I swear, you could not make this stuff up.
Late yesterday it was revealed that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton sent a text describing journalist Samantha Maiden as “that mad f*cking witch” to, wait for it, the “mad f*cking witch” herself, in error. (True)
Apparently he was in a crowded bar after a hard day, the hour was late and he was far from home. A passing femme fatale brushed up against him with her ample breast, and his finger slipped as he was scrolling through his contacts list. (I made that bit up.)
This next bit is true, based on the information we’ve been given. Dutton’s text was meant for Jamie Briggs, who lost his ministerial portfolio only hours earlier after allegedly sexually harassing a subordinate in a crowded bar after a long day when he was far from home and she pierced him with her eyes.
Maiden had just published a column critical of Briggs’ behaviour and apparently Dutton’s text was in response to that criticism, and intended to give Briggs support in his time of trouble. After all, what man needs to listen to the opinions of a mad f*cking witch?
Dutton was a member of the governance sub-committee who unanimously decided Briggs had to go, so his vehement disagreement with Maiden’s opinion appears, at first blush, odd. But we are used to odd from the Immigration Minister, aren’t we.
By now Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who seems to have retreated to his multi-million dollar bunker with harbour views to have a good think, might be wishing he’d stayed in merchant banking, as one cabinet minister after another redefines the outer limits of sleaze, sexism, and stupid.
These things frequently, like Tony Abbott’s slogans (and the witches in Macbeth, lololololol) come in threes, so who will be next? I’m keeping my fingers crossed it’s Scott Morrison.
It must be a source of great frustration for Turnbull that his ministers are unable to keep their contempt for women in check, given his recent blatherings on the need for men to show respect towards us as the first step in ending epidemic proportions of violence against us. Ordered by their leader to control their primitive urges, Briggs and Dutton have finally broken bad with the sense of entitlement and contemptuous verbal abuse we are now seeing is the default position of LNP males towards women.
Sooner or later it’s going to sink in that while they might get away with all manner of perfidy, the time when they can abuse women and get away with it is rapidly coming to an end. Or they’ll die out, like the dinosaurs they are, in the unstoppable onslaught of the Mad F*cking Witches’ meteoric wrath.
I cannot wait to see how The Australian journalist Chris Kenny writes up this latest episode. Kenny is a great believer in taking legal action against those who cause him offence. Some of you may remember the controversial suggestion made by The Chaser some years ago that Kenny was a dog f*cker, the raising of which possibility landed them in court and caused the ABC to humbly apologise for any tasteless insinuations of bestiality. Logically, Kenny ought to be urging Maiden and the woman in the Hong Kong bar with piercing eyes to call their lawyers, though Kenny and logic are really not words that should appear in the same sentence.
Here’s the thing. It’s very straightforward. Don’t touch us without permission. Don’t verbally abuse us, especially if you don’t know how to send a text. This is what respect means, you dumb f*cking warlocks, and if you can’t get your cabbage heads around that come here, and let me pierce you with my eyes. I’m a witch. My gaze is fatal.
This article was originally published on No Place For Sheep.