Australia: Abbott won't resile from Gillard criticism

Submitted by Minuteman on Wed, 2012-10-10 08:39

Link here. Excerpt:

'Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he won't be retreating from his criticism of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and called on Labor to stop playing the gender card.

Ms Gillard on Tuesday accused Mr Abbott in parliament of having a record of sexism and misogyny.

The comments came in a debate over whether to sack Speaker Peter Slipper, who is facing court action by a former male staffer over alleged sexual harassment.

Mr Abbott said the attack was "a bit rich" coming from the person who was "prepared to knife Kevin Rudd, but wasn't prepared to sack Peter Slipper".

The prime minister should be prepared to accept fair criticism.

"Just because the prime minister has sometimes been the victim of unfair criticism doesn't mean she can dismiss any criticism as sexism or she can dismiss any criticism on gender grounds," Mr Abbott told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.'

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This is a Prime Minister who is quite unpopular. She took power after promising to never undermine her boss, before knifing him in the back. She swore to the country she would never introduce a carbon tax, then introduced a carbon tax. Her Government runs the show by just one vote, and puts a crony slimy dude into the Speaker seat. When he finally gets found out, she refuses to sack him even though he's written horrendously sexist texts about women and sexually harassed a male staffer.

And when she's called on this last one, she screams 'Misogyny!' The Leader of the opposition has his faults - he's a politician I don't have a huge amount of respect for - but he's married with three daughters and is highly respected by many women he works with, and now he's on the back foot.

What is truly scary is the viciousness with which the women of this country have jumped on his roasting. It's as if they've finally got a man bang to rights, and he's going down.

It seems anything that's said about a woman is immediately followed by a comment like "They'd never say that if she were a man!".

During an interview on ABC radio yesterday I heard two women discussing the event, one presenter and one political reporter. The reporter said several times how poor Ms Gillard was always facing a stream of comments that nobody would ever dare make to a man, how she was constantly facing misogyny.

And then, almost in the next breath, they were both laughing about how another politician (male, of course) had been caught on camera with Bart Simpson sheets in his away-from-home accommodation.

It's the rule of the day. Say anything you like about a man, accuse him of hating all women, accuse him of being a sexist pig, laugh and snigger for having childish bed sheets - but do any of that to a woman, and your head will end on a platter, you misogynist b*stard....

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Submitted by GaryB on Thu, 2012-10-11 07:30