Ok, this is one of those times when people are going to say that I just don’t get it!
They’re probably right. But if men like me don’t keep saying things that are wrong, who will be left to disagree with?
Anyway, I suddenly had this thought about the whole Michelle Landry and all those who marched out to support her after she was so upset that she left the chamber in tears.
Now, people who watched the interaction seemed a little confused because the footage seemed to show her laughing. And it was clear that Anthony Albanese was responding to Peter Dutton’s interjection and that he even said that he was sure that the Member for Capricornia (Landry) would know that there’s a difference between Yeppoon and Yeppen.
So we’re left wondering – given that this shouting and mocking was enough to reduce someone to tears – how we’d have reacted if it were Peter Dutton who left and said that he was reduced to tears.
Now, I want to make it quite clear that I’m not mocking a man who’s reduced to tears over something…
And I also want to make it quite clear that I’m not supporting the bullying of women…
So what am I left with?
The whole episode raises two important questions. The first relates to the idea that we’d be pretty shocked if Peter Dutton did tell us that the “bullying” by Anthony Albanese was so bad he was reduced to tears…
“Reduced to tears”. That’s a pretty interesting phrase when you think about it. It suggests that somehow tears reduce us to something lesser than we are.
Anyway, we’d be pretty surprised that what Albanese said was enough to have the Opposition leader in tears and we’d think that it was well a bit weak and we’d wonder about his fitness for the role. I mean compared to some of the actual behind the scenes bullying of Bridget Archer and others, Albanese’s mocking was fairly consistent with what’s considered robust debate. Maybe we should have less robust debate and more intelligent discussion, but if – for example – we compare it to Josh (Who?) Frydenberg’s attack on Jim Chalmers for suggesting a wellbeing measure, it was fairly mild.
So that raises the first question: Do we just accept that women should be treated differently because they’re women? Nobody said, “Harden up, princess!” which I’m sure would have been the response if Dutton had called the press conference to tell us all how upset he was…
Like I said, as a male, I’m not going to be able to understand what it’s like to be a woman in her position, and I certainly don’t support the bullying of women. But I don’t support the bullying of men either, so I’m just putting it out there that it’s strange that the issue was all around whether Albo was talking to Landry or Dutton and that nobody pointed out that mocking an inaccurate interjection was hardly the stuff that makes the public go, “Wow, this is far worse than Morrison getting stuck into Christina Holgate, or the way the Liberals attacked Gillian Triggs. We certainly understand why all the Coalition came out to condemn this after being silent so many other times.”
But there’s a second question that this whole issue raises:
Is the Opposition working on the theory that what worked in the past should be the template for the future?
It seems that they’ve taken a pinch of Tony Abbott where they blame Labor for everything and do as much as possible to make things worse so that everyone else will blame Labor too. When the Coalition say that if they were in government, they’d cut spending, but interviewers rarely ask them where exactly they’d do that. And when Labor does actually cut some, LNP MPs like Michelle Landry ask accusatory questions in Question Time that educate us all on the difference between Yeppen and Yeppoon.
Then they’ve looked at what worked for Labor so they’ve added the tactics that were employed against Scott Morrison:
- The PM is big on announcements but poor on delivery. (A little early in the term to try this on Labor. Even the $275 reduction in energy prices was by 2025. Ok, there’s probably no way they’ll get there, but it’s a bit early to be calling it a broken promise!)
- He always goes missing in a crisis. (Again, a bit hard to make this one stick because there’s a difference between taking Jenandthegirls on a Hawaiian holiday and attending the funerals of world leaders and attending conferences.)
- He doesn’t have a good understanding of the issues affecting women and there’s a culture of bullying in Parliament which he’s doing nothing to fix.
They might be tactics that eventually work but at the moment it seems like it’ll need more than fine-tuning. I mean, it could work to attack Kevin Rudd as a nerdy, academic type who’s spent too much time in Canberra, but I don’t think the same attack would work on Pauline Hanson… although she has spent a large part of her life in Canberra and I’d actually suggest that any time she’s spent in Canberra is too much!
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Right on the nose.
What is the difference between a squirt of intrusive soft shit and Peter Duckwit-Futton trying to be sensible? Is it that the noise is incomprehensible, sinister, barely obvious, betrayed by oral and nasal accusation? Opposition is so suitable for a permanent opposer and one must agree that Duckwit-Futton’s opposability is there, clear and obvious and should go back retrospectively to before his birth, which one might well oppose as a bad idea. We are still sweeping up muck, encrusted and hardened, from the disastrous run of Abbott (Ugghh), Turnbull (Hmmnn) and Morrison (Pphhaarrkk) yet male and female opposition figures, some regressive, solidly hypocritical and even stubbornly anti-civilisation, it would seem, are there demanding some imaginary payout now when THEY DID IT. This opposition was recently a foul and selfcentred nonperforming government of unwiped orifices, and, do not ever forget that as we seek revenge and restitution and some progress, at LAST.
Liberal women are a different breed from the rest. They are princesses who grew up in comfort and have always had anything they want by batting their eyelids. Now many of them are experiencing opposition for the first time, and they can’t stand it. I bet half of them will find reasons to resign by the next election.
Given Tony Abbott’s predilection for weird behaviour, a la fruit & vegetable consumption, just wondering if after Landry gave him the pineapple he went off and munched into it, outer skin ‘n all, like some ravenous neanderthal?
Sadly Rossleigh this is a disappointing article about a disappointing non-entity that was re-elected after a disappointing term as Minister for what?
But consider for a moment (no longer please) the lack of community concern shown by Australian voters in Dickson, too many of whom reflect the too few positive attributes of their elected representative of the COALition.
The on-going plot remains disappointing except that Boofhead appears to has been elected Leader for Life of His Majesty’s Opposition as there are only even more untalented members of the COALition to challenge for the position.
“Is the Opposition working on the theory that what worked in the past should be the template for the future?”
Given that they’re doubling down on the increasing rightward shift, quite obviously so.
The PM was not mocking Dutton. He was correcting an incorrect statement made more than once. Albanese initially ignored Dutton, but Dutton insisted on continually repeating it. The PM had to raise his voice as the house was rowdy. It took Dutton a while to realise he was wrong. Laugher was all around, Michelle’s continuous.
I wonder how many people are reduced to tears,of rage, every time the Au pair sponsor flaps his regrettable gob,Same goes for Bucketmouth
Taylor,the WA Broom Pilot and the remainder bin of the Lying Nasty Party.The act they’re persisting with got them a drubbing at the last election,but apparently the voting public misunderstood them.Or maybe the electoral commission can’t count.One can only conclude that Dutton and his henchpeople are exceedingly stupid.Not to mention ugly of disposition and insulting.Must be a preponderance of displaced South African farmers in Dickson.
Noted the comment from Florence that it was not so much Albo mocking Dutton but Dutton time wasting again. And Landry talking nonsense again.
Landry had to smile at Albo’s Yeppen/Yeppoon summary, but what as the silly prank from that bedraggled bunch of superannuated Mean Girls doing the whinge at the doorstep?
Don’t these people have ANY pride?
so, although she was laughing at the time, she later became so upset that she left in tears?
a trifle confected to me,
maybe someone pointed out to her how egregious it all was and that she should have reacted appropriately so as to blacken Albo’s reputation, yet somehow once again the media jumps in all outraged now it is about Labor
as if there is nothing better to report
Tears of laughter. What a pantomime!
The girls, saying good morning to you all.
Never seen a more repulsive line up of hatchet faced hypocrites..can’t understand why they got the bum’s rush.
Dutton’s chorus line of shit actors…what a joke.Get another job Spud,your talents are wasted in politics.Chief turd stirrer at a poop farm is more your speed.
Blockhead dutton was trying to make himself look intelligent by claiming that Anthony Albanese had followed Botty’s example with calling Canada “Canadia” by claiming that he was mispronouncing “Yeppoon”. Anthony Albanese was in fact talking about two different places. All dutton did was make a prat of himself, which isn’t hard.