Gillard tells Abbott how it is

[Rorschach]

Lenore Taylor... not a friend of Tony Abbott or the Liberals and frequent Commentator on the ABCs The Insiders.

PM's speech did stir hearts, but remember the context
October 13, 2012
Lenore Taylor
National Affairs Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald

Most women watching Julia Gillard's speech to Parliament last Tuesday would have felt that silent cheer.

If you forgot the context, didn't over-scrutinise the substance and just saw a powerful woman calling out sexism and saying she had had enough, it was arresting. If....

Any woman who has ever been put down, talked over, dismissed, demeaned, overlooked or derided - in ways a male colleague would never be - was probably transfixed.

And let's face it, that's most women, except for the very fortunate columnist Judith Sloan, who wrote this week that she had not encountered any sexism in her entire career.

The further away from the context people were, the more transfixed by the speech they seemed to be.

It went viral. Commentators and bloggers around the world gasped. The fact that journalists in Canberra appeared less transfixed was - according to another columnist, Anne Summers - because the press gallery has ''tone-deaf ears''.

Maybe we do. But the take-out from Canberra was also because our job is to look closely at the context.

Like the context that the speech was part of a deliberate, tested strategy of capitalising on the Coalition's relative unpopularity with women due to Tony Abbott's political aggression by conflating it with the unsupportable allegation that he actually hates females. Exactly, it was just a deliberate part of the ALP hate strategy, completely unsupportable in reality.

It allows Labor to remind voters of a whole string of statements Abbott made before he became Opposition Leader, which he has been at pains not to repeat since. That's perfectly valid strategy, it might even be of service to voters, but it is not consistent with the impression from afar that the speech was entirely and solely the result of a woman who was mad as hell and not taking it any more.

Yes, Australia's first female prime minister has been subject to gender-based vilification and yes, she was unbottling genuine anger in a genuinely powerful speech, but she was doing it as part of a plan. Just part of the Labor hate plan.

Or like the context that the speech was given to defend the indefensible, namely the continuation of Peter Slipper in the role of speaker after the latest ream of offensive and explicit text messages were revealed. It had nothing to do with defending Slipper.

That assessment is not an unthinking acceptance of the ''spin'' fed by the opposition, as several commentators and bloggers have maintained, nor the ''spin'' by Gillard's opponents in the Labor Party for that matter. It was actually what the debate was about. She was arguing that the Parliament should not vote for Slipper's removal.

The later spin, fed by the government, that Labor had not wanted to give Abbott ''a win'' and had known before the Prime Minister's speech that Slipper had decided to resign later that night, reveals just how entwined in raw politics this discussion of sexism actually is. These are the people who label Abbott Dr No and say he just opposes for oppositions sake. Talk about hypocrisy... talk about dishonesty... talk about double standards.

It also does not concur with the statements by independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor who say he made the decision, primarily because of their persuading, about half an hour after the Prime Minister finished speaking. The leader of government business in the house, Anthony Albanese, arrived during the meeting.

The government and the independents were concerned about Slipper's emotional health and wanted to allow him to make a more dignified exit, but we had learnt of his text about female genitalia the previous week.

The government subsequently agreed that these texts were a big part of the reason Slipper's position had become untenable, so it seems strange they did not start trying to persuade him to go earlier, instead of coming to that conclusion after Abbott moved in the Parliament to remove him and after Oakeshott and Windsor had told him they couldn't continue to support him in the role. Yet they voted against the motion, even though they agreed with it... insanity.

To be clear, I thought Gillard gave a great speech, but that it was delivered for at least some of the wrong reasons, in the wrong context, at the wrong time.

That was a shame, as was the fact that the debate so quickly descended into false moral equivalence with the tit-for-tat production of endless examples of tasteless or sexist language and off-colour jokes and the mutual accusations of hypocrisy. Not to mention the shame that there were so many examples available. Oh you can't say shame.... that's sexist and you'll be labelled a misogynist.

It was also a shame that, in all the fracas about sexism, actual policies that would have a huge impact on women received much less attention. For example, Parliament passed a bill that will result in single parents, primarily women, shifted on to Newstart allowance, costing them at least $100 a week. Many members of Labor's own caucus think this budget savings measure - even with extra programs to help single parents find work - will prove both counterproductive and cruel. I have no doubt that is exactly what it will do.

I'm certainly not about to start defending everything written or said by every member of the press gallery which, contrary to what some seem to believe, is a big group of people with hugely divergent work practices, interests, opinions and views. And I reckon the more perspectives available in the political debate, particularly from outside the gallery, the better.

But I do take issue with the suggestion that the differences in response is because the Canberra press gallery is oblivious to how ''real people'' think. Apparently juggling work and kids and doing the shopping and getting to weekend sport on time - as most members of the press gallery do - all occurs inside a ''bubble'' insulating us from ''real'' folk. Of course if it is ever suggested citizens of other places, such as parts of Sydney, are ''out of touch'', that is immediately decried as ''class warfare''.

But I digress. The point is that understanding and calculating the political context, the strategies, the deal-making, the sequences of events, is a critical part of our job. Some of us get it... others... are oblivious. Politics is about presenting a message-as-product, which is what most observers see. We are supposed to gather information and make assessments about how and why the product is made.

Assessing the actual political impact of this out-in-the-open gender debate, rather than simply how it made some people feel as Julia Gillard spoke, is something that will only be possible over time.

And it could also be that one reason the feeling, the silent cheer, the thank-god-someone is-saying-it response was almost entirely missing on the day after the Prime Minister's speech was not because the writers lived in Canberra, but because on that particular day a lot of the most prominent commentary was written by men. It is still missing and not because it is being suppressed by men, but because this labor government and PM are probably aiming to be the most divisive in our history. First class warfare no a battle of the sexes... what will be next?

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/ ... z299R85yhX" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[IQS.RLOW]

Lefty journo finally admits the she is able to recognize obvious ALP spin and has to write a piece defending herself for NOT ignoring the spin to other Leftards who think she should go back to partisan cheer leading

Got it...

[Rorschach]

[IQS.RLOW]

http://t.co/k9Uf6AUR" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ms Gillard's passionate, articulate and -- it must be said -- ultimately hypocritical parliamentary spray at Tony Abbott was a hit online. So popular, the Labor strategists privately boasted, that it went viral (with a bit of help from them) overseas

How does it feel to be a spin swallowing retard, Aussie?


Didn't you find it a little too convenient that Gillards spinman hails from the UK and suddenly, Gillards "I had a scream" speach is reported 'going viral' on a website no one in Aust has really heard of?

Gullible leftys have been spun by their own spin

[Rorschach]

Simply put, Labor are pedaling hate.
They are running 2 major divisive tactics, one is the hate Abbott tactic/Battle of the Sexes headed by Gillard and the other is the Class Divide tactic headed by Swan.
They are the most incompetent, most dishonest, most divisive government, I can remember.

[Aussie]

Oh, there's plenty of partisan opinion on the issue. My own view is all that counts for me. Gillard swept the floor with Abbott.

[IQS.RLOW]

Oh, there's plenty of partisan opinion on the issue. My own view is all that counts for me. Gillard swept the floor with Abbott.

You were spun a storyline and you swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Most people would feel deceived and silly, but not the leftard...they take pride in watching their (wo)man unravel publicly and then firmly clasp their hands over their ears going "nuh uh"

[Rorschach]

Gillard has a problem with men. Mostly it would seem to be Liberal men and in particular Tony Abbott. Someone she used to get on quite well with before becoming PM. Perhaps the pressure of the job is too much for her. Perhaps that would explain her sudden conversion to misandry.

Gillard's man problem
October 14, 2012
Michelle Grattan

JULIA Gillard doesn't have enough men in her life. Male voters, that is. We've heard a lot about Tony Abbott's problem with women voters - the polls document it and MPs report it from their electorates.

So what about the Julia story with men?

Since the 2010 election, according to Nielsen polling, Labor's primary vote has been 3 points higher, on average, among women than among men (32 to 29 per cent). The Coalition primary vote has been 3 points higher among men than women (48 to 45 per cent).

Gillard's approval has been an average of 7 points lower among men than women (36 to 43 per cent). Her man problem also comes through when people are asked who they prefer as Labor leader out of Gillard and Kevin Rudd: in September, Gillard's rating among men was 31 per cent compared with 42 per cent among women, while Rudd was supported by 60 per cent of men and 49 per cent of women.

The gender gap in voting is especially interesting on two fronts. Gillard is the country's first female PM. And her arrival in power saw the re-emergence, in different form, of a gender divide that had disappeared.

The gender story is told in Ian McAllister's The Australian Voter (2011). Historically, women were more conservative than men in their voting, but that changed as their life experiences altered.

From the 1970s, the gender gap started to close. In 1967, it was 9 percentage points - meaning women were 9 per cent less likely than men to vote Labor.

By the 1990 election (Bob Hawke versus Andrew Peacock), it was only 2 points, having declined steadily over the two decades. But then along came PM Paul Keating and it jumped to 6 per cent in 1993 and 5 per cent in 1996.

When you bracket Abbott and Keating together, it is easy to see what turns off some women voters - aggression. So-called. Keating was loved by the cognoscenti as a great practitioner of political theatre. But out in the lounge rooms of the nation, those high octane lines just sounded feral.

Once Keating had been dispatched, the gender gap fell to 2 per cent in the Coalition's favour in the 1998 election, and then declined to nothing in 2001, 2004 and 2007. In 2010, it opened up again - to 7 per cent - but now it was in Labor's favour, the first time that had happened in Australian federal elections.

Rebecca Huntley is a director of Ipsos, which undertakes qualitative social research. She also did her PhD on the gender gap in the 1983 and 1993 elections.

In focus groups ''older men are more uncomfortable with her [Gillard] than younger men'', she says. Men in their 20s, 30s and 40s are more likely to have had working mothers, women bosses, a woman in authority in their office team, than men in their 50s, 60s and 70s.

''The older men have been known to describe Gillard 'like a school mistress telling me off','' Huntley says.

She wonders whether some of the gender gap is policy driven. ''Do her policies appeal more to women than men?''

One big issue coming through from males in the groups is the two-speed economy, and whether enough help is being given to sectors that are suffering, especially manufacturing.

The carbon tax also might be more off-putting to men, she says. (Carbon questions in the July Nielsen poll showed men only very slightly more likely to be concerned than women.)

In general, Huntley says, it is hard to disentangle attitudes to Gillard as a female prime minister from people's disappointment in the Labor government. The former emerged as a negative only after people felt she was not doing a good job. Which isn't sexism.

Strategists on both sides will be anxiously waiting for the polling evidence about the effect of Gillard's fighting speech last week labelling Abbott a misogynist. While it has been received with enthusiasm by some women, what will men feel about it? I know what I feel about it and lying hypocrite will not get my vote for her party.

Social researcher Hugh Mackay predicts that men who haven't signed up to the ''gender revolution'' of the past 40 years and still have the attitude of ''Why can't blokes be in charge?'' will be infuriated by it. But younger men and men influenced by their relationships with women are likely to be impressed, Mackay believes. We shall have to wait and see. Of course fair minded people will just see he rant for what it was political opportunism at its worst. Hatred, Labor style.

Tactically, Gillard is caught between the merits of adopting what might be dubbed a ''masculine'' style (slug it to them) or taking a more ''feminine'' consensual approach. Last week she went for the former. There was a certain irony in this, given that she was talking gender issues. When she gets into full fighting mode, Gillard has a touch of the Keating about her, which has its dangers but has appealed to feminist supporters. Like I've always said... feminists don't want equality, they want to be what they say they hate.

One point is worth remembering in the debate about gender politics and the differences in gender support for the two leaders. There is cross-gender agreement among voters that they don't much like either of the present leaders.

■Michelle Grattan is The Age's political editor.

[Neferti]

Gillard definitely has a problem with men. She only likes other women's husbands. What a bitch!

I think "they" are trying to push Tony Abbott to the point of him getting so angry that he loses it. Let's hope he stays cool and ignores the stupid cow.

That outburst in Parliament may have gone "viral" on YouTube but all sorts of crap does. Australia's Prime Minister throwing such a tantrum is embarrassing to most of us females.

[Rorschach]

I think "they" are trying to push Tony Abbott to the point of him getting so angry that he loses it.

Been thinking that too Neferti.
Little wonder Abbott refered to her as "a piece of work" I wouldn't have withdrawn it, I'd mad her justify why it should be withdrawn.