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Australian election: Tony Abbott hits bum note with 'suppository of all wisdom' gaffe

Abbott mixed up the word "suppository" with the word "repository"

Rob Williams
Tuesday 13 August 2013 09:17 BST
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The first real gaffe of the Australian election campaign didn't come during yesterday's less-than-electric televised debate.

Instead, it arrived today and set social media abuzz after Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott provided a memorable slip of the tongue.

On the campaign trail and addressing a Liberal Party event in the city of Melbourne Mr Abbott said: "No one -- however smart, however well-educated, however experienced -- is the suppository of all wisdom." Mr Abbott appeared to mix up the word "suppository" with the word repository.

While one is a place where things are put for safekeeping, the other is "a small piece of medicated substance, usually conical, ovoid, or cylindrical, introduced into a body passage, as the rectum or vagina, where body heat causes it to melt," according to Webster's New World College Dictionary.

According to CNN and Jonathan Swan, a political reporter for Fairfax Media who was at the event, there was an 'audible gasp in the room' when Mr Abbott made his gaffe, following by 'snickering'.

Mr Abbott is widely seen as the favourite to win the election with Prime Minister Rudd's centre-left Labor Party seen as an underdog.

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