Comedian Arj Barker asked a mother with a baby to leave the hall in Australia

While on stage at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the weekend, he was disturbed by the sounds of a baby in the audience.

The comedian interrupted the joke and asked the mother to leave the hall with the baby.

– On behalf of the 700 others who had paid to see the show, I told her in a polite way that the baby could not stay, he says to the Australian channel ABC afterwards.

The performance had an age limit of 15 years.

The incident has caused heated debate in Australia. Several comedians support the colleague, while others believe it was unheard of to ask a mother of young children to pack up and leave.

The mother in question – Trish Faranda – says she was extremely embarrassed and humiliated and at first thought it was all a joke.

– He said “Is there a baby here? I speak fluently baby and it said ‘take me out'”, she tells local Seven News, and says that she laughed along at first.

She says her daughter Clara, who is seven months old, was restless and making gurgling noises, and that she had started breastfeeding before she left the hall. She had no plans to ruin anyone’s evening, she adds.

– I just thought it would be really nice to do something I hadn’t done for a while. I just wanted to return to a kind of me before the baby, she says to the television program “The Project” on the channel Nine News.

Comedian Arj Barker has defended his decision to several media outlets.

– I only saw a lady who was probably holding a baby. Breastfeeding had nothing to do with it. I would do the same if it was about a dad, it was about the baby making a sound, says comedian Arj Barker to Nine News.

– It was only about the sound, not about her being a mother. I have nothing against mothers, he adds.

Local politician Ellen Sandell in Melbourne says she was furious when she heard about the incident.

– It is difficult enough for new mothers to participate in society with all the barriers they face. To be humiliated like this, just because you are trying to enjoy the comedy festival, is cruel, she writes on X, and asks the comedian to apologize.

She also writes that she herself has breastfed her three children both at the cinema and in the Australian Parliament.

– Women have the right to participate in society when they breastfeed, she concludes.

Organizer Melbourne International Comedy Festival tells CNN that babies are generally welcome with their parents.

– But we ask people to sit at the back of the hall with the children so that they can discreetly and easily take them out if the baby gets noisy so that you don’t disturb the comedian or the others in the audience.