It was the best of speeches, it was the worst of speeches, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.
Such was the Dickensian day in federal Parliament yesterday, where two grand narratives competed for our attention.
The first narrative was arguably a win for Julia Gillard — and for women in politics. Gillard delivered a stinging attack on Tony Abbott over misogyny in politics. She spoke passionately and with authority. She spoke her mind in a way she has not done on this subject before. Abbott squirmed. The world listened.
Coming as it does in the wake of months of debate on women in politics, this speech may prove to be a step change in Australian politics. Have we finally been forced to normalise and accept a woman at the top? Will we be less tolerant of s-xism in the future?
The second narrative was a loss for Gillard. She offered this speech in the context of defending a man for gross s-xism — for texting the kind of comment many women would slap a man in the face for. Even Peter Slipper recognised he could not go on as speaker.
What a waste of breath and scarce political capital the 11-month Slipper farce has been for Labor. Gillard’s decision to court Slipper has been shown up for what it was: stupidity, unnecessary risk and poor judgment. The latter is Gillard’s Achilles heel. Good policies are a great start, but poor political judgment is hard to overcome.
So it was indeed the best of speeches on the worst of days, as history waits to judge this country’s first female Prime Minister. Whether she can avoid a Dickensian end to her political narrative remains to be seen.
You just can’t help yourselves, can you? I didn’t notice where she defended Slipper and besides, what man hasn’t used the seafood comparison in private with other men? As a woman, I don’t find it offensive and have been known to make derogatory remarks about a certain part of the male anatomy with other women in private. Can’t we differentiate between public and private?
Your editorial falls into the Coalition’s “see, we told you” narrative, without examining the Coalition’s own role in Slipper’s downfall.
Slipper fell because his (deplorable) private texts became public.
Why did his texts become public? Because they were evidence in a sexual harassment case lodged against him by a former staff member, who at the time of his employment with Slipper was meeting secretly with Slipper’s political enemies in the LNP.
The merits of the sexual harassment case itself are yet to be judged by the court.
Without the staffing problem, Slipper would still be Speaker and, it has been universally acknowledged, he was a good one.
His downfall looks to all intents and purposes to have been manufactured by his political enemies: It was not all down to his own behaviour, as we’re being led to believe.
Sure, he provided plenty of ammo, but I wonder just how many MPs and Senators would be comfortable publicising the contents of their private communications with staff? If this is to be the new standard of public propriety, let them all be judged by the same standard.
A desperate speech full of misdirection by a PM who seemingly can’t admit she was wrong to put Slipper into the Speakers chair.
And for Slipper to resign only hours later highlights this perfectly.
Perhaps Gillards error in jus=dgement was to assume that a Liberal party member in good standing and given glowing references and support of the Leader of the opposition was a person of character.
Apparently not it would seem which reflects poorly on the quality of the Liberal party ( somewhat supported Jone’s comments at am official and public Liberal party function)
Yet again we are being asked which is more important
The ability to be a good govt and put policy in place or be able to be a good spinner of public opinion.
Well Howard certainly managed the latter and thus is rated a succesful “politician” and look at the policy cost ( or rather lack of policy cost) and the huge infrastructure deficiency and locked in middle class welfare that will cause unending budget problems
I think if the choice is between a good PM or a good politician then I’ll take the former over the latter.
Pity we don’t have a mature enough commentariat who make that distinction but are to happy to follow the glib two Seceond Tony sound bite politics and not expose it for the shallowness that it is
I’m no apologist for misogynists, but from what I can tell, the Slipper texts everyone is so shocked (shocked!) about are basically just crass, rather than particularly sexist or evil. Aren’t they? I am a card-carrying feminist, I am seriously concerned about many real issues that diminish women’s health and wellbeing, but I really couldn’t care less if someone uses vulgar names for genitalia or a misspelled term of abuse in their private text messages. And I certainly wouldn’t slap a man in the face for using a bad metaphor.