Lurking online is a neat demonstration of the profound misogyny of Australian politics, and the rank double standards of both the Coalition and much of the press gallery in Canberra.
A Sydney Morning Herald article from 2014 is accompanied by a screen grab from the proceedings of the trade union royal commission. There’s commissioner Dyson Heydon and former prime minister Julia Gillard, the latter being interrogated by counsel assisting.
Heydon was later found by a High Court investigation to have sexually harassed six associates, prompting Chief Justice Susan Kiefel to remark “we’re ashamed that this could have happened at the High Court of Australia”.
The trade union royal commission, which cost $46 million, led to a small number of convictions and civil penalties, most recently that of Kathy Jackson, originally lauded by News Corp and the Coalition as a “brave decent woman” (Tony Abbott) and a “lion of the labour movement” (Christopher Pyne). A number of prosecutions of union officials that followed the royal commission later collapsed.
The trade union royal commission was intended to destroy Bill Shorten and wreck Julia Gillard’s reputation, as well as being a vehicle for the Coalition’s drive to weaken unions as much as possible. Now it’s fallen down a memory hole, along with the campaign of vilification against Julia Gillard when she was PM.
However, watching Julie Bishop last night win plaudits for agreeing there was a toxic culture in Parliament House, sexism in the Liberal Party, and that a coronial inquest into the death of the complainant against Christian Porter was needed, was to be reminded of her centre stage role in the smear campaign against Gillard… at least until Bishop stuffed it up so badly she was dropped from the political prosecution.
Perhaps Bishop, having had her own public experience of misogyny within the Liberal Party, has had a change of heart about attacks on Gillard, but in December 2012, Bishop thought a judicial inquiry was necessary to determine what role a younger Gillard had played in the AWU affair, centring on the embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars of union and corporate funds.
That was despite the saga having already been investigated by police in two states, with no action taken, and an internal Slater and Gordon inquiry that cleared Gillard. Victorian police fired up another investigation after bagman Ralph Blewitt re-emerged in 2012 promising new information, but that never led anywhere either.
Bishop wasn’t alone with the judicial inquiry line. Her leader Tony Abbott demanded one as well. There was no protestations about the “rule of law” despite police investigations having been closed. The then-shadow attorney-general George Brandis didn’t even need an inquiry, and used parliamentary privilege to call Gillard a “crook”.
All despite the failure of both the opposition and the media to identify a specific allegation of wrongdoing. Notoriously, Abbott claimed Gillard had “questions to answer” about the matter but when asked by Leigh Sales to specify what the questions were, couldn’t say.
Still, a judicial inquiry was apparently warranted even though police investigations were concluded and there was no specific allegation. All over a few hundred thousand in union graft.
If the double standard of the Coalition, which now insists the uninvestigated, and very specific, allegations against Christian Porter do not need an inquiry, is impressive, that of much of the media is equally staggering.
Journalists have apparently purged themselves of the memory of how hysterical the campaign against Gillard was — the incessant headlines, the acres of newsprint, the stories The Australian got wrong and had to retract, Gillard standing for hour-long press conferences dealing with questions until journalists gave up, exhausted. It wasn’t just News Corp — Fairfax and the ABC joined in, though like the Murdoch press none could actually put together a specific allegation of wrongdoing.
Now, of course, many in the media — many of the same journalists and commentators who hounded Gillard — lament the “trial by media” of Porter.
And if the press gallery was feral, online media was toxic. Failed journalists used blogs to push elaborate conspiracy theories and insist Gillard would be jailed. The vile fraudster and bigot Larry Pickering published disgusting cartoons of Gillard, including ones depicting her as a rapist. All to precisely zero outrage from the right. No complaints about the “sewer”.
They all got their inquiry, of course, after Tony Abbott became PM. But despite its best efforts, Dyson was subsequently also to clear Gillard. Gillard has never received an apology from anyone about it. It’s all gone down the memory hole.
Few journalists apparently remember any of this (Raf Epstein is one) — an extended campaign of smear, trial by media and unsubstantiated allegations run for weeks on end by the opposition and the media.
What happened to Gillard is now inconvenient when complaining about the treatment of Christian Porter and how it breaches the rule of law.
But one look at that photo of Gillard and Heydon tells you all you need to know about the double standards here.
Was there a double standard at play? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
The Coalition know all about the power of a smear campaign, such an important tool in the Murdochian kingmaking scheme.
No should should ever forget the smiling Abbot standing on that platform with “ditch the witch” made for the 2 second news grab placard behind him.
The was the pinnacle of rotten media/ neocon behaviour.
The one thing that the Sydney shockjock/Murdoch misinformation media have nailed is hypocrisy.
It’s their bread n butter.
David,you have nailed It!!
If you have a chance listen to Kevin at the press club,today!!
Kevin27? Lol.
The breathtaking hypocrisy of this Morrison Government and his PR arm, News Ltd, is hardly newsworthy.
But I do wonder how long they really think they can continue to hold this “rule of law” rubbish line with Porter. Surely not for long?
It’s easy to imagine that because the idea that the rule of law will be destroyed overnight by any examination of the allegations is ludicrous, makes no sense and is easily disproven, it must soon be widely discredited. I don’t think so. For a start, there are the partisans who will defend their party bt sticking with it, not caring at all whether it is true so long as it is useful. Then there are others who will decide that because they cannot understand why it threatens the rule of law they must leave it those who know better, such as Porter. Finally so long as it repeated often enough it will be believed. Once again H L Mencken’s insight will be vindicated
“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
Thanks for this reminder of how Coalition governments pervert democracy. It is easy to think that the sort of crap that goes on in other countries can’t or isn’t happening here, but you can only think that if you can’t or won’t see the truth. In the same way that way too many people had the initial thought that since Brittany Higgin’s was rat-arsed, that if she was raped, she is partly responsible, Gillard is forever tainted because of the accusations, whereas the vulgar and repugnant Abbott more or less gets off scott-free, despite that Gillard was totally exonerated. A more recent example of how Coalition governments attack targets is Christine Holgate – another woman and another unfairly tarnished by President Morrison, for political gain, before an independent inquiry was held (which later more or less exonerated her and identified that the Chairman [a Liberal flunky] was in part culpable). As usual, the rule of law is part of the standard defence when the powerful have their own dirty tactics used against them. They ignore the rule of law when they want to attack the weak and defenceless, because they know that their targets will struggle to find justice (e.g., robo-debt – only a successful class action in the Federal Court brought that disgraceful example of a government ignoring the rule of law to an end, even if only temporarily).
“Julie? Leigh here….. Wanna come over an’ I’ll give you a make-over.”
Bishop – “stickler for the law”? Misleading parliament over Monis’ letters to Brandis’ Department? A member of the government of Robodebt, bugging the East Timor delegation (to benefit Woodside) etc etc?
What did she do about that “culture” back then : what would she be doing if she was still there – behind Morrison?
What did she say about the “Ditch the Witch” rally, back then?
“Didn’t know Porter well enough” (or hear rumours?) – back when he making his way around Perth?
How many instances of “parliamentary business” were scheduled to serendipitously coincide with her WC Eagles playing away, in those cities?
Those were the daze – long forgotten, last night anyway?
Never forgetting her role as Lady Asbestos to James Hardie’s Macbeth.
I can’t get over the deference and selected amnesia afforded her by so much of our “news(?)media”?
Is it all down to, “Because she’s a lady, and she made it so far up that greasy pole” – playing those games? What about Hanson : how she’s treated, not least because of “her record”? After all, she’s made it to become leader of her party…..
I have it from an informed source that Theresa May would have been spilled within the year had she not been female.
As it happens, I was there in 2017 and watched in wonder as she threw away a working majority in an ill judged & opportunistic early election, which she had sworn not to call, scant weeks earlier.
This ending in her triumphant victory of minority government and shaking of the Magic Moneytree ©™ ® to pay the Brexiteer DUP to support her Brexit-meanz-Brexit kinda-sorta british fudge.
The great & good decreed that she would be gone in weeks but the infighting about a successor, too ludicrous for a G&S operetta, dragged on for 2 more years.
… and to be fair (as to that “Lady A”), she is a “lawyer”, she/they’ll do anything for the right money.
And will happily accept the wrong money, no questions asked.
It’s another tricky ‘profession’ – turning them all the time.
Meretriciousness most malign.
This media obsession with “how clever Bishop is” – Backsliders again yesterday.
Apart from the fact that she was quite happy wallowing in that mud for as long as she did, getting what she did for as long as she wanted – including adding what she did while there : if memory serves, the term “big swinging dicks” was not original? I recollect it being used years ago, to describe “movers and shakers” on Wall St, or media (TV?)?
The 7:30 “rejoinder” of Bishop’s (“vivid imaginations” or such) was pretty obvious way back then – but our media don’t seem to remember that…. in much the same way they seem to forget her form.
“Because she’s a lady”?