Outback mayor wins Australia's annual sexism award

A call for "beauty-disadvantaged women" to consider moving to a remote Australian mining town in northwest Queensland has earned Mt Isa mayor John Molony this year's golden Ernie award.

Now in their 16th year, the aim of the awards is to shame men for outrageous sexism.

In August this year Mr Molony suggested ugly ducklings had good prospects of finding a man in his town because of its gender imbalance.



When local women retaliated against the comment, Mr Molony earned his golden Ernie award by replying, "The protesters are blaming me for their looks."

The awards were held at NSW Parliament House on Thursday night. Nominated people received awards based on the reaction of women who attended the award night.

"We have highly trained boo monitors to decide who gets the biggest boo," organiser Meredith Burgmann said.