Frankston MP Geoff Shaw laughs off comedian Nick Giannopoulos's crude joke Comedian Nick Giannopoulos made the joke at a Liberal fundraiser for first-term MPs. Geoff Shaw said the joke "sounds quite funny." UPDATE: FUNNYMAN Nick Giannopoulos has blamed his controversial comments at a political fundraiser on an alter-ego he played at the gig. Giannopoulos says his cleaning lady character, Petroula, called embattled politician Geoff Shaw a "poofter bastard" during a comedy sketch at a Liberal Party fundraiser hosted by Victorian Premier Denis Napthine. The rogue Frankston MP has laughed off the comedian's routine, saying that Mr Giannopoulos "sounds quite funny." "He should come to Frankston and do some fundraising with me," Mr Shaw said. The function was held on Friday night and was attended by many MPs. Giannopoulos told the Herald Sun today: "It was a satirical sketch and I was in character. I was performing as Petroula the Greek cleaning lady dressed in a wig, blue dress, lipstick, ear rings and holding a mop and bucket. She spoke about her husband, whom she referred to as a 'poofter bastard.' She went to Parliament to protest about losing his taxi, and came across the other 'poofter bastard,' Geoff Shaw, and now he won't pay them constipation. It got really good laughs. Giannopoulos says Petroula, a character he created in 1987, is based on his mother. "My mother was a cleaning lady," he said "When she was angry with someone, she would mangle the English language and say things she didn't understand. My mother would call somebody a 'poofter bastard' without knowing what it meant. Giannopoulos denied the comment is a gay slur. "No, no, no." he said. It is a comment by a 60-something Greek cleaning lady who doesn't understand what she's saying. He said the crowd of about 300 people at the fundraiser, held at the Regent Theatre Ballroom last Friday, reacted well to the jokes. "It's the nature of satire," Giannopoulos said. Some people don't find Chris Lilley or Barry Humphries funny. You either get it or you don't. One MP said that Mr Giannopoulos was poking fun at taxi drivers, as much as at Mr Shaw. The comedian, famous for his "Wog Boy" sketches, also poked fun at Premier Denis Napthine, jokingly calling him Geoff Shaw, then Ted Baillieu, before settling on Denis. Mr Shaw laughed off the episode, First term Liberal MP Lorraine Wreford, whose bayside seat of Mordialloc is close to Frankston, said the room had been very noisy and she had barely heard the comedian. "Some people thought it was very funny but others thought it was inappropriate," she said. Another MP, who did not wish to be named, said people were laughing but "your ears did prick up." But the MP said it was a reasonably harmless joke. "I think if Geoff (Shaw) was there he would have found it funny," the MP said. Premier Denis Napthine did not condemn the comments when asked about the incident. "What comedians do at these shows is up to the comedians so they write their script, we don't write their script," he said.