Very few women — three of 32 — have served as speaker of Australia’s Parliament. And given the Coalition’s absurdly low gender representation, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor probably spends most of his time talking to men.
Still, Taylor really, really struggled with the gender of Deputy Speaker Sharon Claydon, who was in the speaker’s chair yesterday.
After Taylor had already referred to her as “Mr Speaker” several times, Claydon finally interrupted him, saying, “I was loath to interrupt you, but you have called me Mr Speaker on at least a dozen occasions. My title is Deputy Speaker. I don’t need a Mr, a Mrs, a Madam, it’s just Deputy Speaker.”
Taylor coyly responds, “I’ll go with Deputy Speaker,” before referring to her again as Mr Speaker in the very next sentence and then four more times in the next 30 seconds.
Watch as the women in the background groan and put their faces in their palms every time he misgenders her.
While he may be able to wrangle windfalls for the Liberal Party’s biggest climate donors, turns out the man cannot ad lib.
But Taylor isn’t the only member of the Liberal Party who holds the title of “Mr Speaker” far too close to his heart. Here is former prime minister Scott Morrison referring to (what sounds like) a female journalist as “Mr Speaker”.
And here he is in 2019 calling a heckler the same name.
Real “accidentally calling your teacher ‘mum'” vibes.
That Dodgy Angus is the best the coalition can come up with as shadow treasurer makes starkly obvious how little talent the ‘opposition’ has. They really are pathetic, and worse, lack self-awareness. However, I am enjoying the utterly incompetent irrelevance of the mob that immisertated Australia for so long. Long may that irrelevance last!
Taylor was a Rhodes Scholar???
Then again, so was Abbott.
The ghost of Cecil Rhodes can go blow a goat; his name is mud.
It should be an antonym for meritocracy.
Roads scholar more like it.
I always understood that Abbott got his scholarship because of his boxing ability, not his intellect.
At the time a reporter for the local paper described one of his bouts and noted “his interesting technique of warding off punches with his head” – which explains a lot.
He got it based on his grovelling ability
I was a Rhodes finalist a long time ago. It went to the tall good looking kid from the private school who wanted to go the same Oxford college as the head of the panel. Who’d have guessed. I had to make do with a Maths PhD from a second rate uni like Cambridge instead.
Congrats…
It’s as stylish and meaningful as “um” or “er”. Hence the belief: to “er” is human but to “mistaspeaker” is divine.
no wonder the reactionaries get their knickers in a bunch over trans people’s pronouns …
So looking forward to his appearance before the Federal ICAC; being interrogated by Ms Orr QC would add immense satisfaction.