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Banks Bullied – Morrison Threatens Anyone Who Behaves Badly!

Ok, just in case you’re confused. It was Julia Banks who was bullied. I’m not talking about the Royal Commission where those pesky people told the major financial institutions that when Dire Straits sang “Money For Nothing”, he didn’t mean it to form part of a business plan.

I’m not sure who takes the prize for the most ironic response to Ms Banks’ decision to pull the plug but I certainly think that both Scott Morrison and Craig Kelly deserve special awards.

Scottie for telling the press that he’d “laid down the law” to his party over bullying. I guess he told them in no uncertain terms that bullying wouldn’t be allowed and if anyone was caught bullying then they’d be… um, bullied into submission by their leader?

However, I think Craig is in a class of his own… Actually, I think Craig is in a world of his own, but his suggestion that she was just not tough enough because, as he put it so eloquently, “You’ve got to roll with the punches in this game.”

I trust that both the punches and the game were metaphoric.

Of course, it’s easy to just go along with the Craig Kelly/Scott Morrison view on this. Julia has announced that she’s not going to seek re-election because she’s been bullied and that’s a shame and it shouldn’t have happened. However, that presupposes that it was her choice and that the bullying wasn’t because some Liberal powerbroker, like say, Christopher Pyne, actually succeeded in his plan to push one of his mates into the seat.

Not that I know that, of course. I’m just speculating. Like I speculated about Malcolm being made PM in 2014. Or Scott Morrison using Peter Dutton to cause the spill, then putting himself up as the compromise candidate.

Nobody has told me anything about Christopher Pyne. I’m just using him as an example. There is no way anyone could imagine him being a bully.

The fact that I live in Julia Banks’ electorate is just a coincidence.

 

34 comments

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  1. Kerri

    Scomo will get very angry. He may even waggle a finger in their faces. True! He could! He would! He will!

  2. Matters Not

    End bullying in Parliament? Abandon Question Time!

  3. Alpo

    “Or Scott Morrison using Peter Dutton to cause the spill, then putting himself up as the compromise candidate”….

    It’s actually Tony Abbott using Scott Morrison using Peter Dutton to cause the spill, then putting himself up as the saviour of the Liberal party in Opposition after they are trashed at the Federal election.

  4. Kaye Lee

    It is interesting how, when bullies get called out for their behaviour, they cry victim.

    Craig Kelly’s latest facebook post….

    “WARNING : SNOWFLAKES IN MELTDOWN

    The phrase ‘ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES’ – which the Cambridge Dictionary describes as; ’to be able to deal with a series of difficult situations” – and is also the title of a song/album by Van Morrison – as been deemed politically incorrect.”

  5. Matters Not

    Re:

    when bullies get called out for their behaviour

    Must have missed their names – who did the ‘calling’ out and when. Or should I just assume the usual suspects?

    Then again, there’s the definitional problem. As the then National Executive of the then Labor Party will tell you – Whitlam was one hell of a bully. As was – would you prefer a list or an essay?

  6. John O'Callaghan

    Morrison says he believes in the 2nd coming and he says it will happen,well i for one believe him,and i reckon it will happen in 2019 but it wont be Jesus it will be Bill Shorten,and Morrie wont be lifted up into heaven,in fact i think he may end up in that other place!

  7. Kaye Lee

    MN,

    Yes bullying has always been around. Are you suggesting we should just let it slide? Because I think we should really hammer home the momentum coming from a lot of brave people speaking out and I don’t just mean female politicians. What people have had to put up with in the past is all the more reason to make it stop. Every other workplace has changed.

    I know you love word games but I would suggest that when several female and male members of a party speak up about the bullying that happened within their own party, and certain media, that is calling the bullies out.

  8. Patagonian

    Craig Kelly, a man who makes ‘mediocre’ look good. Seriously, where do they get this idiots from? If they had a quota system he would not have had a snowballs chance in hell, but being pale, male and of the Lunar Right, he made preselection.

  9. corvus boreus

    Julia Banks complained of being ‘bullied and intimidated’, but, until she gives some details of the exact events behind her making such accusations and names the alleged perpetrators, then, to quote the prosecution, there is no phuqqen case.
    As for the comments of Craig Kelly, coal-humping climate-denying homophobic reactionary redneck wanker though he be, ‘roll with the punches’ is, as he stated, a well-worn figure of speech.

  10. paul walter

    It is of course reasonable to recall that Banks herself was party to bullying in the form of insults toward the unemployed and the pittance welfare payments a few months ago.

  11. New England Cocky

    Excellent analysis!! Has anybody considered the OH&S consequences of this admission of bullying by Prim Monster Scat Morriscum?

    Maybe it is time for a trip to a top commercial (not Parliamentary) lawyer to discover whether Parliament is covered by OH&S legislation. Just sayin’ ……

  12. corvus boreus

    In the absence of any evident facts, I will offer my own ‘maybe perhaps’ to help support any putative legal action.

    Maybe the ‘bullying’ consisted of Mz Banks being called nasty names, like ‘Jew-liar Bonks’.(hur hur).
    Perhaps the ‘intimidation’ consisted of ominous sounding threats of frivolously vexatious litigation.

    I would add that, in legal terms, ‘maybe perhapses’ carry all the substantive weight of an underwater duck fart.

  13. Athena

    Bullying should be called out where it occurs. However, no specific bullying incidents have been named by Ms Banks. I think it’s more a case that she sees the writing on the wall and knows she is going to lose her seat at the next election. This is her way of avoiding defeat.

  14. helvityni

    paul walter, I too remember Julia Banks behaving badly, I thought what she said was not very nice (civil)…I think it was the first time I heard her say something…

    Also our ex PM was stirring the fires when it came to Emma Husar….. Emma Alberici and Yassmin have copped their fair (unfair) share of abuse, mainly from the Right….

    Is it called bitching when women do it; they are certainly not blameless.

    I still get upset when think of all the abuse that was directed at Gillard, by both men and women…

  15. helvityni

    Wasn’t Scomo bullying our asylum seekers, they certainly have NOT been treated respectfully…now might be the time for him to repent, it’s never too late.

  16. paul walter

    Yes, Husar copped it hard, because it was a media/press campaign run by opponents not on fact but for political objectives.

    You have to marvel at the cold-bloodedness of people who do smear campaigns.

    Not sure Corvus, Athena.

    I do think there was heavying going on because of what was at stake and the low calibre of individuals of the LNP Right faction. I am not sure by the volume of news on vote lobbying that it did not happen, too much smoke for there not to have been fire.

  17. paul walter

    We could have an inquiry into the Banks, but the news would probably be suppressed somewhat if history is anything to go on.

    But then again, perhaps Dutton is the one who should be inquired upon, given he expects us to believe that the au pair girl visa had nothing to do with donations from the McLachlan family.

  18. Kaye Lee

    Channel 7’s Mark Riley said

    “I saw two female Liberal MPs in tears along the corridors. I wrongly assumed they were lamenting the imminent assassination of yet another prime minister. It wasn’t until I spoke with them on Thursday that I understood what had really happened. They’d been sobbing in shock and disgust at the threats and intimidation they’d been subjected to by the goons and knuckledraggers trying to gather the signatures on Dutton’s behalf. One of them purports to be a conservative family man of traditional Christian values. To those women now, he is just a pig.”

    Craig Laundy said

    “Some of the behaviour this week… I’ve had one female senator and two female members of the house, when it came to the letter – the petition, that were physically stood over to sign it, and they refused. That sort of intimidation and bullying is something you can actually file a claim against.”

    Linda Reynolds said

    “Some of the behaviour is behaviour that I simply do not recognise and I think has no place in my party or in this chamber, so whatever happens over the next 24 hours, I cannot condone or support what has happened to some of my colleagues on this side in this chamber in this place. I think the tragedy of what has been happening, I think the madness of what has taken hold of a number of my colleagues. I do not recognise the values. I do not recognise the bullying and intimidation that has gone on.”

    And if you want to hazard a guess as to who may have been doing the bullying….

    “Mr Dutton’s campaign was backed by key Liberals in each state including Victorian MP Michael Sukkar, ACT senator Zed Seselja, South Australian MP Tony Pasin, Western Australian MP Andrew Hastie and Queensland senator James McGrath.”

    Fairfax said it has spoken to several MPs but they won’t make official complaints for fear of losing their job.

    I would call that way past smoke.

    James McGrath was the grub that paid to collect dirt files on Labor MPs. He was censured at the time….then rewarded with a senate seat.

    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/lnp-leaders-at-odds-over-dirt-file-fallout-20111013-1lmwa.html

  19. wam

    I have some rabbottians who use bullying by the unions a lot.
    When Dolly killed herself because her parents, who were aware of school bullying, refused to consider not sending her back to the boarding school and the media grabbed at the scourge of online bullying accompanied by pictures of dolly as the akubra girl. (why??)
    I asked my facebook to define the word ‘bullying’. I got one reply, which basically said ‘you first’ but nothing else.
    observation(sorry lord)
    ‘Bully’ has many meanings for those who are being bullied but he bullyers do not consider themselves as bullies and are genuinely shocked at such an accusation. a la husar!
    Bullying is violence and should be treated as such by the law. Until it is, it will remain an insidiously used ‘one size fits all’ concept like ‘Aborigines’ and the rabbott will continue that racist stereotype.

  20. Kaye Lee

    Patricia Karvelas has reported that she has spoken to several other Liberal women who have backed Ms Banks’s version of events.

    “Last week, during the frenzied period between the first and second leadership spill, I received a text message from one Liberal female MP who said she was too scared to be named but told me about these stand-over tactics and pleaded with me to pursue the story.

    The text message was chilling. She was genuinely shaken and worried that if she spoke out her career would be damaged.”

  21. helvityni

    wam, we all know that;

    ” In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, extended periods of silence during conversations are considered the ‘norm’ and are valued. Silent pauses are used to listen, show respect or consensus. … For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, avoidance of eye contact is customarily a gesture of respect “.

    Yet our new PM referred to Aboriginal students at some selective school,( somewhat insensitively methinks), saying that they were well behaved because they looked you in the eye when they were spoken to…

    Making of a white man !!!

  22. Bo

    Agreeing most with Kaye here. Julia Banks could do a favour for all future MPs, most especially female members, and call out the bullies. If she is set to walk from politics then exposing the cavemen on the way out the door is a bonus. Bullying belongs nowhere, vindictiveness is self-defeating, and intimidation is a cowardly reaction that hints at an inner insecurity. The bellicose knuckledraggers have had their day in the swamp, it’s time to root them out and get some adult representation. Not often I agree with a Liberal pollie, but credit where credit is due.

  23. Diannaart

    Bo

    Good point, Banks has an opportunity, on her way out, to name a few names, after all, her Liberal sorority wish retain their jobs.

    While I am not at all a fan of Banks, given her dearth of understanding on living on Centrelink benefits, there is no excuse for bullying, by anyone for any reason. Those prefer to cherry pick their victims of bullying could do better and reflect upon themselves.

  24. paul walter

    When you look at it from a distance, you can see this as a developing phenomenon as controlly desperate white men are pushed up harder and harder against a wall by reason and indignation.

    The two latest examples are the banning of Chelsea Manning and the unfolding scandal of Angela Williamson’s contrived sacking orchestrate by Tas premier Hodgeman and Cricket Tasmania.

    You could ad the persecution by Xtian Porter of Bernard Collaery, on the basis of cowardice

  25. paul walter

    Diannaart, your words express my feeling exactly. The rightie types are mindless thugs.

  26. Diannaart

    Only “rightie types”? You are not that naive, Paul.

  27. paul walter

    Well, I did raise the Husar issue.

  28. Diannaart

    PW

    True

  29. Matters Not

    So Banks et al claim to be victims of ‘bullying’. Support comes from both within the Party and from external observers. A case is made.

    Why is it so? The Liberal Party across the gender spectrum are adamant that pre-selection(s) should not be guided by quotas or even targets. Pre-selections are best left to the ‘merit selection’ process. That this ‘merit selection’ produces such skewed outcomes – suggesting that females lack merit – seems to escape their attention.

    Further, female Liberal members of Parliament vehemently reject the feminists descriptor. Feminists are radicals – not acceptable in polite company. Thus Liberal Party women lack a philosophy or rationale on which to hang their political hats.

    Philosophically, they do not want to create their own world but prefer to live and operate in a world created by others. Men in this case. They choose to be dependent beings.

    They are their own worst enemies.

  30. paul walter

    Fantasy can be a soothing sanctuary.

  31. Kaye Lee

    Kevin Hogan, the Nats MP for Page who has chosen to move to the crossbench, said…

    “Canberra is important, it’s a place where I do my job, lobby ministers and advocate for our community but there are some politicians there, who (after the last week) I will not ever look at in quite the same way again.”

  32. v

    Ha Christopher Pine has been so quite, but not behind the scenes, I wondered why he was making out he was a No Player.

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