Comedian and Triple J breakfast co-host Matt Okine used his speech at the ARIA Awards to call out sexism in the industry, however the footage mysteriously never made it to air on the night.
Winning a gong for best comedy album, the 30-year-old pointed out during his acceptance speech how uncomfortable he felt with the fact that there were no women nominated in his category.

He did also to refer to Tina Arena as Tina Turner…oops.

“I didn’t feel great reading that list of people,” he told the audience.
“I thought, hold on there’s no women in my category. Now I feel silly about it,” he said.
“People might say that’s something you would say for attention, but I feel like, ‘what should I do, just be passive’?
“A lot of guys my age think you’re doing enough by not doing anything bad.”

In fact, no solo woman has ever won an ARIA for best comedy album, and a nominee list without a female name is not a rarity.

Since 1987, female nominees have included Mary Kenneally (nominated with Steve Blackburn); Kylie Mole; Elle McFeast; and Judith Lucy.

Despite the speech not being televised, the video footage was uploaded to the official ARIA Twitter account. The response to Matt’s speech was overwhelmingly supportive.

Congrats Matt Okine and well said,” former ABC broadcaster Adam Spencer tweeted.
KLP Music wrote: “great speech. Would be even greater if it wasn’t so uncommon for a guy to talk about the subject.
While Anna Dooley thanked Okine “from a future female comic”.

What do you think of Matt Okine’s speech which clearly highlighted the lack of women being represented in the comedy and music industry? Do you agree with him?

You can watch the speech here:

https://youtu.be/Vq8n8PdVKc0