A little over an hour after electing Peter Dutton as leader of the Liberal Party and Sussan Ley as deputy leader, the pair hosted a press conference at Parliament House — and quickly proved the party has learnt nothing, changed nothing and has no desire to be different.
There are more men named Andrew than female Liberals in the Senate, with the party also projected to have just seven women in the House of Representatives, down from 13. The National Party will also be fronted by a man, David Littleproud, with Perin Davey as deputy.
Ley is one of just 11 women across the Coalition’s 57 winning seats and was quick to assure journalists that, despite not being represented in the party, women’s issues would be heard.
“There are many women in leadership positions across the Parliament and every woman in our party … will be part of all of the policies and perspectives that will come in due course,” she said.
“While men speak on a variety of topics, they also speak for women so I’m very comfortable with the leadership of our party.”
Oh, good. Asking overconfident men to speak on issues they know nothing about has never, ever gone wrong before. They can always just defer to their wives, I guess.
But apparently Dutton isn’t one of those men who were appointed to mansplain — sorry, speak — for women. The opposition leader didn’t address a single question on gender, only mentioning women in relation to refugee victim-survivors given asylum in Australia. When asked about the party’s loss and gender, he focused on his support for those living in the suburbs — and when asked about gender representation and the rise of the Greens, he focused on Labor’s losses.
Lucky for him he had Ley to field those questions, jumping in to assure Australians that the Coalition had no idea why so many women had abandoned the party (hint: it was the underwhelming response to an alleged rape in Parliament, among many other failures).
“Sometimes women are presented as one homogenous group, which clearly they are not,” she said.
“To collect them in one group and say these things apply, these don’t, this went wrong, this didn’t, would be far too presumptuous.”
She continued by spruiking the party’s investment in women’s economic security instead of addressing the party’s failures, which is straight out of the Scott Morrison playbook.
Evidently, the party is starting out as it means to continue by ignoring and refusing to engage with women. Best of luck to them.
Astonishing and disgraceful comment by Ley.
But also accurate and informative, I believe. “While men speak on a variety of topics, they also speak for women so I’m very comfortable with the leadership of our party.” Ley, like any good and proper Liberal woman, knows her place. The men and women of the Liberal Party expect that of all women. So long as women do as they are told, speak when they are spoken to, do not get uppity and don’t poke their noses in where they are not wanted, they are very welcome. Why, a woman can even rise to the position of Deputy Leader (because that job is just ornamental with no actual authority or power) and that will be fine so long as the woman does not do something silly and presumptious like standing for the Leader’s job; as Julie Bishop learned the hard way after an otherwise blameless existence in the party, decades of never rocking the boat or having a controversial opinion. And Ley is right when she says “Sometimes women are presented as one homogenous group, which clearly they are not.” There are for example the sort of women who have a future in the Liberal Party, and then there are those dreadful women who say they are ‘independent’ candidates. Put that adjective ‘independent’ in front of the noun ‘woman’ and watch Liberals, whether male or female, recoil in horror, disgust and confusion. That’s why the Liberals had to insist all those independent candidates were really controlled by a man who, the Liberals said, was funding these so-called independents. In the Liberal world that’s the only credible explanation for such women.
I assume that you had to placate the madBot by altering your original comment from “…independent candidates were really con…..ed by a man…” to “…independent candidates were really directed by a man…”.
We subscribers are fortunate indeed to be protected from such evil letter combinations – who knows what harm they might wreak on our feeble psyches when hiding in a common-or-garden word?
Yes.
The ModBot is an idiosyncratic god. We who labour under the aegis of the blessed ModBot must learn the patience of Job and the cunning of a fox.
But also accurate and informative, I believe. “While men speak on a variety of topics, they also speak for women so I’m very comfortable with the leadership of our party.” Ley, like any good and proper Liberal woman, knows her place. The men and women of the Liberal Party expect that of all women. So long as women do as they are told, speak when they are spoken to, do not get uppity and don’t poke their noses in where they are not wanted, they are very welcome. Why, a woman can even rise to the position of Deputy Leader (because that job is just ornamental with no actual authority or power) and that will be fine so long as the woman does not do something silly and presumptious like standing for the Leader’s job; as Julie Bishop learned the hard way after an otherwise blameless existence in the party, decades of never rocking the boat or having a controversial opinion. And Ley is right when she says “Sometimes women are presented as one homogenous group, which clearly they are not.” There are for example the sort of women who have a future in the Liberal Party, and then there are those dreadful women who say they are ‘independent’ candidates. Put that adjective ‘independent’ in front of the noun ‘woman’ and watch Liberals, whether male or female, recoil in horror, disgust and confusion. That’s why the Liberals had to insist all those independent candidates were really ordered about by a man who, the Liberals said, was funding these so-called independents. In the Liberal world that’s the only credible explanation for such women.
But obviously we can’t collect women in one group and claim they have a common interest in opposing rape. That would be presumptuous.
“To collect them in one group and say these things apply, these don’t, this went wrong, this didn’t, would be far too presumptuous.”
Unlike Howard’s “battlers”, Menzies “forgotten people”, Dutton’s “outer suburbs”, and any other segment with interests held in common, and addressed as such by politicians.
Isn’t Sussan Ley the Member for the Gold Coast? She seems to have spent a lot of time there and certainly travels a lot there to her apartment she purchased in 2017 with her now partner (she was divorced in 2004). Labor should launch a commission of inquiry into her travel expenses and I bet moves are under way to pursue this as we speak.
Why do you bet such moves are under way? I’m happy to take that bet. All I have heard from Labor since they won the election are declarations of seeking cooperation and unity, working together and being bipartisan. It’s all happy-smiley. With each passing hour the prospects of any serious integrity commission fades away, there is less reason to anticipate any inquiries into the last government and it is becoming more clear under Albanese we will let bygones be bygones. Business as usual, snouts in the trough together. Isn’t that sweet?
Suddenly the Haines’ FICAC Bill, lauded by ‘Labor’ over the last year, is “inadequate and inappropriate” – Dreyfus last week on RN.
Now that it has a bare majority, the scales may fall from the eyes of many True Deludeds…sorry, Believers… as it backtracks at a rate of knots on so many other promises, trashing hope for real change like so many excess corflutes, no longer required.
Labor would be stupid, indeed, if it failed to heed the obvious lessons of this past election. Yes, it is likely to win a wafer thin majority, but almost all of that win came from the preferences of Green & Independent voters who believed their claims about support for a FICAC with teeth and action on Climate Change-primarily. Their primary vote remained stuck at 33%, and several of their own seats are now in serious danger of being taken by The Greens the next time there is a Federal Election (or a by-election). The only chance Labor has to shore up support in these seats would be by constructively engaging with the Cross-bench, and keeping the few promises it committed to during the election campaign.
Which is why they are doomed – like the Bourbons, they’ve forgotten and learned nothing from repeated elections.
Exactly. The most likely fate of this fabled integrity commission is a long period of reviews and dithering and lots of blather about how hard it all is, ending with Labor and the Coalition agreeing to enact an enfeebled version which, critically, is forbidden to examine anything prior to its commencement. Labor will insist that is a price well worth paying for all this lovely bipartisan consensus. The Saturday Paper this week has quite a lot about the new Labor government’s enthusiasm for consensus, and it also has an editorial that is actually about refugee policy but is relevant to everything we are going to see. It finishes:
‘When Richard Marles says there will be “absolutely no change” under the government in which he is serving, he is forgetting something very important: change is what the country just voted for.’
Unlike the higher primates, ‘Labor’ is incapable of learning from experience.
They no longer even (pretend to) wonder why their primary vote fell, yet again.
The government lost to the Greens & teals – not to ‘Labor’.
There is a reason the coalition seems relieveed (they keep saying they are happy that Labor has a majority) – they are counting on Labor to not pursue their “misdeeds” and retain the status quo. Labor seems well on the way to fall for the trap of the paradox of tolerance.
Seems the coalition are set to be in opposition for a very long time. Just when we thought we can have a reprieve from nastiness (at least until Parliament resumes), the supposed ‘gentler’ Dutton opens his mouth to spout the same old tropes. As for Sussan Ley, her words speak amply for her.
Indeed. Morrison is not the only Lib who does not “get” women.