Hilarious... gold.. XXXX gold to be precise.To be fair, Molony...

Hilarious... gold.. XXXX gold to be precise.

To be fair, Molony probably didn't mean to annoy anyone; the comments he made to a local newspaper, the Townsville Bulletin, are characterised more by naivety than nastiness. "If there are five blokes to every girl," he said, "we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa. Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is a recollection of something previous, or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness . . . Isn't there a fairytale about an ugly duckling that evolves into a beautiful swan?"

There certainly is. So what was so offensive about Molony's comments that he has complained of being "shredded" and gone into hiding? Well, first, there's a point of accuracy. Far from there being five men for every woman in Mount Isa, the most recent census found that men make up 52.6% of the population, so an influx of women of any persuasion just doesn't seem necessary. Then there's the mayor's suggestion that he regularly sees smiling but ugly women wandering all over town, which was never likely to be a vote-winner among his female populace. And, finally, there's the overall implication that the men in Mount Isa are great catches, a suggestion that the town's single women have been quick to rebut. "To be honest, there just aren't top-quality men here," Catherine Willett, a single podiatrist, told the Brisbane Times. "They are too busy drinking XXXX to notice the women, and all they do is whistle or yell or beep as you go past - those sorts of communication skills which I just love." Anna Warwick, a single woman who moved to the town last year, agrees, adding that when it comes to the men on offer, "We've got a saying up here: the odds are good, but the goods are odd."