Auckland: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's hectic travel schedule appears to have caught up with her - right in the middle of a speech by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Ms Bishop flew out of Canberra late on Thursday night for Auckland, arriving just after 1am. The fitness fanatic Foreign Minister was up again at 6am on Friday morning for a jog past the city's war memorial and an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media.
But the long hours appeared to catch up with her during Mr Abbott's speech to the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum.
As Mr Abbott talked up the strength of the trade, diplomatic and cultural ties between the two countries and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key watched on, Ms Bishop's eyelids could be seen closing for a second or more several times.
At one point, her head even dropped momentarily before snapping back to attention.
Mr Abbott laughed off Ms Bishop's nap later on Friday, declaring his deputy "incredibly hard-working" and a magnificently successful minister for foreign affairs.
"I've dozed off from time to time at conferences, all of us have from time to time dozed off at conferences. I've missed some very great speeches because occasionally I've been contemplating, as it were, contemplating the inside of my eyeball," he said.
"Given the pace at which we all work, it's absolutely understandable. I also noticed her smiling and nodding. I think she was nodding in agreement rather than doing any other kind of nodding, to both John Key's speech and my own speech this afternoon."
Ms Bishop took to Twitter and said she was "not sleeping [but] merely contemplating the media obsession with trivia".
Ms Bishop is by no means the first politician to nod off in public. Last year Clive Palmer fell asleep in Parliament during question time and later blamed Mr Abbott. In 2010 former MP Peter Slipper was pictured looking rather comfortable during a speech by then visiting Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Former US defence secretary Robert Gates has also admitted that while suffering the effects of a broken shoulder he took an unscheduled trip to the land of nod while being regaled by then-prime minister Kevin Rudd.
"At a very nice dinner given in my honour by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, I was doing fine at table conversation until Rudd began a long soliloquy on the history of Australia," Mr Gates wrote in his biography. "I had made it just past World War I when the combined effect of a painkiller, jet lag, and a glass of wine caused me to fall asleep."
Earlier on Friday the deputy Liberal Party leader gave off a completely different look, directing a withering glare at a New Zealand journalist who asked her about the prime ministership.
When asked whether she planned to stand against Malcolm Turnbull if the leadership was thrown open, Ms Bishop delivered a scathing response.
"These are hypothetical questions and this is all based on speculation and rumour," Ms Bishop said. "I've not seen any source attributed to any particular member or minister. So it's hypothetical, it is speculation, I don't intend to add to it."
With Lisa Cox
