“It’s been tough on my mum.”
It’s been a rough week for Peta Credlin, Tony Abbott’s “controversial” Chief Of Staff. Forced out of office by the now-familiar machinations of a government coup, you could forgive her for wanting to stay home on the lounge for… well, more than seven nights.
But a deal’s a deal, and Credlin didn’t pike on Helen McCabe and the Australian Women’s Weekly Women Of The Future Awards last night at the Art Gallery of NSW.
She turned up, she smiled for photos and then she sat on a panel with Annabel Crabb and Jesinta Campbell to talk about… well, women.
Peta Credlin didn’t mince her words about the “bloody tough” experience of being a senior female in Australian politics. “If you’re a cabinet minister or a journalist and you’re intimidated by the chief-of-staff of the prime minister then maybe you don’t deserve your job,” Credlin told the room.
She also spoke openly about her attempts to conceive through IVF.
Rejecting Annabel Crabb’s question about whether she was a “terrible bossy boots”, Credlin said if she was a man she would be strong not bossy, before answering the question that most of the room was waiting for: So, how was your week?
“It’s been tough for my mum, tough for the whole family,” she replied. “Lots of my old school friends flew up to Canberra to spend the week with me because they thought I was doing it tough.”
Some of the other impressive women who attended the awards (post continues after gallery):
The Australian Women's Weekly Women of the Future Awards
But there were pluses to being booted out of a big job.
“I am now fully emancipated. I am not looking at my phone every 15 minutes.”
And what was next?
“I want to read and talk to interesting people and then work out what to do in life.
“I’m not going to kick the new Prime Minister on my way out. I think that’s undignified and I’ve never been like that.
“I’m looking forward to my next chapter, whatever that is. Whatever that is.”
The awards were tweeted under the hashtag #wotf2015. Some were impressed with Credlin…
Others, less so:
Top Comments
Peta Credlin is a hypocrite. You reap what you sow.
'if she was a man she would be strong not bossy'
I take issue with this, it's such a catch all for bad behaviour. If you're a vindictive, micro-managing and over-controlling male manager, then you'd be called an '*rsehole', not strong.
I don't know for a fact that Peta's management style has the above characteristics, but we're hearing it from so many quarters, it seems likely.
After the spill, both Peta's and Tony's statements, have shared a salient characteristic; externalisation of blame. The media, leaks, individual MPs etc, when in reality, it was:
1. Their retrogressive and unfair policies, manifested in an unmarketable budget.
2. Their ostracism of centrist LNP colleagues.
3. Their repeated PR tactics of creating racial enemies to smokescreen woeful domestic performance. Got so old and transparent.
4. Their alienation of women voters.
5. Their inability to secure the passage of their proposals through the Senate.
6. Their overstepping of their vested authority/mandate in the form of TA's captain's calls and PC's use of her authority to exceed that of elected officials'.
This self-belief in their 'anointment' as the best thing for this country since sliced bread saw their little team through tough times, but rendered them deaf to voices to whom they needed to listen.
Exactly, Kevin Rudd was referred to as a "mircomanager", "egomaniac", "bully" and "control freak" by members of his party. Whilst Julia Gillard faced name calling and criticism from the opposition, no one in her own party took issues with her leadership style.
I'm a while, middle-aged man and I have worked with a controlling man who refused to listen to common-sense arguments or take advice from anyone. It was "his way or the highway". I definitely never referred to him as strong. In fact, I reserved a term for him that I almost never use in any other situation.