By Andrew Bolt ~
Yesterday, the Speaker of the Australian Federal Government’s House Of Representatives, Peter Slipper was embroiled in controversy over the most foul and disgusting phone text messages which unbelievably denigrated women. There was a vote to remove him as Speaker, and the Labor Government, especially all their women members, voted in favour of keeping Slipper as the Speaker, in effect, saying that they thought that what he said was OK. Despite bashing Opposition Leader Tony Abbott for his so called misogynist attitude, they supported the Speaker, who has admitted that the texts are in fact true, and he did say those disgusting things. Because of those numbers in favour of the Labor Government, including three Independents, the vote went in favour of keeping Slipper as the Speaker. Slipper later resigned as the House Speaker…..TonyfromOz.
Former Speaker Australian House Of Representatives Peter Slipper
Once again, Julia Gillard’s judgement has proved catastrophic.
So desperate to cling to power by boosting its numbers in the House of Representatives by one extra vote, the Gillard government appointed a man who should never have been Speaker. And then when Slipper’s reputation was completely ruined by revelations of his outrageously lewd texts to staffer James Ashby, the Julia Gillard could immediately have taken the high ground, condemned Slipper’s vulgar behaviour and demanded he resign.
That didn’t happen. It was left to Slipper to do one right thing by the office of Speaker. He resigned. And the Prime Minister is left looking like a goose. She will now struggle to be taken seriously about the very serious issue of misogyny. Double standards don’t get much worse than this.
JULIA GILLARD confronted a stark choice yesterday – the political defence of her parliamentary numbers, or the defence of the principle of respect for women.
She chose to defend her numbers. She chose power over principle. It was the wrong choice. It was an unprincipled decision and turned out not to be pragmatic either. The Prime Minister gained nothing and lost a great deal…
The moment Gillard rose to defend Slipper and keep him in office, she chose to defend the indefensible, to excuse the inexcusable.
I do understand the arguments of those who argued against me…
The really troubling implication of this showdown is that Gillard will now mispresent any criticims of her peformance and the performance of her government as examples of sexism and misogyny. She will play this card, even if it is the lowest trick in the book, constantly portraying herself as a helpless victim. A sad day for feminism.
Come off, Julia. I say just suck it up.
IS it possible for a political party and a prime minister to have more egg on their collective faces than Labor and Julia Gillard do right now? Having fought to the last man (and woman) to defend his right to remain Speaker of the House of Representatives, Peter Slipper himself resigned last night… It was a sight to behold watching the conga-line of female Labor MPs vote to retain Slipper as Speaker after so many of them have condemned Abbott for causing offence to women.
Rather than taking the initiative and leaving Slipper to fall on his sword, Labor went to full-blooded battle and tried to make political gains in its obsessive war on the Liberal leader.
When it was obvious to everyone that the new trove of degrading sexual texts unearthed in court meant Slipper’s career was over and that Labor should take the lead in his removal to justify its high moral stance on sexism and denigration of women, the Prime Minister dug in.
The moral of the Slipper saga goes back to its beginning. The government wooed Slipper in a highly cynical exercise to improve its numbers. Not only was he a Liberal ‘’rat’’, but he was a ‘’rat’’ with a bad reputation.
The government thought it a great coup, but all it got was a huge load of trouble.
THE entire rotten edifice the government has created to smear Tony Abbott as a vile sexist misogynist came crashing down yesterday in Question Time.
After weeks of taking high umbrage at imagined instances of misogyny emanating from the muscular Opposition leader, yesterday the Prime Minister and her sanctimonious sycophants, such as Tony Windsor, voted to protect an actual proven misogynist.
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
Andrew Bolt’s columns appear in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Advertiser. He runs the most-read political blog in Australia and hosts Channel 10’s The Bolt Report each Sunday at 10am, and his book Still Not Sorry remains very widely read.
Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog . http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/
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Posted on Wed 10/10/2012 by papundits
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