Scott Morrison can’t say he wasn’t warned that women were angry. But will the next Liberal leader heed the lessons Morrison ignored?
The history of human congress is littered with the stories of men who wake up to Dear John letters after years of not listening properly when the women in their lives say they’re unhappy.
It was a life-changing thing because it wasn’t expected. So it was a shock and I found it quite personally traumatic because I didn’t understand it. You can tie yourself in knots trying to understand someone else’s decisions and thought processes.”
Janet Albrechtsen is crabbier with Scott Morrison than Crabb. “Women are not mugs,” she argues – all evidence in her election fallout column notwithstanding. No, the “trans issue” isn’t a “moral panic” and Katherine Deves was not guilty of “extremist language.” I’ve criticised the former Prime Minister for several of his political choices but I won’t tolerate the heinous lie that because another campaign succeeded in drumming into the heads of women that a Liberal PM hates them that he really does. This is contemptible, adolescent garbage. Morrison obviously loves, and is loved by, his wife and daughters. As a lawyer, Albrechtsen should also know that a “sound CEO” would not “take charge of an alleged rape in an executive’s office.” Not if he knew what was good for him. Only the police can do that – if they receive a complaint.
Sorry Janet, Labor doesn’t want the modern day Temperance Ladies (a legion of old maids in the making) in their ranks either.
That’s why they had to split off and form their own party.
I almost feel sorry for Albanese, he full well knows it’s going to be impossible to keep these lunatics under control, that the narrative that this is Labor’s “win” and not the product of a civil war in the Liberal party waged with “small l inner city women” as it’s berserkers, will collapse quickly as he tries to balance his own base and values against the same forces. Forces that Abbott and Morrison were trying to keep placated and under wraps.
While there’s no doubt at all that the gender issue is real (just take a look at the results) the challenge for major parties is in resisting the tendency to follow the culture of social media. I would think the Labor/Liberals’ huge problem is that Australian political life has been infected with the queer tropes of US debates: arguments about a “base” (only relevant really if you have US styled primaries), violent language and divisive presumptions (as if we all live in tightly defined tribal gangs totally intolerant of different views) and ridiculous ideas of what government can actually do.
The clever idea of the independents was to organise locally. This has happened before (in seats like Calare) and would be attractive in seats like Newcastle and Geelong if people woke up to the presumptive arrogance of the major parties.
Rather than a regimentation of “bases”, we might start to see a bit more community engagement, which should give the time servers a giant enema.
Great points F.E. I think what you say about a “base” is shrewd. We have tended to appropriate that idea from the US. I prefer core constituency.
Additionally, while the ‘gender issue’ is invented, as you say, the damage can still be real. The Liberals have to fight on that front – really hammer the Labor Party for hypocrisy, manufacturing division and using “women” for electioneering.
City folk wouldn’t ever have heard of a ‘teal duck’ but they are soft and easy to pluck.
There normal habitat is in the Turnbull/Wong environmental wetlands of The Murray-Darling system so it will be interesting to watch them swimming in ‘The Parliament’.
Janet was a Turdbull fan.
I’m a fan of Janet who is a very astute lady but, like all of us, she doesn’t always get it right.
All gone. The silver lining for the SFLs. Now, can they keep the momentum going and sideline the remaining left-wing extremists in the party?
I doubt it.
Annabel Crabb and Janet Albrechtsen have appointed themselves to complain on behalf of all women.
If men are not listening properly, right now, today … then by gum we will get more complaining tomorrow and next week.
The ABC, Twitter and the country’s feminist noise-makers linked Morrison to alleged or false claims of rape, and alleged rapists, for three years.
Hey presto! Women are “angry.”
They did the same thing to Abbott and they’ll do the same thing to Dutton.
You have to hit back and hit back ruthlessly.
For all of his faults (and he has many), if Morrison’s wife had dumped him he would have been continually savaged for it by the MSM and the left, not swept under the carpet after the usual five minute news cycle as was the case with Albo.
It seems like a concerted campaign since the last election – convince the public Morrison and the Coalition have a problem with women. Use the Canberra Bubble issues for high profile media stories and TV programs – gain support for these alleged victims but tell women these are problems happening in every workplace. Look at all the images online – March4 Justice, National Press Club event, female Lib crossing the floor re ICAC, Grace Tame side-eye, magazine shoots, book deals, Higgins’ new job as a Visiting Fellow at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (chaired by Julia Gillard) at ANU (who funds that?) etc etc – saturated coverage of these ‘celebrities’ on social media. And Walkley Awards given to the journalist who write the stories! Then character assassinate Morrison – right up to the polling booths. Maybe the Libs need to improve their PR and social media. Call out the lies and misrepresentation. Yes, I think they did the same to Abbott.
Well, it’s very unusual, isn’t it?
News Year’s Day: See-ya!
She couldn’t skedaddle fast enough.
“They did the same thing to Abbott and they’ll do the same thing to Dutton.
You have to hit back and hit back ruthlessly.”
Correct…and until they do hit back, the left will continue to lie and fabricate.
I could not believe Morrison’s spinelessness in dealing with Tame, Higgins and the utterly putrid Porter fabrication.
The lack of interest in what Carmel Tebbutt thinks is telling.
As for Morrison, I doubt he has ever visited a massage parlour for a random example
Might have to wait for the Huggins case, or more importantly the cctv, to be aired before a reset could happen.
On the ABC’s election-night coverage, Leigh Sales let slip that, when the sorry of the alleged rpt alleged Brittany Higgins story broke, she had been approached by many female Labor staffers, past and present, with similar stories.
Plibersek nodded sagely and promised to implement the Jenkins review. But the real question is why, if the ABC had all these stories of misconduct and harassment on the Labor side of the house, it produced absolutely not so much as one single solitary syllable of reporting about any of them.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to answer that, I suspect.
OL – but why didn’t Plibersek speak up for K Kitching? And why is Plibersek (and the acting PM and the election campaign spokesperson) patron of the high profile group who held up paintings of Cardinal Pell depicted as the Devil, Prisoner 666, Pell-o-phile, Pell Go to Hell etc outside the Courts?
Mmm.
I wasn’t aware of that exchange, O.L. That’s serious journalistic corruption.
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Syd Gal, there is no more adept exemplar of the passive/aggressive feminist in Canberra than Plib. I am surprised she has been sidelined, though. She must have blotted her copy book with Team Albo in some way.
Why is anyone surprised that their ABC would cover up the crimes of Labor and the left? The progressive left are doing what comes naturally and they do a very good job. The real fault lies with the inability of the right to combat this, to call it out and to throw it back. You simply cannot turn the other cheek to the left. THOSE DAYS ARE OVER.
I knew last year that the whole “women’s problem” was a confected and manufactured hit job on Morrison and the Liberals by the progressive left, using their comrades in the MSM, such as skank Wilkinson and others, to aid and abet. It was as obvious and as clear as a lake in the high Andes, crystal clear. But how did the Liberals respond? I have never seen such supineness and spinelessness, beginning with Morrison himself. It’s like they enjoyed being punched in the stomach for no good reason. No one brought up Shorten, no one talked about Labor’s cover-ups and so on. Morrison fell for it hook, line and sinker, and continued to do so. I mean he’s actively prejudiced a trial. You couldn’t make this up.
And remember, back in January, the Morrison government rewarded their ABC for their progressive bias and hit jobs against Liberals. It gave them more money, it was akin to handing a knife or gun to your enemy to kill you with.
I’ve long been curious as to where the edict/order came from back in early 2020 to support the outrageous senate censure against Arndt. I can’t believe there were no coalition senators at the time who didn’t want to support the motion. Did Morrison order it. I’m beginning to think he did. What a fool.
I agree Cassie, it all seems confected. And it reminds me of what happened to Cardinal Pell. And why isn’t the media pursuing the ALP PR Firm Hawker Britton’s Director links with the March4 Justice Event and the National Press Club address? They must have seen her in the audience!
There’s absolutely no doubt that women’s choices had a very big impact in the election. I expect that we will find out more once the geniuses (Loughnane!) review the tapes. I also have no doubt at all that the behaviour of the men in Parliament is no different on either side. In general, both sides got a big whack from the voters.
But it’s way past time that people stopped defending men who impose their will on women and who abuse power and privelege to do so. Parliament has to be treated at least as fairly in workplace terms as any other. (Which might also include the process of salary review and expense claims).
If there is one takeaway it is that the public has found a voice and means of delivering the message. Andrew Constance puts it well: parties have to stop talking to themselves and focusing on themselves. Voters are sick to death of it.
The ABC actively covering-up Labor transgressions, but not LNP?
As Gerard Henderson would say, “quelle surprise!”
And to think our former clueless, wouldn’t-know-a-principle-if-he-stepped-on-one PM actually gave the ABC many millions more of taxpayers’ money.