Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor stood up in federal parliament on Thursday to talk about the cost of living during his 'matter of public importance' speech.
The session in parliament allows members to address a current concern of public interest.
It's unclear at what point Speaker Milton Dick was replaced by Deputy Speaker Sharon Claydon to take a break, but by the two-minute mark, members of the parliament had picked up on Mr Taylor's mistake.
"Mr Speaker", he said, addressing Ms Claydon. He repeated the mistake 27 more times before Ms Claydon finally interrupted him.
"Ok — I have waited," she said. “I would loath to interrupt you, but you have called me 'Mr Speaker' on at least a dozen occasions. My title is Deputy Speaker. I don’t need a Mr, a Mrs, a Madam, it’s just Deputy Speaker."
Mr Taylor laughed and replied: "I'll go with Deputy Speaker. You would've been a very good Speaker," he said, before he pressed on.
Not a second later, he started his next sentence: "But Mr Speaker."
Women in the Liberal Party sitting behind Mr Taylor can be seen shaking their heads and talking to one another as he reverted to the habit. Even House of Representatives members laughing and shouting at the slip-up couldn't stop him from pausing, noticing or correcting his mistake.
After a ten-minute speech, in which he called her "Mr Speaker" at least 32 times, Ms Claydon said: "Seriously Shadow treasurer, you're just gonna have to dump the 'Mr Speaker' when I'm in the chair okay."
Electing a Speaker is the first action a House takes when it meets for the first time after a general election.
The Speaker is there to make sure the members obey the rules of the House of Representatives and is elected by all 151 members. It is usually someone with considerable parliamentary experience.
Milton Dick entered parliament in 2016 as the member for Oxley in Queensland and was reelected in 2019 and 2022. In 2018, Mr Dick was thrown out of the chamber alongside fellow Labor minister Luke Gosling for bringing a set of Muppet dolls into question time, which they waved around in front of cameras. Former Speaker Tony Smith ejected the pair for their behaviour.
Sharon Claydon has been the representative for Newcastle in NSW since winning the seat in 2013.
Liberal shadow ministers Sussan Ley and Angie Bell react to Angus Taylor after he makes the mistake after being pulled up.
The last female Speaker in the House of Representatives was back in 2015, held by Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop for almost two years.
Labor MP Anna Burke held the job for about a year in 2012, while Labor MP Joan Child was the first female Speaker to be ever selected by the House in 1986, working in the job for three years.
Mr Taylor is not the first member of the Liberal Party to make the mistake. On the campaign trail ahead of the May federal election, former prime minister Scott Morrison called journalists by the term as they asked follow-up questions.
Five "Mr Speaker's" and an audible "what?" from a female journalist later, Mr Morrison laughed and said, "there you go I'm back in parliament. There we go".
He'd made a similar gaffe, also while fronting media, ahead of the 2019 federal election.
