THE Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, yesterday urged the broadcaster of Big Brother to end what he called “this stupid programme” after two male housemates were removed from the show for appearing to sexually molest a woman.

Images of the incident were not broadcast but those watching a live stream of the programme on the internet saw the pair enter the bedroom of a woman in the Brisbane-based Big Brother house at 4.30am on Saturday. Still images placed on the internet appear to show one of the men holding her down while the other dangles his genitals in her face.

Mr Howard called on the Ten television network to stop broadcasting the programme in the interests of good taste.

He said: “I don’t like heavy- handed regulation but the business community is always saying to me, “let us self-regulate”. Well, here’s a great opportunity for Channel Ten to do a bit of self-regulation and get this stupid programme off the air.”

Big Brother also came under attack from the Labor Party leader, Kim Beazley, who said that the broadcaster should make this Big Brother the last.

The Communications Minister, Helen Coonan, telephoned the chairman of the Ten network to complain before referring the matter to the Australian Communications and Media Authority to establish whether there had been a breach of programming standards. “It makes me very concerned if there are these kinds of incidents on television and I think we do need to get to the bottom of them,” she said.

Howver, Peter Beattie, the Premier of Queensland, said: “We have so much American crap on our television, I think a bit of Australian nonsense doesn’t do any harm, frankly.”

Security guards escorted Michael Cox, 20, of Perth, and Michael Bric, 21, of Melbourne, from the Big Brother house on Saturday morning for what the producers of the show said was a breach of the rules.

In a joint statement after they were removed Cox, a bricklayer, and Bric, a student, said: “We had a great time in the house and it is unfortunate it had to end this way. Big Brother has rules and we broke them.”

The woman, whose real name has not been released by Ten, said: “I wasn’t offended, as such. But I did think they took it a little bit too far.”