This morning Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Christian Porter is an “innocent man under our law”.
The PM previously decided there shouldn’t be an inquiry into the suitability of Australia’s first law officer to keep his position after a series of allegations of sexism, sexual misconduct and rape. Porter strenuously denies the allegations.
Morrison based his decision on absolutely zero expert opinion and didn’t seek out the solicitor-general’s advice. His own two cents (and we can assume Jen’s guidance) was enough to do away with the serious claims put forward by a woman who later took her own life.
This is the latest display of Liberal men protecting their pack. And this pack, former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop said on Monday, is a group with such disgusting machismo they called themselves the “big swinging dicks”.
Big dick name, little dick energy
The group name was first outed in 2009 by The Australian’s Glenn Milne. Members reportedly included Christopher Pyne, Steven Ciobo, Greg Hunt, Peter Dutton, Jamie Briggs, Mathias Cormann, Michael Keenan and Morrison.
The claim was repeated by former minister Sharman Stone last month. Bishop said a decade ago and now that this group tried (and failed) to thwart her career. Liberal men have denied the existence of this group — in 2009 and today.
Whether the group existed or not, the macho pack mentality it encapsulated certainly still does. Just take a look at who leads them.
On Julian Assange’s extradition, Morrison “joked” about how plenty of his mates “have asked me if they can be my special envoy to help sort out the issue with Pamela Anderson”. On International Women’s Day in 2019 he said that women should rise but “not at the expense of [men]”.
He suggested he needs to contextualise alleged rape victims as his daughters to muster an iota of empathy. He interrupted Social Services Minister Anne Ruston when she was asked about what it’s like to be a woman in Parliament. When Labor’s Jim Chalmers said he cried in Kevin Rudd’s office, Morrison mocked him for being “sensitive”.
Morrison has previously denied his party had a “women problem”.
Testosterone immune to accountability
Liberal women have been abandoning their ranks in droves. Most recently, Nicolle Flint stepped down after previously calling out sexist abuse. Julia Banks, having previously called out a culture of bullying, said the political system was “stuck in time”. Bishop resigned after saying the workplace culture was untenable. Former senator Lucy Gichuhi said that male bullies of the Liberal Party need to “stop beating up our women”.
While women are pushed out of the party after being ruthlessly mocked and bullied by men on the same side as them, there is a pack of dudes who seem to be protected in their positions.
There’s Angus Taylor, who remains in Parliament after the “watergate” scandal, among other incidents. Dutton’s pork-barrelling allegations and au pairs have largely been forgotten. Alan Tudge holds his seat even after the alleged poor treatment of and affair with a female staffer. Stuart Robert was brought back even after robotdebt. Paul Fletcher faced nothing for land overpayment.
Let’s not forget Porter who also stacked the Administrative Appeals Tribunal with his Liberal mates. He was promoted by Malcolm Turnbull just weeks after being reprimanded for being drunk in the company of young women.
The list goes on.
Meanwhile, former Nationals deputy leader and agriculture minister Bridget McKenzie is the only senior Coalition MP to ever face a consequence since Morrison became PM following the sports rorts affair.
Of the men alleged to be in the “big swinging dicks” group, few remain — though they left for different reasons to recent Liberal women.
Pyne and Ciobo left after the 2018 leadership spill, Keenan left in 2019 to spend time with family, and Cormann left last year to pursue a career at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Briggs is one of the few Liberal men to lose his position, resigning in 2015 after complaints about his behaviour on a night out in Hong Kong by a female staffer.
All this does little for female representation in Parliament. In the House of Representatives, just 31% of members are female — a statistic dragged down by the fact women represent just 19.5% of the Coalition party room.
The huge difference in treatment and accountability (and the ignorance to the gender implications that drive this) shows the mentality of the “big swinging dicks” group is still alive and well.
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With this government, Australia’s luck has run out…
Now, ^in fairness^, Morrison ^had to^ sack McKenzie over Sports Rorts; the evidence was all beginning to point to the office of the Prime Minister. He “needed” a scalp to offer up, or the whole situation could not be swept back under the carpet…
I mean, you could not possibly expect the ^great^ Scott Morrison to be accountable for something, could you?
Under our rule of law, he’s innocent unless convicted in a court of law of a criminal charge. Totally innocent I say…Totally.
Ah, you too have fallen for Morrison’s sleight of hand. McKenzie did not go over Sports Rorts. The official line from the Morrison gang remains that there were no Sports Rorts, nobody did anything wrong and so nobody involved has been penalised in any way.
McKenzie resigned (she was not sacked) as a minister over some footling omission in her register of interests about a club membership:
“I maintain that at no time did my membership of shooting sports clubs influence my decision making, nor did I receive any personal gain.”
“However, I acknowledge that my failure to declare my memberships in a timely manner constituted a breach of the prime minister’s ministerial standards,”
Very helpfully for Morrison and McKenzie this was widely and wrongly reported as a consequence of Sports Rorts. It took all the heat out of efforts to investigate it properly: not much point seeking grounds to get McKenzie sacked when she’s already gone. In due course it will be easy to bring McKenzie back because after all she resigned over something quite trivial.
I stand corrected, SSR.
Well done Phil Gaetjens.
I note that Morrison has still not said he believes Porter. To do so would be to say that Ms Thornton was lying and he is not prepared to do that. Which suggests that he actually does not believe Porter.
I wonder if he and Jen have discussed how he would have reacted had it been one of his daughters, or even his sister, who had claimed to have been raped and had written a detailed account which another PM had refused to read saying he accepted the word of the alleged rapist that it didn’t happen.
Morrison only has empathy for those whose interests serve his. The rest of us can get stuffed.
Interesting that the swinging disk Morrison often refers to Jen, but Jens voice is never heard. He always speaks on her behalf as he did in the interview with Ann Ruston. He is Captain Swinging Dick of the Swinging Dick team and his attitude towards women is blatant. It reminds me of a primary school classroom where the boys are all mucking up, making noise, taking up space whilst the girls studiously work, try hard to please. When checking who mucked up, the boy’s reply comes back : ‘I didn’t do it Miss’. This all sounds very familiar. We have the chaotic bad boys running our country down to the ground, taking the space, speaking above everyone else and denying any accountability.
I keep praying that an honest man (unfortunately has to be a man otherwise no one in that rabble would listen) will enter the Liberal party and do a tell all interview, naming names and list every lie and underhanded act of this government/party. Does such a being exist that would be given a position within the Liberal party? I doubt it because it seems to me that only liars (bad or good at it) is the first required, perhaps the only, characteristic needed.
So many of the bien pissant brigade thought that Talcum would be that ‘man’ – cool leather jacket and smooth ability to use words, often with 2 syllables or more.
Wasn’t it Machiavelli who warned his patron – “Put not your trust in princes.”?
A sad disappointment to us all…
Given Scotty’s frequent recourse to “Jen” when he’s in difficulty, maybe he should become the house husband and Jen take over the role of PM.
Given that he is ignorant of, or ignores, Matthew 19: 24, Mark 10:25 & Luke 18:25
is it not passing strange that he cleaves unto Colossians 3:18 “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.“?
How about 1Timothy 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”?
Other verses apply, eg 1 Corinthians 11:13 & 14:34 but there seems to be a consistent theme.
The list goes on, indeed it does. Who could forget Liberal MP (at the time) Craig Kelly’s advice that women MPs should stop complaining and learn to “roll with punches”? That’s the same Kelly who keeps Steve Zumbo as his office manager despite a number of women making serious allegations about Zumbo’s conduct and an apprehended violence order. All right, Kelly has recently left the Liberals in a huff, but this sad little falling out had nothing to do with any objections to his attitude to women.
Craig Kelly hasn’t really left the Libs. He’s just moved his seat.