The Myth: ScoMo & Jen re a woman’s right not to be raped

[pim]

Seems that Brittany is but the tip of a very big iceberg.

[ponto]

A sense of entitlement is politics of Canberra.

[Gort]

This is the kind of thing that follows from the toxic, relentless hatred in our parliament:

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds is taking leave for health reasons

By Katina Curtis
February 24, 2021 — 9.31am

Under-fire Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has been admitted to hospital and will take medical leave, after a week of pressure over her handling of an alleged rape in her office.

“This follows advice from her cardiologist relating to a pre-existing medical condition,” a statement issued on Wednesday morning says.


Defence Minister Linda Reynolds during Question Time last week.CREDIT:ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN

The statement says the minister will take a period of medical leave.

Senator Reynolds has been under pressure after former staffer Brittany Higgins went public last week with allegations she was raped by a colleague in the minister’s office in March 2019. The minister has faced repeated questions from political opponents and journalists over what she knew about the incident and when.

On Tuesday, Senator Reynolds gave conflicting accounts to Parliament about meetings with police over Ms Higgins’ allegations, and last week she broke down in tears during question time.

The minister was due to speak at the National Press Club on Wednesday. Cabinet colleague Greg Hunt told reporters she was “desperate to appear”.

“It was only on the strongest medical advice that she took the reluctant decision not to do it,” he said on Wednesday.

“I would very gently counsel anybody who might reflect other than on somebody’s medical condition.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison this morning called Senator Reynolds to express his concern and sympathy, and to wish her a quick recovery.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne will be acting Defence Minister until Senator Reynolds returns from leave.

As of last night, Senator Reynolds was due to give her National Press Club speech, which was cleared by the Defence Department and sent to journalists.

Senator Reynolds has apologised to Ms Higgins for her handling of the rape complaint, which has led to a number of reviews of the culture and processes of Parliament.

www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/defence-minister-linda-reynolds-is-taking-leave-for-health-reasons-20210224-p575bf.html

[ponto]

It maybe that Reynolds treated the rapist as the victim initially for him having to be sacked and Higgins as just a drunken silly girl...now its gone beyond what they thought it was...a big scary monster.

[pim]

Feb 24, 2021 9:47:37 GMT 10 Gort said:

This is the kind of thing that follows from the toxic, relentless hatred in our parliament

What? Are we supposed to view Linda Reynolds as a "victim" now? Where was the "toxic relentless hatred" coming from? Who was its target?

I don't deny that the past couple of weeks haven't been the best in Linda Reynold's career or that she's come under a lot of pressure. But the record shows that in her actions towards Brittany Higgins and in her statements to the Parliament her number one priority has been to protect the Morrison Government. And her own political skin of course. I'm not saying that she doesn't care about Brittany Higgins' welfare but that comes after the welfare of the Morrison Government.

And this is where this Liberal Government finds itself caught in a cleft stick and no one more so than Linda Reynolds. It's the same phenomenon that brought George Pell to grief over the issue of child abuse. As with the Catholic Church and child abuse so too with the Liberal Party and misogyny. It's not just the Morrison Government - it's the Liberal Party as an organisation which views gender not as a cultural issue but as something that "crops up" to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis with harm minimisation as the overriding structural objective and which can be summed up in the phrase "protect the institution". The Liberals see gender not as an ongoing cultural issue to be addressed within the structures of the organisation. They've allowed themselves to be blind to female disadvantage and male power and see it as a meritocratic level playing field. Their organisational and ideological blinkers as regards gender have led the Liberals to their current sorry pass. Scott Morrison himself is clueless in this regard and I think is beyond help. I listened to a Liberal woman like Ann Sudmalis on the Drum yesterday and she gets it. So does Julie Bishop. So does Kelly O'Dwyer. I can understand women of that calibre being attracted to non-Labor with its commitment to small government and low taxes but rejecting the misogyny and the boofheaded blokiness. Julia Banks is the standout example of a quality female Liberal MP who dropped a bombshell on the party as she left the party.

The "hate" directed at Linda Reynolds isn't coming from Brittany Higgins, or her boyfriend. Let's face it, both of them are unemployed and have copped a lot more flak than Linda Reynolds. Let this sink in: Brittany Higgins has been blacklisted and her boyfriend has lost his job because he stood by her while Scott Morrison "backgrounded" the media with scurrilous scuttlebutt about both of them. In the meantime the guy who allegedly raped Brittany Higgins remains anonymous and at large. Somebody said he isn't feeling too good lately and is a bit stressed out by it all. Diddums. The "hate" is in your imagination, Trickles. What Linda Reynolds is feeling is intense pressure from being caught between her own record in the way she dealt with Higgins in the immediate aftermath of the rape and the pressure she would be coming under from Scott Morrison to protect him and his government.

She's toast.

[pim]

Ignored and given scraps: Office for Women demeaned by Morrison government

It is given no say, has meagre funding and few staff. Just another example of the regard in which women are held by the government.

Amber Schultz 24 February 2021 Crikey



The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Office for Women is supposed to “deliver policies and programs to advance gender equality and improve the lives of Australian women”.

It’s a big job. Yet it has just a handful of staff, offers meagre grants, and is rarely consulted about topics within its jurisdiction.

The office hasn’t responded to Australia’s landmark report on workplace sexual violence, and has yet to comment on the multiple allegations of rape and assault in Parliament House.

Spoken over and not consulted

The Office for Women was not consulted about plans to allow Australians early access to superannuation — a plan which raised concerns about widening the gender super gap and the potential for domestic or family violence victims to be financially abused by their partner.

It wasn’t consulted about JobSeeker and JobKeeper. It had minor input on early education and care at the beginning of the pandemic — but its input was ignored — and wasn’t consulted when free childcare was removed later in the year.

The office wasn’t even consulted about the $150 million scheme to boost females in sport or about the latest round of tax cuts. It’s not clear whether it was consulted about the closure of the Family Court or the Respect@Work workplace sexual violence report, which was released in March last year.

In the report, sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins called for her office to have new powers to investigate harassment claims in the workplace. Attorney-General Christian Porter, who has been accused of repeatedly making offensive and sexist comments, is in charge of responding to the report and has yet to do so.

The office’s lack of input might explain why the latest budget threw women under the bus, with very little allocated to benefiting women. The budget instead stimulates male-dominated jobs and industries.

The only grant available through the office currently is under the Women’s Leadership and Development Program. $4.9 million is available for women’s alliance groups, which can receive a maximum of $820,898 across two years.

The role of the office and its lack of transparency around staffing levels (which were revealed nearly two months after the question was posed) has routinely been scrutinised in question time.

A spokesperson for the National Foundation for Australian Women told Crikey the office has been silent on key issues including pay equity, women’s participation in superannuation and industrial relations.

“You would expect the office to be taking a stand … there is very little evidence that it’s being an advocate [for women].”

Under-resourced and disempowered

Trish Bergin was the first assistant secretary at the office between 2017 and 2019. She is now co-director of the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation. Bergin says she left because it was an “impossible job”.

“It’s under-resourced,” she told Crikey. “It does not have any structural power. You have to scramble the whole time to try and find out what’s going on [as] the office is not looped into the policy process in a systematic way.”

The Office for Women has just 39 staff — less than half it had before 2010, Bergin says.

During her time working there, Bergin says she was repeatedly denied access to information such as modelling and data around tax cuts.

“The treasurer’s office particularly just refuses to allow any kind of input from the Office for Women,” she said, citing the government’s refusal to acknowledge gender disparity.

In 2019 Treasurer Josh Frydenberg triumphantly — and erroneously — said the “gender pay gap has closed”. The national gap sits at 14%.

Bergin has called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to name Jenkins to the independent inquiry into the Parliament House workplace.

A shadow of its former self

In the Office for Women’s glory days under the Hawke Labor government in the ’80s, Australia became a leader in breaking down a budget in terms of gender impact.

Since the mid-’90s, however, beginning under John Howard, the office’s scope and relevance have been cut down.

It was moved to the Department of Family and Community Services (only moving back to the cabinet in 2013) and in 2014 the women’s budget statement was abandoned by then-minister for women Tony Abbott.

“It’s a shadow of its former self,” Bergin said.

Karen O’Connell formerly worked at the Australian Human Rights Commission and is an expert in discrimination. She told Crikey many groups set up to deal with gender inequality were chronically under-resourced.

“What tends to happen with these parts of government is they’re very easily disempowered,” she said.

“My sense is that they spend a lot of time just focused on their own survival.”

O’Connell isn’t convinced the office is well suited to respond to the allegations of parliamentary abuse.

“[It should] play a part in improving and providing expertise to the government internal processes that need fixing,” she said.

“But I think in this case there’s so obviously such systemic problems and sadly broad cultural problems that it’s hard to believe that there’s any part of the government that could truly say that they stand outside of the system.”

The government has announced four internal reviews to look into parliament’s culture and its response to Brittany Higgins’ allegations.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet did not respond to Crikey’s requests for comment.

[Gort]

Where was the "toxic relentless hatred" coming from?

The Labor side of politics.

Just like the hate you spew day in, day out. Must be a Labor thing.

[pim]

In what way has Labor been “hateful and toxic” to Linda Reynolds? Are they mean because they asked her questions in Parliament? Or in Senate Estimates? Shucks!

Sounds to me like a typical Trickles distraction coming on:

“Look! Over there! Franking credits? A flying Newspoll? No it’s Labor! Labor! Labor!”

[ponto]

First line of defense Pim is to attack.

[Gort]

Feb 24, 2021 17:12:57 GMT 10 pim said:

In what way has Labor been “hateful and toxic” to Linda Reynolds? Are they mean because they asked her questions in Parliament? Or in Senate Estimates? Shucks!

Sounds to me like a typical Trickles distraction coming on:

“Look! Over there! Franking credits? A flying Newspoll? No it’s Labor! Labor! Labor!”

Speaking of Franking Credits ...


Labor was going to withhold tax returns on people earning franking credit refunds. To be able to withhold the tax return from them, the person must be earning less than $18,000 odd total income. We're not talking franking credit income - but total income.

If you earn less than 18,000 odd bucks total income, you pay no tax.

Labor was going after those low income self-funded retirees who were earning less than $18,000 odd bucks and were due to have their "provisional tax" franking credits returned to them as a tax refund in July.

By definition, Labor was going for the lowest income retirees.

The rich bums were not affected! Rich bums would not qualify for a tax refund.

Labor was ripping up the tax free threshold on people who gain their income from share dividends. Any other income was fine, but if you had share dividends only, then Labor was going to whack you, and only if your total income was below $18,000 odd bucks!

It was an astonishingly discriminatory hit on one class of income. The most disgusting tax hit on low income people ever devised by Labor.

No wonder they lost the "unlosable" election over it.

[pim]

See? Toldya! "Labor! Labor! Labor!"

What a waste of time and space you are Trickles. You try to lay the blame at the feet of Labor for the situation Linda Reynolds finds herself in as regards the crime committed against Brittany Higgins in Linda Reynolds's parliament house office. A crime that she tried to cover up by destroying any forensic evidence and also the mixed messages to Brittany Higgins whereby she was informed that she, Brittany, had the right to go to the cops but if she did that was her job gone.

You're seeking to find someone, anyone to blame as long as it's no one in the Morrison government. That leaves Labor! Labor! Labor! Strewth in your ranting you even looked as if you were trying to blame me!

Why don't you scuttle back to your little thread and talk to yourself.

[Gort]

Speaking of Labor ...

Newspoll: Scott Morrison rides high on rollout as Anthony Albanese takes a hit







Popular support for Scott Morrison has strengthened ahead of Monday’s rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine as he continues to face criticism of his handling of an alleged rape in Parliament House and stares down tech giant Facebook over its news ban on Australia.

An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows the Liberal leader extending his lead as preferred prime minister and bolstering his approval ­ratings despite the scandal of the past week threatening to derail the government’s agenda.

The fallout from the alleged 2019 rape of ministerial staffer Brittany Higgins, and accusations of a government cover-up which has dominated political discussion, has yet to prompt a voter backlash for the Coalition, with its primary remaining unchanged at 42 per cent.

Anthony Albanese, however, having weathered weeks of criticism from senior Labor figures over his performance, suffered a significant fall in support, having recorded among his worst ­approval ratings since becoming Opposition Leader in 2019. His fall in support came despite a one-point lift for the party to 37 per cent, which is Labor’s equal-best result in more than a year.

The latest Newspoll showed no movement overall in the headline numbers in the past three weeks, during which the vaccine rollout and Victorian lockdown have also dominated national headlines.

The two-party-preferred split — calculated after an allocation of preference flows based on the last election — remains unchanged at 50-50. The poll shows approval of Mr Morrison’s performance as leader improved a point to 64 per cent, solidifying his record for one of the longest maintained periods of approval for a prime minister.

Those claiming to be dissatisfied with his performance fell a point to 32 per cent, giving the Prime Minister an approval rating of plus 32 per cent.

Mr Albanese dropped three points in satisfaction levels since the previous poll to 38 per cent. Those claiming to be dissatisfied rose to 45 per cent, resulting in a net approval rating of negative seven.

This is one of the worst results for Mr Albanese since taking over as leader from Bill Shorten in the wake of the 2019 election defeat.

The margin also widened in the head-to-head contest between the two leaders, with the highest approval rating for Mr Morrison since becoming Prime Minister. Mr Morrison rose four points to 61 per cent among those who believed he would make a better prime minister if an election were called. Mr Albanese’s stocks fell three points to 26 per cent, which is the lowest ranking for the Opposition Leader since August last year.

Popular support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation remained stable at 3 per cent, in line with the 2019 election result, while support for other minor parties fell a point to 8 per cent.

This compares to an election result that saw almost 12 per cent of the vote go to minor parties, other than the Greens and PHON, or independents. The Greens remained unchanged at 10 per cent. The Newspoll was conducted between February 17 and 20 and surveyed 1504 voters online across mainland capital cities and the regions.

www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/newspoll-scott-morrison-rides-high-on-rollout-as-anthony-albanese-takes-a-hit/news-story/d74b7401748fe37dde13f69f2702bb81

[pim]

Trickles believes that scoring cheap points against the Labor opposition is more important than the issue of crimes committed in a senior Minister's parliamentary office, the attempts by the Minister and her staff to cover it up firstly by physically destroying the forensic evidence and secondly by setting out to muzzle the victim.

[ponto]

Neo Libeleral Conservatism makes for weirdo thinkin'...

[Gort]

The problem is systemic and crosses party lines.

Former Labor MP Emma Husar slams ALP's 'sanctimonious' behaviour over Parliament's toxic culture problem

By Laura Tingle and James Elton
Posted Yesterday at 7:50pm


Former Labor MP Emma Husar has written an open letter criticising the ALP's "deadly" silence following the allegations that were levelled at her.(ABC News: Ian Cutmore)

So often, the trauma of what happens after an horrific episode of assault, abuse or harassment can be as devastating as the original episode itself.

And while much of the focus lately has been on the allegations raised by Brittany Higgins, another woman in politics who understands this is Emma Husar, the former Labor MP who in her own words was "slut shamed" in 2018 with contested sordid allegations of her behaviour.

A salacious article published by Buzzfeed claimed she had bragged about her sexual relations, sexually harassed an employee and exposed herself to a colleague.

Ms Husar sued for defamation and the matter was later settled out of court.

On Wednesday, she wrote an open letter to Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, turning the attention to Labor's problems with women and criticising the party's "deadly" silence following the allegations that were levelled at her.

"I have been galled watching my former colleagues speak out, yet were silent bystanders when I endured such horrendous treatment," Ms Husar wrote in her letter.

"The Labor Party cannot pretend that poor treatment of women exists on only one side of the political divide."

7.30 reached out to Mr Albanese for a response but did not receive a reply.

A problem on both sides

"The Labor Party have ridden their sanctimonious high horses like it's not happening on the Labor side — but were absolutely complicit with their silence in 2018," Ms Husar told 7.30.


Emma Husar was the member for Lindsay.(ABC News: Shaun Kingma)
The experiences of both Ms Higgins and Ms Husar are reflective of the employment structures used in federal politics, including the Member of Parliament (Staff) Act, which leaves staff under the control of their masters and at risk of being immediately sacked without a reason being given.

Ms Husar also said she was devastated by the lack of support from her party.


On Wednesday, Emma Husar published an open letter to Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, turning the attention to Labor's problems with women.(AAP: Mick Tsikas)
"In terms of their duty of care, there was none, and no support was offered," Ms Husar told 7.30.

"They were all complicit. They all sat there, they all knew that it was wrong.

"They didn't want me speaking out and they did everything that they could to shut me up.

"Mostly they were the media unit attached to the Leader of the Opposition's office … predominantly doing their job on behalf of their MPs, in a way of politically protecting the leader, which again, goes to the point that we've talked about the last two weeks.

"Issues against women of mistreatment, sexual harassment, sexual assault are treated as a political issue."

The aftermath

While Ms Husar is no longer in Canberra, she continues to feel the fallout from the events of 2018.

"Coming forward and speaking out about this, it's not easy," Ms Husar said.

"It's something that … there will be ramifications for.

"You google my name, and there are over 2,000 related articles about that time in 2018.

"That's the other way that women are forced to stay silent."

www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-24/former-mp-emma-husar-speaks-open-letter-labor-women-albanese/13188336

[pim]

Desperate now, and floundering, Trickles flicks the switch to “gaslighting”.:Anything, anything, to shift the focus away from the fact that:

1. A crime was committed in the office of the Minister for Defence in the Morrison Government

2. The response by the Morrison Government, in particular the Minister, has been:

a) to cover up the crime by bringing in the steam cleaners and destroying any forensic evidence of the crime

b) to cover up the crime by sacking the alleged perpetrator of the rape on “security” grounds so that no mention of the alleged rape appears on the official record

c) to “counsel” the rape victim that if she exercised her right to lodge an official complaint of rape with the Australian Federal Police that would be at the expense of her job.

Those are the substantive facts. Say what you like about “Labor does it too”, that’s not about “truth” that’s just a Trickles “Labor! Labor! Labor!” distraction which does nothing, zip, zilch, nada to help or support Brittany Higgins in this situation.

The venue in which the crime was perpetrated and the subsequent responses by the minister and her office are down to the Minister for Defence in the Morrison Government. Last time I looked, Labor was in Opposition. They are not the Government. The current Minister for Defence is one Linda Reynolds, a senior Minister in the Liberal/National Coalition government of Scott Morrison.

[Gort]

More abusive attacks from narcissist Pim.

You know, the thing that sways my vote the most is what I see from Labor supporters more and more often. Relentless hateful attacks.

[ponto]

At the time Husar's staff made complaints against her for bullying and inappropriate behaviour ....which Labor held an investigation into and upheld the complaints....hardly the same issue as Higgins...but there we go Sky news and yourself has to go Labor Labor labor.

[pim]

Trickles wants to shift the thread to make it about the Husar case - anything to deflect from Brittany Higgins. He won’t succeed because this is an unfolding issue that has only just begun to unravel for the Morrison government. And just in case and ScoMo luvvies out there want to accuse us of « picking on » the Liberals just remember that Brittany Higgins was a staffer in the office of the Minister for Defence in the Morrison government. This is about what happened to her in the context of her employment, and how the culture of misogyny within the Liberal Party acted to contain the damage to the organisation and the government and muzzle the (female) victim. Distractions that aim to make it about an opposition party do nothing to assist the victim.

Meanwhile, in further developments, it seems that Peter Dutton also has questions to answer:

How Peter Dutton found out about Parliament rape case before Scott Morrison

By David Crowe and Katina Curtis February 24, 2021 www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/peter-dutton-found-out-about-parliament-rape-case-before-scott-morrison-20210224-p575jc.html

A special investigations board at the Australian Federal Police discussed the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins on February 11 this year, triggering formal advice to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton about her case.

The board, chaired by deputy commissioner Ian McCartney, considered the case five days after Ms Higgins contacted the police about a complaint she had first lodged in April 2019.

The moves meant Mr Dutton knew crucial details of the matter one day before media inquiries were made to the office of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, raising new questions about why the leader of the government was not told earlier about the alleged assault in a ministerial suite.

The revelations come as Defence Minister Linda Reynolds undergoes checks in a Canberra hospital after suffering a recurrence of a pre-existing medical condition that led her to contact her cardiologist and take medical leave.

A spokesman for Senator Reynolds said late on Wednesday that she was resting comfortably and expected to remain in hospital overnight.

The emergency led Senator Reynolds to cancel a speech to the National Press Club three hours before it was due to start, while also asking her cardiologist to speak to Mr Morrison to assure him about her condition.

Senator Reynolds’ admission to hospital came the morning after she had been forced to correct a statement to the Senate about her meetings with the AFP over the alleged rape.

Mr Dutton told Parliament on Wednesday that the AFP told him of the case on February 11, but he did not elaborate on what he was told and he was not asked whether he had passed any of the information to the Prime Minister’s office.

The response raised more questions about when the government knew of the case, given statements that Mr Morrison’s office took media queries about it on February 12.

In a television interview on Thursday morning, the Home Affairs Minister said he decided not to tell Mr Morrison about the case on the day he found out about it, even though he passed on information “as a courtesy” the next day.

“I deemed it not to be appropriate to provide information to the Prime Minister on the 11th,” Mr Dutton told the Nine Network.

“There were media inquiries that came in to the government on the 12th of February, the following day, and as a courtesy we provided information to the Prime Ministesr’s office at that point.

“I don’t disclose the information provided to me by the Australian Federal Police, particularly where there are operational matters, and that was a decision, I think quite appropriately, that I took on the 11th of February.”

Mr Dutton said he asked his chief of staff to pass the information to the Prime Minister’s office on February 12 but this was at a “high level” rather than about the details of the allegation.

Mr Morrison has told Parliament several times that he found out about the alleged rape when it was reported in the media on Monday, February 15.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has expressed disbelief in some of the government claims amid speculation about how Mr Dutton came to be told before the Prime Minister.

A source aware of the steps taken by police, but who was not authorised to speak publicly about the matter, said Mr Dutton was told of the case by AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw on February 11 under guidelines that require the minister to be told of sensitive cases.

The commissioner contacted the minister after a meeting of the Sensitive Investigations Oversight Board, a group within the AFP that meets to decide whether cases require an alert to senior authorities such as the minister.

The AFP guidelines for ministerial briefings on investigations state that ministers must be told of any matters when media attention is reasonably likely.

Mr McCartney, the deputy commissioner in charge of investigations, chaired the SIOB meeting with other senior AFP officers and the group decided the minister needed to be told.

The AFP commissioner, who is not on the board, acted on the decision the same day.

The SIOB meeting came after Ms Higgins contacted ACT Policing, a part of the AFP, on February 6 to say she wanted to re-engage on a complaint she had made soon after the alleged rape.

The alleged rape took place on Saturday, March 23, 2019 in the office of Senator Reynolds, where Ms Higgins and the alleged perpetrator both worked. The man was fired on the subsequent Tuesday.

Ms Higgins has said she told others in Parliament House of her rape within days, including in a meeting with a police unit in the building on the Wednesday.

But there is uncertainty over the timing of some of these steps, with the initial complaint to ACT Policing made on April 1. On that day Ms Higgins also had a meeting with Senator Reynolds and the minister’s chief of staff to tell of the alleged rape.

ACT Policing confirmed the initial complaint was made on April 1, 2019. It said on Wednesday night it was now investigating the alleged assault after a report was made.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age asked Mr Dutton’s three press secretaries why he did not tell Mr Morrison of the case on February 11, but they did not respond before the deadline for this report.

Labor sought to link the questions over what the Prime Minister’s office knew about Ms Higgins’ allegations with other reports of inappropriate behaviour by a staff member of newly-independent MP Craig Kelly, who quit the Liberal Party on Tuesday.

“This Prime Minister is running a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ government of cover-ups,” shadow minister for women Tanya Plibersek said after Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese moved a motion to condemn Mr Morrison.

The vote was also intended as a test of the new finely balanced parliamentary numbers after Mr Kelly’s defection.

However, the government won the vote 65-56. Mr Kelly and independent Bob Katter backed the government and Labor was down a vote after backbencher Josh Burns was ejected for interjecting.

Crossbench MPs Andrew Wilkie, Zali Steggall, Rebekha Sharkie and Helen Haines opposed the government gagging debate on the matter but abstained from the final vote, walking out of the chamber as a group.

The quartet has a general rule of not playing political games or supporting motions that use the word “condemn”.

Ms Steggall saw merit behind the issues Labor was raising and said the government’s response had been insufficient.

[Gort]

The vile culture of politics in this country makes it impossible to deal with these appalling cases of rape.

That culture of wanting to destroy "political enemies" no matter the consequence, the love of point scoring. The utter contempt for decency in the lust to cause harm to political opponents. Take any event, take any association no matter how tenuous the link to your opponent and damn the consequences. Just go for the kill.

[ponto]

As poverty increases and the rich getting richer the neoliberal conservatives deserve contempt.

[pim]

Feeling cornered, Trickles throws his hands in the air and, feigning helplessness, whines that it's all too hard ...

[pim]

Inside the prime minister’s most glass-jawed office

The PMO has been deliberately evasive over questions about Brittany Higgins. Strange, given it normally has no problem shooting off at the mouth.

Kishor Napier-Raman 25 February 2021 Crikey


This is Scotty from Marketing shooting off at the mouth!

After the federal budget last year, Georgie Dent was angry. A writer and executive director of think tank The Parenthood, Dent felt Josh Frydenberg’s budget had done nothing for women.

The next day, after firing off an article and a series of tweets, and in between five television interviews, she got a phone call that left her gobsmacked. It was a man at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), calling to tell her she was wrong.

Last week, Network 10’s political editor Peter van Onselen aired allegations that the PMO had been backgrounding journalists against Brittany Higgins’ partner, suggesting that as a former public servant, he had a vendetta against the Coalition.

Since then, other stories have emerged that paint a picture of an office which watches social media accounts with a Sauron-like intensity, and whose spinners are willing to hose down journalists and commentators over the most innocuous of perceived slights against Scott Morrison.

‘No one credible is saying that’

Dent says her conversation with Morrison’s spinner was long and heated.

“I think the purpose of the phone call was to dissuade me from my position that the budget did nothing for women.”

The PMO staffer referred Dent to the government’s tax cuts, which he said benefited women too. When she pointed out they didn’t deliver for women as much as men because of the gender pay gap, the staffer told her this was because of “women’s choices”.

“No one credible is saying that,” the staffer allegedly said, about Dent’s claims the budget wasn’t delivering for women. In fact Crikey, along with several other outlets, named women as budget losers.

The attempts at media management backfired against the PMO. Dent turned #crediblewomen into a viral hashtag.

“If their objective was making any women problem go away, they failed spectacularly,” she said.

Shut up and stop posting

In the last few days, we’ve heard more about the PMO’s often desperately heavy-handed attempts to control the narrative around Morrison.

On Twitter earlier this week, Weekend Australian writer Greg Bearup recounted an incident from April 2019, right after Higgins was allegedly raped, when he’d received two angry phone calls from separate staffers at the PMO over a joke tweet about seeing Morrison and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack at the Easter Show.

Journalist Neil McMahon said he’d been called and aggressively texted twice by the PMO over recaps of ABC’s Q+A.

Who is behind Morrison’s aggressive media monitoring outfit? If you send the PMO a media request, an automatic reply lists the numbers of five media advisers.

Morrison’s chief spinner is head of communications Andrew Carswell, a former Daily Telegraph chief of staff who joined Team ScoMo when he was treasurer in 2017, and is a close member of the prime minister’s inner circle.

He’s also not afraid to get on the blower and tell journalists what he really thinks. After the Christchurch attack in 2019, Waleed Aly’s viral editorial on The Project made reference (without naming the prime minister), to a 2010 Sydney Morning Herald article, where Morrison allegedly told shadow cabinet that the Coalition should capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment.

Carswell called 10, accused the show of “failing journalism 101”, demanded an apology, and threatened to sue.

Then, at the Midwinter Ball later that year, van Onselen broke press gallery omertà when, after a ribbing from Morrison, he tweeted a series of texts from Carswell accusing his network of “ideological bias” against the prime minister, and threatening van Onselen with losing access on a trip to Washington DC.

And that’s just who we know about on record. Dent wasn’t the only person to receive a call over criticism of the budget. And given the PMO’s eagerness to call dissenters, there may well be many who’ve decided to toe the line.

A media management problem?

Van Onselen was annoying the PMO again last week, when he told ABC Radio National about the alleged backgrounding against Higgins’ partner. The PMO has refused to comment on this, and Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham (now accused of mishandling his own staffer’s alleged rape) insisted last week that Morrison would never tolerate such “grubby” tactics.

If both Birmingham and van Onselen are right, then the PMO is running behind Morrison’s back. More evidence emerged in the last week of the office and the boss appearing to be at odds. Morrison said he only learned of Higgins’ allegations when the story broke last Monday, even though his office knew three days earlier. Up to four staffers in the PMO may have known about the incident back in 2019.

The Higgins case highlights the PMO at its worst — both glass-jawed and pugnacious when it wants a journalist to shut up, while silent and deliberately evasive when it comes to an allegation of rape.

For Dent, there’s much in common between her experience and how the PMO has handled the past week.

“It symbolises so much of the way in which the Morrison government seeks to treat women and resolve what it considers women problems, and that is to tell them to be quiet, to tell them that they’re wrong, [and] to undermine their credibility.”

[pim]

Trickles will never understand how he abrogated any claim to the high moral ground when he voted - and boasts about how he continues to vote - for this government of rapists and entitled pussy grabbers.

[pim]

With typical dishonesty, Trickles deletes his post immediately before mine thereby depriving it of its context. He's very devious and manipulative, this guy.