US author Naomi Wolf has contacted Energy Minister Angus Taylor seeking a correction for comments she has labelled "anti-semitic dog whistling", posting a recording of the awkward conversation with one of his staff online.
The high-profile feminist writer has labelled Mr Taylor's reference to her in his maiden speech, which recalled a Christmas tree dispute at Oxford University in 1991 as a "gross distortion of the facts".
On Thursday morning, she uploaded a recording of the almost 30-minute conversation with an unnamed member of Mr Taylor's staff in Canberra late on Wednesday night.
"There is an inaccuracy in his speech to Parliament. I was not in Oxford among the people warring against Christmas in 1991," Wolf tells Mr Taylor's staff member in Canberra.
The spokesman attempted to clarify Mr Taylor's comments several times.
"Mr Taylor seems to recall that you were in Oxford, you'd have to have that discussion with," he said.
"The statement that you were there is merely a statement of context, there is no suggestion whatsoever that you campaigned against Christmas."
It is not until more than seven minutes into the conversation that the staff member seems to realise he is talking directly to Wolf.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor recalls Naomi Wolf being at Oxford in 1991 even though she completed her Rhodes scholarship in 1988. Source: AAP
The man, who declined to give his name, repeatedly asks Wolf to send an email, but she insists on dealing with the matter over the phone so she can ask follow up questions.
"It's an accident that this phone call was picked up. It is after midnight in Australia, as in, it is approaching 1am," the spokesman said.
In his maiden speech to Parliament in 2013, Mr Taylor described his first encounter with "political correctness" when he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford.
"It was 1991, and a young Naomi Wolf lived a couple of doors down the corridor," he told Parliament.
"Several graduate students, mostly from the north-east of the US, decided we should abandon the Christmas tree in the common room because some people might be offended."
The anecdote came to Wolf's attention earlier this week after the speech resurfaced on social media as the minister faced calls to be dumped from the front bench over his role in a scandal involving an allegedly doctored document.
Naomi Wolf on the phone to Angus Taylor's office late on Wednesday night. Source: YouTube
On Twitter, she accused him of being anti-Semitic in his description of "shrill elitist voices who insist they know what is best for people who are not remotely like them".
"Catch that anti-Semitic dog-whistle... referring to Jews like me whom Angus Taylor imagined to be among the warriors against Xmas in Oxford in 1991."
The feminist author and former adviser to Al Gore and Bill Clinton spent much of 1991 in New York City and travelling to promote her first book, The Beauty Myth.
Wolf has always denied she was present at the time and in a tweet sent to SBS News on Christmas Day said "Rhodes House, New College records, my mom, my then-boyfriend, woman who actually challenged him" all confirmed she wasn't at Oxford at the time.
"Here I am all ready to enjoy peace on earth and I have to have that deep, old victim’s fury. A woman can be documented in news sites all over the world being ELSEWHERE due to her first and successful book; random man decides to place her wherever he wants in deranged imagination," the author said.
Mr Taylor, whose grandmother is Jewish, has strongly rejected the accusation of anti-Semitism.
Unsatisfied with Mr Taylor's staff members answers, Wolf questioned why Mr Taylor used her name which left a "very clear implication" that she was involved in the anti-Christmas campaign and pressed for a commitment for a correction to be made in Parliament.
But his employee said that would be "highly unusual".
"In Australia, a maiden speech to Parliament is not a matter of partisan issue... not a matter of dispute," the staffer said.
NSW police launched an investigation last week into an altered version of a City of Sydney document used by Mr Taylor to attack Lord Mayor Clover Moore's travel spending and climate footprint.
UPDATED on 25 December 2019 to include comments from Ms Wolf made to SBS News via Twitter
