Gillard earlier said Mr Brough would be a senior minister in an Abbott government, and she demanded he be disendorsed.
“This is Tony Abbott’s Liberals, this is what they’re like and I think the real risk for Australia is if Mr Abbott was ever Prime Minister it wouldn’t be a question of what’s on fundraising menus, we would see this lack of respect for women littered through all of his government policy documents,” the PM said.
Ms Gillard said the menu was the latest episode in a pattern of behaviour as shown by Mr Abbott standing next to sexist signs about her, and a Young Liberal function where jokes were cracked about the death of her father.
But Mr Abbott said he would “absolutely not” dump Mr Brough.
He said it was ridiculous to suggest Mr Brough should resign over something he did not condone, authorise or write.
In his condemnation of the menu, Mr Abbott also had a crack at Labor events where offensive jokes were made about his female chief of staff.
“Whether it is a tacky scatological menu out the front of a Liberal Party event, whether it is squalid jokes told at union conference dinners with ministers present. Whatever it is, I think we should be better than that. I think we should be appealing to every Australian’s best self as we go into this election,” he said.
Kevin Rudd blasted the menu as a “snide, dirty, sexist trick”.
The menu row came after Ms Gillard reignited the gender wars, claiming that under Mr Abbott women would be banished from the centre of political life and abortion would become a men’s “political plaything”.
Former Victorian Labor premier Joan Kirner praised Ms Gillard’s words, and said the PM needed to continue the push for a debate on “equality, respect and inclusion” for women.
– with Phillip Hudson, Matt Johnston
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