After the federal budget last year, Georgie Dent was angry. A writer and executive director of not-for-profit The Parenthood, Dent felt Josh Frydenberg’s budget had done nothing for women.
The next day, after firing off an article and a series of tweets, and in between five television interviews, she got a phone call that left her gobsmacked. It was a man at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), calling to tell her she was wrong.
Last week, Network 10’s political editor Peter van Onselen aired allegations that the PMO had been backgrounding journalists against Brittany Higgins’ partner, suggesting that as a former public servant, he had a vendetta against the Coalition.
Since then, other stories have emerged that paint a picture of an office which watches social media accounts with a Sauron-like intensity, and whose spinners are willing to hose down journalists and commentators over the most innocuous of perceived slights against Scott Morrison.
‘No one credible is saying that’
Dent says her conversation with Morrison’s spinner was long and heated.
“I think the purpose of the phone call was to dissuade me from my position that the budget did nothing for women.”
The PMO staffer referred Dent to the government’s tax cuts, which he said benefited women too. When she pointed out they didn’t deliver for women as much as men because of the gender pay gap, the staffer told her this was because of “women’s choices”.
“No one credible is saying that,” the staffer allegedly said, about Dent’s claims the budget wasn’t delivering for women. In fact Crikey, along with several other outlets, named women as budget losers.
The attempts at media management backfired against the PMO. Dent turned #crediblewomen into a viral hashtag.
“If their objective was making any women problem go away, they failed spectacularly,” she said.
Shut up and stop posting
In the last few days, we’ve heard more about the PMO’s often desperately heavy-handed attempts to control the narrative around Morrison.
On Twitter earlier this week, Weekend Australian writer Greg Bearup recounted an incident from April 2019, right after Higgins was allegedly raped, when he’d received two angry phone calls from separate staffers at the PMO over a joke tweet about seeing Morrison and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack at the Easter Show.
Journalist Neil McMahon said he’d been called and aggressively texted twice by the PMO over recaps of ABC’s Q+A.
Who is behind Morrison’s aggressive media monitoring outfit? If you send the PMO a media request, an automatic reply lists the numbers of five media advisers.
Morrison’s chief spinner is head of communications Andrew Carswell, a former Daily Telegraph chief of staff who joined Team ScoMo when he was treasurer in 2017, and is a close member of the prime minister’s inner circle.
He’s also not afraid to get on the blower and tell journalists what he really thinks. After the Christchurch attack in 2019, Waleed Aly’s viral editorial on The Project made reference (without naming the prime minister), to a 2010 Sydney Morning Herald article, where Morrison allegedly told shadow cabinet that the Coalition should capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment.
Carswell called 10, accused the show of “failing journalism 101”, demanded an apology, and threatened to sue.
Then, at the Midwinter Ball later that year, van Onselen broke press gallery omertà when, after a ribbing from Morrison, he tweeted a series of texts from Carswell accusing his network of “ideological bias” against the prime minister, and threatening van Onselen with losing access on a trip to Washington DC.
And that’s just who we know about on record. Dent wasn’t the only person to receive a call over criticism of the budget. And given the PMO’s eagerness to call dissenters, there may well be many who’ve decided to toe the line.
A media management problem?
Van Onselen was annoying the PMO again last week, when he told ABC Radio National about the alleged backgrounding against Higgins’ partner. The PMO has refused to comment on this, and Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham (now accused of mishandling his own staffer’s alleged rape) insisted last week that Morrison would never tolerate such “grubby” tactics.
If both Birmingham and van Onselen are right, then the PMO is running behind Morrison’s back. More evidence emerged in the last week of the office and the boss appearing to be at odds. Morrison said he only learned of Higgins’ allegations when the story broke last Monday, even though his office knew three days earlier. Up to four staffers in the PMO may have known about the incident back in 2019.
The Higgins case highlights the PMO at its worst — both glass-jawed and pugnacious when it wants a journalist to shut up, while silent and deliberately evasive when it comes to an allegation of rape.
For Dent, there’s much in common between her experience and how the PMO has handled the past week.
“It symbolises so much of the way in which the Morrison government seeks to treat women and resolve what it considers women problems, and that is to tell them to be quiet, to tell them that they’re wrong, [and] to undermine their credibility.”
THE LNP also has a tendency to throw any female member under a bus whenever she gets into strife but vigourously defend any man who similarly gets himself into difficulty. No men lose their jobs. Women always do.
“Did you fix the brakes while you were under the bus Linda?”
This whole situation is a symptom of the disease which has eaten out the Liberal Party, leaving the remnant Conservatives consisting of mostly privileged white males with highly inflated ideas of how much they are going to make “Looking after their mates”!
This government had better start looking very hard at communities which are going to be very affected by the removal of JobKeeper.
There are a lot of communities in Queensland which rolls about $40,000,000 in tourist money into the economy with marginal seats and Clive Palmer’s fear campaign will not work this time.
Add it up scottie!
How many seats in Cairns, Port Douglas, Airlie Beach, Mackay and the Sunshine coast?
What is your majority now?
As for your problem with women, it would be so much easier for your personae for women to follow the bible’s teachings and be subservient, quiet and accept the “headship” of a religious man.
It should be noted that Psychopaths are quite frequently both leaders of church groups and politicians.
This would support the assertion that scottie from marketing is a cunning political grub.
“If both Birmingham and van Onselen are right, then the PMO is running behind Morrison’s back.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.” throwback to that satirical and hugely accurate British TV series.
“Come in, SIr Humphrey.”
No comparison really, PM Jim was a gullible but likeable fool, PM Scott is a wickedly cunning grub, with very little to like.
“No minister, you do not need to know that, minister” said Sir Humphrey!
“No Slomo, you do not need to know that, it is called “plausible” deniability for scottie from marketing”.
Yeah, we all believe ya scottie!
Or there’s always the Berejiklian variation: ‘I don’t need to know about that.’
Wasn’t Sir Humphrey a lifetime public servant, rather than the political hacks used as staff here?
But a role model, for those of a “certain bent”, none the less by the look of it.
Yes, staffers were just being introduced at that time. Jim Hacker got one, called Weisel, pronounced weasel by the public servants.
As hilarious and satirical ‘Yes, Minister’ was, and I loved it, Sir Humphrey was the absolute pinnacle of a quality public servant. They may have prevented many good things, being timid and conservative in policy terms, but you’ll never know how much damaging thought bubbles from imbecile Ministers was averted and avoided.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard had exceptional experience of the treatment of women in politics. Recall especially her misogyny speech, voted “most unforgettable Australian TV moment”.
Julia Baird for the New York Times, 5 July 2013:
“For the three years and three days that Julia Gillard was prime minister of Australia, we debated the fit of her jackets, the size of her bottom, the exposure of her cleavage, the cut of her hair, the tone of her voice, the legitimacy of her rule and whether she had chosen, as one member of Parliament from the opposition Liberal Party put it, to be “deliberately barren.” The sexism was visceral and often grotesque.”
Tim Dunlop for the ABC, 3 March 2012:
“Gillard being a woman means she is judged by a different standard, and let’s not pretend otherwise. … When she is tough, she is seen as treacherous and unbecoming. When she prefers compromise and negotiation, she is seen as weak. Oh yeah, and she doesn’t have kids: how can she relate to “normal” people?”
Contrast the views of the public with the views of the journalist/ideologues of the Canberra/Murdoch bubble (a bias repeated in morrison’s holiday in Hawaii while the East was burning):
Anne Summers for the ABC, 10 October 2012
“Most Canberra journalists stood virtually shoulder to shoulder in this morning’s newspapers to condemn the Prime Minister for the same speech. Gillard’s words were condemned as “desperate” (Michelle Grattan), “completely over the top” (Jennifer Hewett), “flawed” (Peter Hartcher), and “defending the indefensible” (Dennis Shanahan) … In the 24 hours since the speech was delivered, a clear polarisation has emerged between the mainstream media, particularly print, and a very large body of online opinion that has applauded the anti-misogyny contents of the speech and welcomed Gillard’s return to her former debating finesse.”
The speech was outstanding, the context – that she was defending Slimy ‘Mussels’ Slipper – unfortunate.
People connected with the speech because it was (at least somewhat) from the heart. It was never about Slipper but the shocking abuse she had suffered from Abbott & Co followed by his temerity to call her mysogynistic.
The Press Gallery might have just a teensy weensy little bit of misogyny floating about it.
Scotty from marketing is no slouch with this public/political persona. Impossible to believe the fine level of sensitivity displayed by the PMO is not tightly controlled and internally reported back to the Head of Marketing.