Post by pim on Oct 12, 2012 12:25:28 GMT 11
Anne Summers nailed it ...
Gone is the turned cheek: Gillard as we've rarely seen her
Anne Summers
www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4305728.html
Julia Gillard's extraordinary speech on misogyny saw her return to her former debating finesse, writes Anne Summers. Only in Canberra, it seems, did her words fall on tone-deaf ears.
"After his performance last week, supporters of President Obama, watching Gillard cut through the disingenuousness and feigned moral outrage of her opponent to call him out for his own personal prejudice, hypocrisy, and aversion to facts, might be wishing their man would take a lesson from Australia."
This was the judgement of The New Yorker magazine overnight in a blog post written by its managing editor, the Australian-born Amelia Lester.
Her summation, and the opinions which informed it, were in stark contrast to the consensus of most Canberra journalists, who stood virtually shoulder to shoulder in this morning's newspapers to condemn the Prime Minister for the same speech. Gillard's words were condemned as "desperate" (Michelle Grattan), "completely over the top" (Jennifer Hewett), "flawed" (Peter Hartcher), and "defending the indefensible" (Dennis Shanahan). You can see other, but essentially similar views, reported here. If you checked into social media yesterday while the Prime Minister was delivering her speech, you might have noted Mia Freedman tweeting that her entire office of young women were clustered around the television watching with enthusiasm:
The whole Mamamia office is gathered around the TV watching @juliagillard in full flight during #QT. Extraordinary performance.
There were many, many other expressions of delight at Gillard's words on Facebook and Twitter while she spoke and as the day progressed.
In the 24 hours since the speech was delivered, a clear polarisation has emerged between the mainstream media, particularly print, and a very large body of online opinion that has applauded the anti-misogyny contents of the speech and welcomed Gillard's return to her former debating finesse. What we saw in that speech was an angry and offended Gillard finally unleashed. Gone was the forbearance, and the turned cheek. Finally she was telling us how upset she was at being called "a witch" and "a bitch".
She was seething as she told the House of Representatives, "I was very personally offended when the Leader of the Opposition, as minister for health, said, and I quote, 'Abortion is the easy way out'." And she was practically in orbit when she responded to Mr Abbott's taunt that she led "a government which should already have died of shame". Watching her, you saw her eyes narrow and her shoulders almost shiver. It seemed, to someone watching on television as I was, that she was almost convulsing as she alternated between rage and disbelief. Here was the Leader of her Majesty's Opposition using the very same words that a shock jock had just a week earlier used against her father, who had died exactly a month earlier.
Gillard had maintained a dignified silence in the face of Alan Jones's comments and his subsequent insincere apology but Abbott's utterance meant now she had no choice but to let fly. And she was icy with anger as she said, looking Abbott in the eye (while he hunched, almost as if recoiling from the blows of her words):
... the Government is not dying of shame, my father did not die of shame, what the Opposition Leader should be ashamed [she emphasized the word] of is his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it.
It was Gillard as we have rarely seen her before. Gone was the wooden, robotic figure who has puzzled and infuriated her supporters. But it was not just the passion of her delivery that was so electrifying. It was what she was saying. Here, for the first time, our first female prime minister was telling us how upset and offended she has been at the way she has been subjected to sexist and misogynist vilification. (For a detailed description of this, see my recent speech Her Rights at Work: the political persecution of Australia's first female prime minister.) She was not only telling us, the electorate, how wounded she felt by the personal abuse, she was also talking on behalf of every woman who has ever been offended by a man telling them abortion is "easy" or felt demeaned by being described as merely "housewives" who spend the day ironing.
Here, finally, was a powerful woman speaking out against the sexism and misogyny that so many of us have to deal with. It was something that Julia Gillard has rarely done since she became Prime Minister and certainly not in such personal and impassioned terms. That was what got the response. That was why the speech was so exhilarating - and that was why it has attracted such a huge and impassioned response, here and around the world.
Only in Canberra, it seems, did her words fall on sceptical and tone-deaf ears. Only in Canberra was Gillard's assault on the Opposition Leader's behaviour towards her portrayed - somehow, incredibly - as either a defence of Peter Slipper or a failure to attack him. Only in Canberra was a vote against the motion to dismiss the Speaker of the House seen as supporting sexism rather than upholding the separation of powers as outlined in the Constitution. The reportage and commentary this morning out of Canberra was so startlingly at odds with the reactions of such vast numbers of people both here and abroad that you have to ask: why and how could this be the case?
I can only speculate. Is the Canberra press gallery so thoroughly disillusioned with Gillard after two and a bit years of reporting her prime ministership that it cannot adjust its perspective when the game changes? Were the briefings by the Opposition yesterday so persuasive that seasoned journalists chose to ignore constitutional realities in favour of an ideological sledge? Or was it something else? I wish that rather than simply opine, that they would talk us through, share the reasoning, explain to us mere mortals how they got to these extraordinary judgements. They are, after all, seemingly so out of kilter with how so many of the rest of us reacted that they need to provide some explanation for us to have any reason to take at all seriously anything they write in future.
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I've watched ABC interviewers of the calibre of Emma Alberici, Leigh Sales and Tony Jones take up the time of the interview trying to nail Labor politicians on some sort of phony moral equivalence between Tony Abbott's acknowledged sexism (which only Liberals like Pyne and Bishop try, unconvincingly, to deny) and Gillard's alleged "hypocrisy" in opposing the motion moved in the House to sack Slipper from the Speakership. Tony Jones went further and fretted over the meaning of "misogyny".
What they failed to do was explore the deeper point, which was the point of Gillard's devastating speech in Parliament, that for Tony Abbott to invoke "sexism" and "misogyny" as reasons for ousting Slipper was like the KKK accusing its opponents of racism. He comes to that position with unclean hands and zero credibility. He was using a wedge motion to gain some sort of political advantage over Gillard and in so doing was seeking to take the Parliament down a path it had never ventured before which would lead it to take a grave step and one that should never be taken lightly - to dismiss the Speaker.
It's true that the move a year ago to sideline Harry Jenkins and to install Peter Slipper was a shallow stunt and plenty of commentators at the time predicted that it was a move that would in time bite Labor on the bum. It's true that Peter Slipper during the brief time he occupied the Speaker's Chair proved to be an effective and good Speaker but it's also true that there were tawdry aspects to the man and a question mark over his personal character. So his failures in the character test, plus Coalition outrage at his perceived betrayal of them meant that in a hung parliament in which half the House loathed him, meant that he had zero chance of acquiring the necessary gravitas to do his job properly. Skill at interpreting and applying the standing orders wasn't enough. It was a bad judgement call on the part of the Labor front bench to pull the Slipper Stunt, and this Gillard Government has been plagued by bad judgement calls. The latest one was Wayne Swan not walking out of the CFMEU bash the other night at that "joke" at Peta Credlin's expense. These people have to learn about judgement and to forget about "stunts" that end up being too-clever-by-half and which blow up in their faces.
Having said all that, the fact was that Peter Slipper was the Speaker in terms of the procedures of the House. The bullshit that "Gillard should have sacked the Speaker" is just ignorant. Only Parliament can sack the Speaker. For Parliament to vote to sack the Speaker is a grave step to take. I'm not sure that it's possible on these discussion boards properly to explore and flesh out the gravity of that step. One thing is for sure, it isn't a step you should take just to score a point off the other side. Whatever you might say about the propriety or wisdom of Labor fixing to have Slipper voted in to the Speakership a year ago, Gillard had to oppose Abbott's motion to defend - not Slipper personally because she didn't - but the Speakership against political opportunism. And in so doing she was devastatin in the way she exposed Abbott for the sexist and misogynist that he is. It was her finest moment as PM.
And that's what the Canberra press gallery missed completely.
Gone is the turned cheek: Gillard as we've rarely seen her
Anne Summers
www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4305728.html
Julia Gillard's extraordinary speech on misogyny saw her return to her former debating finesse, writes Anne Summers. Only in Canberra, it seems, did her words fall on tone-deaf ears.
"After his performance last week, supporters of President Obama, watching Gillard cut through the disingenuousness and feigned moral outrage of her opponent to call him out for his own personal prejudice, hypocrisy, and aversion to facts, might be wishing their man would take a lesson from Australia."
This was the judgement of The New Yorker magazine overnight in a blog post written by its managing editor, the Australian-born Amelia Lester.
Her summation, and the opinions which informed it, were in stark contrast to the consensus of most Canberra journalists, who stood virtually shoulder to shoulder in this morning's newspapers to condemn the Prime Minister for the same speech. Gillard's words were condemned as "desperate" (Michelle Grattan), "completely over the top" (Jennifer Hewett), "flawed" (Peter Hartcher), and "defending the indefensible" (Dennis Shanahan). You can see other, but essentially similar views, reported here. If you checked into social media yesterday while the Prime Minister was delivering her speech, you might have noted Mia Freedman tweeting that her entire office of young women were clustered around the television watching with enthusiasm:
The whole Mamamia office is gathered around the TV watching @juliagillard in full flight during #QT. Extraordinary performance.
There were many, many other expressions of delight at Gillard's words on Facebook and Twitter while she spoke and as the day progressed.
In the 24 hours since the speech was delivered, a clear polarisation has emerged between the mainstream media, particularly print, and a very large body of online opinion that has applauded the anti-misogyny contents of the speech and welcomed Gillard's return to her former debating finesse. What we saw in that speech was an angry and offended Gillard finally unleashed. Gone was the forbearance, and the turned cheek. Finally she was telling us how upset she was at being called "a witch" and "a bitch".
She was seething as she told the House of Representatives, "I was very personally offended when the Leader of the Opposition, as minister for health, said, and I quote, 'Abortion is the easy way out'." And she was practically in orbit when she responded to Mr Abbott's taunt that she led "a government which should already have died of shame". Watching her, you saw her eyes narrow and her shoulders almost shiver. It seemed, to someone watching on television as I was, that she was almost convulsing as she alternated between rage and disbelief. Here was the Leader of her Majesty's Opposition using the very same words that a shock jock had just a week earlier used against her father, who had died exactly a month earlier.
Gillard had maintained a dignified silence in the face of Alan Jones's comments and his subsequent insincere apology but Abbott's utterance meant now she had no choice but to let fly. And she was icy with anger as she said, looking Abbott in the eye (while he hunched, almost as if recoiling from the blows of her words):
... the Government is not dying of shame, my father did not die of shame, what the Opposition Leader should be ashamed [she emphasized the word] of is his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it.
It was Gillard as we have rarely seen her before. Gone was the wooden, robotic figure who has puzzled and infuriated her supporters. But it was not just the passion of her delivery that was so electrifying. It was what she was saying. Here, for the first time, our first female prime minister was telling us how upset and offended she has been at the way she has been subjected to sexist and misogynist vilification. (For a detailed description of this, see my recent speech Her Rights at Work: the political persecution of Australia's first female prime minister.) She was not only telling us, the electorate, how wounded she felt by the personal abuse, she was also talking on behalf of every woman who has ever been offended by a man telling them abortion is "easy" or felt demeaned by being described as merely "housewives" who spend the day ironing.
Here, finally, was a powerful woman speaking out against the sexism and misogyny that so many of us have to deal with. It was something that Julia Gillard has rarely done since she became Prime Minister and certainly not in such personal and impassioned terms. That was what got the response. That was why the speech was so exhilarating - and that was why it has attracted such a huge and impassioned response, here and around the world.
Only in Canberra, it seems, did her words fall on sceptical and tone-deaf ears. Only in Canberra was Gillard's assault on the Opposition Leader's behaviour towards her portrayed - somehow, incredibly - as either a defence of Peter Slipper or a failure to attack him. Only in Canberra was a vote against the motion to dismiss the Speaker of the House seen as supporting sexism rather than upholding the separation of powers as outlined in the Constitution. The reportage and commentary this morning out of Canberra was so startlingly at odds with the reactions of such vast numbers of people both here and abroad that you have to ask: why and how could this be the case?
I can only speculate. Is the Canberra press gallery so thoroughly disillusioned with Gillard after two and a bit years of reporting her prime ministership that it cannot adjust its perspective when the game changes? Were the briefings by the Opposition yesterday so persuasive that seasoned journalists chose to ignore constitutional realities in favour of an ideological sledge? Or was it something else? I wish that rather than simply opine, that they would talk us through, share the reasoning, explain to us mere mortals how they got to these extraordinary judgements. They are, after all, seemingly so out of kilter with how so many of the rest of us reacted that they need to provide some explanation for us to have any reason to take at all seriously anything they write in future.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've watched ABC interviewers of the calibre of Emma Alberici, Leigh Sales and Tony Jones take up the time of the interview trying to nail Labor politicians on some sort of phony moral equivalence between Tony Abbott's acknowledged sexism (which only Liberals like Pyne and Bishop try, unconvincingly, to deny) and Gillard's alleged "hypocrisy" in opposing the motion moved in the House to sack Slipper from the Speakership. Tony Jones went further and fretted over the meaning of "misogyny".
What they failed to do was explore the deeper point, which was the point of Gillard's devastating speech in Parliament, that for Tony Abbott to invoke "sexism" and "misogyny" as reasons for ousting Slipper was like the KKK accusing its opponents of racism. He comes to that position with unclean hands and zero credibility. He was using a wedge motion to gain some sort of political advantage over Gillard and in so doing was seeking to take the Parliament down a path it had never ventured before which would lead it to take a grave step and one that should never be taken lightly - to dismiss the Speaker.
It's true that the move a year ago to sideline Harry Jenkins and to install Peter Slipper was a shallow stunt and plenty of commentators at the time predicted that it was a move that would in time bite Labor on the bum. It's true that Peter Slipper during the brief time he occupied the Speaker's Chair proved to be an effective and good Speaker but it's also true that there were tawdry aspects to the man and a question mark over his personal character. So his failures in the character test, plus Coalition outrage at his perceived betrayal of them meant that in a hung parliament in which half the House loathed him, meant that he had zero chance of acquiring the necessary gravitas to do his job properly. Skill at interpreting and applying the standing orders wasn't enough. It was a bad judgement call on the part of the Labor front bench to pull the Slipper Stunt, and this Gillard Government has been plagued by bad judgement calls. The latest one was Wayne Swan not walking out of the CFMEU bash the other night at that "joke" at Peta Credlin's expense. These people have to learn about judgement and to forget about "stunts" that end up being too-clever-by-half and which blow up in their faces.
Having said all that, the fact was that Peter Slipper was the Speaker in terms of the procedures of the House. The bullshit that "Gillard should have sacked the Speaker" is just ignorant. Only Parliament can sack the Speaker. For Parliament to vote to sack the Speaker is a grave step to take. I'm not sure that it's possible on these discussion boards properly to explore and flesh out the gravity of that step. One thing is for sure, it isn't a step you should take just to score a point off the other side. Whatever you might say about the propriety or wisdom of Labor fixing to have Slipper voted in to the Speakership a year ago, Gillard had to oppose Abbott's motion to defend - not Slipper personally because she didn't - but the Speakership against political opportunism. And in so doing she was devastatin in the way she exposed Abbott for the sexist and misogynist that he is. It was her finest moment as PM.
And that's what the Canberra press gallery missed completely.
