The Morrison government has turned its back on women, men and even their own voters by refusing to front the thousands of women and allies marching today demanding change to Canberra’s culture of sexual harassment and violence.
The excuses for not meeting organisers at the march are absurd. It wouldn’t take very long to stroll down the steps at Parliament, wave at the crowds and wander back in. I should know: I did the walk this morning.
Instead, the government is using its usual tactics of deny, distract, and deflect. This morning Attorney-General Christian Porter also announced he is launching defamation proceedings against the ABC.
Who are the snubbers?
Minister for Women Marise Payne — and her inactive and underfunded Office for Women — has refused to meet with organisers today. She has told them to “email or post” their petition, “as consistent with protocol”.
Morrison, who hasn’t had enough time to plan a strategic photoshoot, instead sent in Superannuation Minister Jane Hume to try to convince March 4 Justice organiser Janine Hendry to meet him privately.
Smiling for the cameras in the hallways of Parliament, Hume stopped Hendry and said: “The fact that you’ve been invited is really, really exciting.” Hume is planning on attending the march.
On ABC’s Insiders yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said he doesn’t have a spare 10 minutes to address the largest feminist social movement in recent decades. Hendry bumped into McCormack this morning and pushed him to respond to the landmark Respect@Work report into workplace sexual harassment which came out 14 months ago.
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham said he wouldn’t be joining, while Trade Minister Dan Tehan said he is waiting for a personal invitation from members of his Victorian electorate.
NSW Minister for Women Bronnie Taylor, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Opposition Leader Jodi McKay have all refused to attend the march in Sydney.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and shadow minister for women Tanya Plibersek will be attending the march, as will Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson.
Snubbed right back
This morning Hendry announced she would not privately meet with Morrison.
“I read the room. I’m here representing the voices of tens of thousands of women across Australia and, unlike our prime minister, I’ve heard what they’ve said. In reality, we’ve come to the prime minister’s front door. I’d like to see him walk across the threshold and come see us,” she said.
A petition with 10 demands, ranging from launching an investigation into gendered violence to implementing the full 55 recommendations in the Respect@Work report, will be delivered to women members of Parliament. It calls on the prime minister “to act against gendered violence in Parliament and all workplaces”.
A poorly planned strategy
The backlash against the government’s “hear no evil, speak no evil” approach is growing.
More than half of Australians support an independent inquiry into whether Christian Porter is a fit and proper person to be attorney-general. Just 20% oppose the inquiry. Even among Coalition voters support for an inquiry is high, at 54%.
Support for Scott Morrison, meanwhile, hasn’t been this low since he took off on holiday while the country was on fire in 2019.
And mention should also be made of Anne Ruston, who just did an interview with Sky, awkwardly explaining why she didn’t have time to go to the rally. But of course, she did have the time to go to Sky, to explain why she didn’t have the time.
Yes, minister.
Amanda Stoker has just said on ABC TV that Prime Ministers don’t address protest rallies. This is untrue, Both John Howard and Bob Hawke addressed hostile crowds. Howard in particular had reason to fear the crowd when he was preparing to reform gun laws.
Morrison is a wimp.
Yes, I suspect that Morrison has neither the integrity or inclination to front a hostile crowd, because with him, it’s almost always about image. And it might be damaging for his image, when people explain to him that there’s a huge difference between, ‘Jen told me that I should take the allegations seriously’ and ‘no, I didn’t read the report because I believe him’.
The prime minister is a good negotiator. He does not want to go out into the crowd where he is outnumbered and the women have the power and energy of the crowd. His objective is to separate a few from their many followers and have them shepherded into his territory, down a labyrinth of echoing corridors, past armed guards with dark glasses, ear mics, no necks and bulges under their suits and through security doors under the gaze of security cameras into his inner sanctum where they will feel about six inches high and he has the full authority of his office.
The full authority of his office is about six inches.
Oh, you meant height…
But think of those “unmanaged optics” (if he had gone out there) …. I’m sure he does.
Going on form, it’s probably all he thinks about?
Yep
Stoker’s demonstrable BS.
Who was that in front of that “Ditch the Witch” rally – dressed up like Abbott, in front of moist of his parliamentary party? How many of this current mob, that attended that rally, are still in parliament?
I like what you did there, but that crowd would probably label themselves as “drys”.
Anyone remember Tony Abbott with a microphone and that ‘Ditch the Witch’ sign?
Howard, a man I despise and detest for his aggressive bigotry, showed great physical courage facing hostile crowds over the firearms issue. One photo shows clearly the bulge of a bu11€tproof vest but that wouldn’t have stopped a stomach or head shot.
I agree. Howard was the worst, and he blew all that money Paul Keating handed him. (Liberals the best economic managers? my foot!)
But I really did love that one thing he did getting rid of guns…It showed real guts.
Small point, only certain types of rifles were banned – SLRs, many of them decades old.
The overall number of rifles in private hands rose as a result of the buy-back money being used to purchase more powerful, modern weapons.
Never forgetting the Adler pump action which is again legal to own.
Your last three words are so telling and so relevant. Howard and Hawke had guts.
Keating had guts too..
Just a pity that he was so easily Duchessed – like most parvenu.
Once he had his feet under the big table with his betters he was overeager to do whatever they required, media laws, bank deregulation, privatisation, crush unions etc etc.
Every wet dream that tories ever had but were too cowardly to attempt (even in Britain under Mme la Fer), not to mention incompetent to implement, ie SerfChoiceless.
Yeah. He fully is.
How can a bunch of women be scarier than angry farmers?
So to recap. Mr. Morrison didn’t read the documents submitted to him, before announcing Mr. Porter was a fit and proper person to be AG. Them the documents were handed to the AFP, an organization not approved to investigate these types of allegations. Then when the AFP passed documents to the NSW Police Force they didn’t pass over all the documents and attachments. Next we hear that the lawyer involved in advising Mr. Morrison and Mr. Porter works for a firm that has $93 Million in Government contract. Then we are told that said lawyer was advising Mr. Morrison on other matters some time ago. Then we find out said lawyer has been advising Mr. Porter since last November on the matter in question. We have a friend of the late person making the claim that he spoke with the alleged victim the year, after the event and with Mr. Porter in the 1990’S, apparently no one is interested, in taking his affidavit or statement. All in all if I was a suspicious person I may think that the fix was in some time ago.
Good summary. Should be sent to Labor so they can use it as a question in the House.
Albanese going at it now after Question Time. Putting it all on the record and calling into question the honesty of Morrison in his claims of ignorance of both Brittany Higgins and Kate the debater.
And Dutton just shut him down 4 minutes in.
It was an impressive 4 minutes though, hints of JG’s misogyny speech and Morrison squirming in discomfort was much the same as Abbott did then…
Porter will need to choose his lies very carefully when he is under oath. And of course he is the sort of snake who will not hesitate to lie under oath.
He’s demonstrated time & time again that he was prepared to mislead Parliament which is also an offence.
Akin to perjury because Parliament is our supreme deliberative body.
I hope Mr porters legal expenses are self-funded – no taxpayer funds should be available for him.
But that will be shrouded in secrecy too….
That would emphasise an odd relationship with accountability, wouldn’t it? Essentially it could be a publicly funded campaign, to extract funds from another publicly funded entity. Or the public paying for a campaign, to limit the public’s right to know?
So what? That pretty much describes every Federal FOI request.
Media reports last week said both Porter and Reynolds will have to pay their own legal expenses.
But I have another question – can the nation’s first legal officer stay in that role when he has brought a def-m-action case? Wouldn’t that involve a conflict of interest?
It’s a private action.
It has no bearing on his political role.
I disagree. It’s mind-boggling that Porter is not being stood down as AG pending conclusion of the trial.
As Bernard Keane wrote somewhere else on this site (my bold):
“Even the government — an outfit deeply corrupt and plagued with scandals — is dimly aware of just how wrong it is that an attorney-general should remain in his position while the very courts and judges that he oversees hear his own personal grievances against a media outlet.”
There are multiple issues regarding conflict, also covered elsewhere on this site.
I don’t understand why the Opposition is not raising this.
Perhaps because someone – eg Dreyfus on RN last night – understands the difference between a civil action & and a ‘trial’.
There are numerous reasons why he is unfit to be A/G but a civil action is not one.
I also understand the distinction between a civil action and a criminal prosecution. I don’t believe the potential for conflict is ruled out simply because this is a civil matter.
As noted elsewhere, he is still a plaintiff in a court that he ultimately controls.
Legal academics have commented that there is potential for judges who have been personally selected by the AG, or who may desire promotion to the High Court, to be put in the position of deciding on matters directly in the AG’s interests.
Was this discussed in detail by Dreyfus?
Yes and he pointed out that, whilst on leave, he has no power over the court or judicial system having had those duties taken up by other colleagues.
About what one would expect from Dreyfus, never one to address a principal when he can equivocate & obfuscate.
Who is paying will never be revealed but be assured that, were he to win, he’ll keep the swag.
After all, he’ll only have his gold plated, indexed, pension and family money to keep him in the style to which he’d like to become accustomed.
Heads he wins, tails we, via Our ABC, lose.
Refusal to have an inquiry is another act of violence toward australian women.
Sueing the ABC, if it goes to court, will result in public proceedings covering the issues in the allegations with witnesses under oath and so on – so it covers much the same ground as an independent inquiry, and the government will no doubt insist it is as good as an inquiry. But it also provides benefits to Porter and the government that other inquiries would not, such as probably imposing great costs on the ABC (the Liberal base will be ecstatic) and intimidating anyone trying to report any alleged scandal about a minister.
It’s another example of Porter’s rat cunning, the same as his proposed federal ICAC which would facilitate rather than curb corruption.
Could it be a Geoffrey Rush-type situation? The whole world gets to hear the ghastly details, reputation actually trashed but end up with millions?
That’s quite likely. Perhaps he sees this as another source of income.
It seems Porter et al have no awareness of what happened when Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensberry.
Wilde’s case failed because he was in fact a sodomist and frequented a house of rent boys, several of whom the Crown had lined up to testify.
That is what I was thinking. Or a Johnny Depp situation. Reputation completely trashed and then lose.
Either way, it does not actually mean anything because look at the defamation proceedings of that Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella who sued because the paper said she pushed Cathy McGowan. Okay… she pushed Ken Wyatt. She pushed him to keep him from being photographed with Cathy McGowan. Semantics? I think so.
Even if he wins, I don’t think it really helps him or his reputation one bit.