By REBECCA SPARROW
I feel a little sick in the stomach about writing this post. Mostly because I know it’s going to infuriate a large number of women I admire. But here goes.
When Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave her ‘historic’ speech in Parliament during Question Time on Monday, I didn’t pump the air with my fist. I didn’t cheer. Or clap. There was no whooping. I was a whoop-free zone.
Why? Because I didn’t buy it.
When I watched the PM open a can of whoopass on Tony Abbott I didn’t feel like I was watching some spontaneous smackdown ignited by Abbott’s moronic “died of shame” comment. I didn’t feel like the PM had been tipped over the edge and just exploded into a speech that would strike the heart of every feminist.
Nope. I felt like I was watching the PM play her latest card in the “Let’s paint Tony Abbott as a misogynist” smear campaign. She had her notes ready to go and Abbott essentially cleared the stage.
Labor has a historical fondness for smear campaigns. This year in Queensland I saw Anna Bligh’s Labor government spread vile and completely untrue lies about Campbell Newman’s family via a letterbox campaign. Think what you like about Newman – love him or hate him, I don’t care – but the dirty tactics when discovered by Queensland voters was the nail in Bligh’s coffin.
And do I even need to remind anyone of the “Kevin Rudd is a psychotic power-mad dictator” campaign they rolled out against one of their own?
So, Tony Abbott.
Do I think the Leader of the Opposition is sexist? Yeah, I do. Do I think he allows his religious beliefs to influence his political decision-making. Yep.
But that doesn’t make someone a misogynist. What are we now? Qualified psychologists? Well, thank you Dr Phil. I think to throw that label around is so incredibly offensive it makes my head explode. Anyone who has dated or met a man who is a true misogynist knows what I’m talking about.
But the real kicker for me in Monday Question Time was for the Prime Minister to give a “I’ve had enough of the sexist, disgusting appalling things Tony Abbott has been saying about women” speech only to VOTE TO KEEP PETER SLIPPER AS SPEAKER. A man who wrote, oh you know, just a whole heap of creepy, sexist comments about women’s genitalia.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
No, really. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
And don’t DON’T even try telling me it’s because the PM is waiting for the outcome of legal proceedings. That’s to do with the court case between Slipper and Ashby. Peter Slipper’s foul comments about women were enough to deem him an inappropriate – HELLO MR CREEPY – choice as Speaker. Or is sexism and misogyny only a problem when it’s uttered from the mouths of a Liberal party member?
I’m at the point where I don’t even know what the Prime Minister actually stands for. (This is where I’d ideally like to open my own can of whoopass on the agreement she broke with Andrew Wilkie on poker machine reform. And the fact she’s backed out of key elements in the package of carbon tax reforms.)
But I digress.
Annabel Crabb summed it up perfectly yesterday when she wrote this on The Drum:
There is no doubt that our first female PM has been tried extensively by references, attacks and criticism that would never have been made of her male predecessors. Much of it has gained public ventilation thanks to a communications revolution that now allows front-bar remarks to achieve a national audience.
In a coruscating speech that went around the world, Ms Gillard finally let rip with her frustration about all this, and left no doubt about whom she considers to be responsible.
“The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office,” said the Prime Minister, with the cold fluency she reserves for moments of genuine anger.
“Well, I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation.”
Principle! Well, yes, sort of. Until you consider that the PM’s distaste for sexist remarks stopped at the door of her own Speaker.
I’m going to lay my cards on the table. I’ve voted for Labor in every federal election – bar one – since 1990 (I think I voted John Howard into office in 1996.) [Edit: In hindsight, I think I may also have voted Greens in the 2004 Federal Election as I was unable to bring myself to vote for Mark Latham] I like Prime Minister Gillard. And I think she’s at her best when she’s on the ropes. And on Monday Gillard was full of fiest and passion. The PM had many, many valid points to make about some of the appalling things that have been said to her and about her in politics. But that speech was about as impromptu as Brynne: My Bedazzled Life.
There are many things I love about the Labor party.
But their fondness for smear campaigns isn’t one of them. And PM? If you’ve got a real opinion, I’d like you to stick to it.
Frankly, next election, my vote is up for grabs.
Do you think politics has become all promise and no delivery? Are you tired of the game playing?
Top Comments
I'll begin by saying I disagree with most of you assertions made in this article, but I respect that this is your opinion. Even if you don't believe the PM's speech was 'authentic', is that important? What she said need to be said, and she said it brilliantly. I personally believed the speech to be spontaneous and authentic after spending a great deal of time watching the PM speaking in many different situations and at different levels of pre-meditation. This felt spontaneous to me.
Secondly, the Prime Minister did clearly say she was offended by Slipper's comments, but we have something wonderful in Australia known as the separation of powers. It is not the job of the Parliament to fire someone from their Parliamentary position based on evidence exposed by an open court case.
Thirdly, while I think Slipper's messages were vile, bizarre, and, yes, creepy, they were private. There is no doubt in my mind that there would be equally damaging things exposed if everyone in the Parliament was forced to release all their private correspondence, let alone everyone in the country. Slipper's messages should not detract from the fact that he was a very good Speaker, and managed to keep the House largely under control.
It upsets me that someone can lose their job based on a couple of text messages that were not derogatory to anyone. Why can a man not have an opinion on what vagina's look like.? I have heard the same comments from women.
I really hate how CEO's and politicians can lose their jobs over fake moral outrage in Australia. I think it is discrimination. Thinly vailed homophobia if you as me in this case.
It is not for the public to judge a man on his personal life but on his public life. I do not like that a disgruntled employee with rich backer can rip someones life apart and rob him of his dignity and his most treasured position in parliament . it is so wrong and makes me ashamed our politicians didn't get up and say- it is wrong instead of pretending to outraged by comments they may have made themselves.
I also feel greatly for a man who gave over twenty years of his life to public office only to be humiliated and robbed at the end of his career.
As someone said below, do you actually believe that if those text messages had been found on Tony Abbott's phone, people would be saying "Oh they're private messages and have nothing to do with anything?"
No, they wouldn't.
It's about the integrity of the role of Speaker
As for the PM's speech, I thought she made terrific points except for directing so much of it at Tony Abbott.
How about the next day when she complained about him calling her " a piece of work" -- claiming sexism! WTF?
THIS from a woman who made the homophobic slur of calling Christopher Pyne a mincing poodle. Way to go insulting the gay community and making sweeping generalisations on the way gay males behave.
How exactly is comparing mussels to vagina's so terrible that someone loses their job. I was out with a group of very middle class ladies and they commented on the same thing when a few shelled mussels came with our meal. What is so terrible?
Why are someone private texts being released publicly over a civil case? How is it anyone's business what a man texted to a friend( not a employee at the time) when he has not been found guilty of anything.
that entire integrity concept is nonsense. integrity would involve someone not losing their job of a few text messages that did not demean or insult anyone. Homophobia is more like it .
I'm sure Tony Abbott loves women as long as they keep to their place. He's a man who grew up with a cheer squad of adoring women around him, he's a conservative catholic man who doesn't believe in abortion but believes it's okay for a man to let his pregnant girlfriend put a baby up for adoption and not take responsibility for the baby himself. It's not like Julia Gillard has just had to put up with a few off color jokes. There has been a relentless campaign to undermine her authority in everyway. Alan Jones also made the comment she should be put in a chaff bag and dumped at sea. Even the Juliar tag - since when has any politician NOT lied. Show me a politician who isn't a hypocrite - that is part of being a politician, bloody hell it's part of being human. Except apparently for the saintly types casting judgement on Julia Gillard. Apparently a woman in power should canonised as a saint before she dares exercise power.
I think Tony is allowed to have his own opinion on abortion. That does not make him sexist. It makes him conservative and religious but that may be why people vote for him.
If Tony Abbott was the misogynistic sexist pig you assert him to be, it would be reflected in his daugthers. If he thought women belonged at home, serving their men -- he would either have daughters who were married, not studying and being SAHM at the ages of 21. OR they would be doing what they are doing -- working, studying, travelling the world - and not talking to him. Instead he has a terrific relationship with them. That tells you something about his true beliefs.
And way to go justifying Julia Gillad's continuous lies by saying "well all politicians lie". Great defence.
Yeah, because no kids rebel against their parents beliefs!
My dad is quite the bigot, and I am nothing like him in many ways. And that was sometimes a conscious choice, and sometimes it's just me.
I have a good relationship with him, I just don't agree with him about a LOT of stuff. It is possible!
They campaign with him. So clearly the support him.