Penny Wong has been filmed waving off a heckler who told her she was a “disgrace” while at the shops to pick up laundry detergent.
The Foreign Minister was spotted after she made a visit to the Goolwa Village Shopping Centre in South Australia last week.
She was seen carrying a bottle of Earth’s choice laundry liquid – which would have set her back a cool $13.50.
An unidentified shopper in the seaside holiday area took aim at the casually dressed Senator Wong and also hit out at her ally Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“Not a good job Penny,” he can be heard yelling in footage since posted to social media.
“Not a good job mate. You, Albo, (Finance Minister) Katy Gallagher (you’ve) all gotta go. You’re a disgrace.”
Senator Wong gave the heckler a tight smile as she waved him off and continued about her day.
Meanwhile, the shoppers around them paid no notice to the fracas.
While some users lauded the interaction as “gold” others suggested the off-duty politician should have just been left alone.
“This isn’t America, I don’t really like Penny/Albo and Labour (sic) in general at the moment but when they aren’t working and aren’t in formal attire I don’t think they should be harassed at shopping centre,” one said.
“Wow a politician shops. Gee thanks for sharing genius,” another wrote.
Senator Wong topped the list as Australia’s most trusted politician for the second year in a row, according to a Roy Morgan poll released in December.
She also topped a Resolve poll, commissioned by the Nine newspapers, as the most popular pollie in 2023.
But frustration over the rising cost-of-living – from increasing prices at the checkout and mortgage payments – is starting to bite.
A poll published by the Daily Telegraph on Sunday found just over half of all voters surveyed believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
More than 70 per cent of voters identified cost of living pressures as their most pressing issue but 80 per cent of respondants said the Albanese government has failed to address the issue.
The supermarket encounter was published online just days before the Foreign Minister jetted off to the Middle East, where she will hold talks with her Israeli and Palestinian Authority counterparts.
She will also meet with survivors of Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks as well as Palestinian communities “affected by settler violence”.
But a decision to not visit “ground zero” where 1200 Israelis were killed has drawn the ire of the Jewish community.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry described the decision as a “serious error of judgment”.