By MIA FREEDMAN
Tony Abbott doesn’t need me to defend him. But I’m going to do it anyway.
Yesterday, he made some comments about why he remains committed to his Paid Parental Leave scheme whereby new mothers would be paid their full salary for six months, a scheme funded by a levy on big business (click here to read more detail of the coalition’s paid parental leave policy and those who are opposed to it).
Referring to tertiary educated women at an executive level who will be paid their full wage instead of minimum wage as they currently are with the ALP’s paid parental leave scheme, here’s what Tony Abbott said yesterday:
[these women are] “in the prime of life and they should be able not just to have kids, but to have careers”.
“We do not educate women to higher degree level to deny them a career,” he said.
“If we want women of that calibre to have families, and we should, well we have to give them a fair dinkum chance to do so. That is what this scheme of paid parental leave is all about.”
Did you pick the egregious word in those few sentences?
It’s this: “calibre”.
And so, that was the cue for social media – and two of my favourite ALP ministers Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong – to turn apoplectic, with the #womenofcalibre hashtag immediately established to ridicule Abbott’s comments:
The line was this: Tony Abbott thinks only highly educated women should procreate! Tony Abbott is being sexist and classist and dissing women with low incomes! Many prominent women gleefully joined the party, amplifying the outrage on social media, accusing Abbott of denigrating women without tertiary degrees or white collar jobs.
Give. Me. A. Break.
He was doing no such thing.
He was simply making the point – albeit a little clunkily but not everyone is as sublime or technically masterful a spontaneous public speaker as Obama – that PPL should be linked to an individual’s income not based on the minimum wage. In the same way sick leave and annual leave is.
Legendary feminist Eva Cox agreed, calling the #womenofcalibre flare up an over-reaction. ”Paid parental leave is a salary-related, work-related payment not a welfare payment” she said. “I think that’s what Tony Abbott was trying to say in a somewhat clumsy way.”
To take his comments otherwise is to be looking for a fight. Looking to be outraged.
Tony Abbott has copped a huge amount of flak since becoming opposition leader, for his views about women. Rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that his views are retro at best, sexist at worst and that women should be worried about the prospect of him as Prime Minister.
Ok. So he proposes to do something extremely progressive, swims against the tide of many in his own party and floats a Paid Parental Scheme that leap-frogs the current scheme to the overwhelming benefit of women. And? Those same women seek to slam him for it, based on a single word.
These predictably gleeful Gotcha! moments have become the toxic albatross of politics, sapping it of all authenticity and turning it into stultifyingly boring rhetoric. Wall-to-wall blah-blah-blah.
The most common complaint about politicians? They sound like robots. They’re wooden and rehearsed and they speak in cheesy, cringe-worthy, on-message slogans like ‘stop the boats’ and ‘moving forward’.
They’ve had too much media training and they all sound the same. Their lips move but what comes out of their mouth is white noise.
We all agree we hate that, right?
The alternative, is politicians speaking a little more freely. Tossing out the predictable script of mind-numbingly dull market-researched phrases that have been ticked off by a phalanx of spinners.
But every time they cautiously try to do that, we jump all over them. We fashion their words into sticks and then whack them half to death. We deliberately twist their intentions and willfully misrepresent the point they’re trying to make.
And for what? Who does this benefit exactly? I am all in favour of debate obviously. The websites I publish are founded on interesting, engaged debates around issues big and small. And I understand that people have different thresholds for what they find outrageous, offensive or worthy of criticism.
But on social media and in politics, this obsession with pettiness and the constant searching for a ‘gotcha’ moment is so stifling and smug as to be simply maddening.
By all means, let’s hold politicians to account. If you don’t agree with Tony Abbott’s proposed PPL scheme then argue your point. In my opinion it’s visionary, one of the most forward thinking policies in recent times and I’m happy to engage in a debate about that.
But unless we want a bunch of uninspiring, robotic drones, sprouting inane rhetoric, it’s time to start looking at the substance of what our public figures are saying, rather than expecting them to be word perfect every time.
Did the comments made by Tony Abbott concern you? How do you think we can raise the standard of debate in Australian politics?
Here is Mia discussing Tony Abbott on the Today show this morning:
Top Comments
Great summation Mia.
I have observed and spoken to too many young single un-employed females and even couples who have not thought of future commitments and are having babies literally to receive instant money. I won't say "benefit", as these $ fly out of the home once you have children. Whereas harder working and perhaps higher salaried and normal salaried people actually "lose" money and career time and benefits when they have children, so of course we should compensate them for this, they are helping our economy and paying taxes, and the new babies need care.
Without prejudice, we need to seriously have a bigger ratio of working mothers paid parental leave. They cannot be expected to just stay at home without some income, as most of them probably would not qualify for a government benefit, and there IS NO benefit for choosing to leave work for only 6 or 12 months to be a parent. Whereas it seems people already on benefits and little or really low income who decide to have more children, just receive more money automatically. I really think that Australian low income people should be thinking seriously at all times whether they can personally afford and fund more children, not expect the Govt; to pay for THEIR PERSONAL long term decisions.
The working women will receive a Company funded benefit administered by Centrelink for a MAXIMUM short period. They then will necessarily weigh up their decision to return to work immediately after this period, or return to work after a more lengthy period. If they so choose or need to stay with their child for a longer period, it is probably without Govt; benefits. So avoid whinging, let EVERYONE have children, we cannot expect all the working mothers to continue to help fund Centrelink, and be forced to stay with their nose to the grindstone so all the so called "poor" people are allowed to populate at whim, with little consideration for others.
How about a little give and less take out there, and think about where Govt money comes from.
I must say, "eddiesmiff", we are NOT in Canada, Quebec or Sweden or any other country, we are I remind you, in Australia, and have our own decisions to make regarding our unique countries economy. You actually sound like you are in the school yard, a lot of noise, but never listen.
Quite immature yourself. Stick your head in the sand, and keep the deficit.
For me, its GOT TO BE TONY and his party.
As an urgent matter of conscience as a mother I urge you to research what Tony Abbott has said over the years to support clerical child sex abusers and those who have protected these clerical abusers. ( Robert nestor, Peter Hollingsworth , George Pell) Not a word of support do I find from Tony for the victims. In Ballarat alone around forty people who suicided are linked to a few clerics sexually abusing them as children.