Tag Archives: Julia Gillard

Each woman must be assessed

Posted on April 10, 2013 by | 32 Comments

This thing that’s going on lately, where women in public roles are assessed one by one and declared Feminist or Not Feminist, is a bit shit.

Gina Rinehart, Julia Gillard (many articles in The Australian which I’m not linking to), Taylor Swift, Marissa Mayer, Beyonce. And now, Margaret Thatcher (in a piece that fails to explain why being a bad-ass Prime Minister makes her a feminist, but if you’re going to read it, make sure you read this Hadley Freeman one afterwards).

Don’t get me wrong, it is important for feminism to be a natural part of our public discussion. And it’s important that our public discussion includes rad fems and lib fems, because feminism isn’t a monolithic beast. There is still so much to fix and I think we benefit from having different voices focus on reproductive rights, violence, everyday sexism, women in management, equal pay, women’s voices in the media, parenting, and poverty. For one person to fight on every issue would be exhausting. Attack from all sides! But I just think that whether or not individual women identify as feminist is less important than talking about the other shit we have to fix. Besides, holding women up, one by one, for the public to assess them isn’t all that different to the “who wore it better” and “stars without make-up” sections in celebrity magazines.

The thing is, while we’re discussing whether or not Gina Rinehart is a feminist, who’s writing articles about how women account for only 13 per cent of managers in the mining industry, and what can be done to fix that?

While we’re talking about whether or not Julia Gillard is a feminist, who’s writing about the fact that the LNP and ALP support so few female candidates in winnable seats that in federal parliament, women make up 24.7 per cent of the House of Reps and 38.2 per cent of the Senate.

While we’re talking about whether Marissa Mayer is a feminist, or criticising Sheryl Sandberg because her book is for some women and not all women, there’s less space to talk about sexism and misogyny in the tech industry. Yes, these things are talked about on twitter and on blogs, but I mean in the mainstream media so it reaches a wider audience. There is precious little room there so we shouldn’t waste it by judging women who are at the top of male-dominated industries, rather than looking at those industries and why so few women make it to the top.

Over the last 18 months, feminism has become mainstream – largely thanks to the middle-class feminists who are now being mocked for their efforts because apparently, in the she-pee contest about who is doin’ it right and who is doin’ it wrong, being middle-class means your opinion doesn’t count. Are we really going to use income levels to judge who has a right to speak and who doesn’t?

We have a great opportunity here. Feminism isn’t going to be mainstream forever, but while it is, we need to get in there and fix shit.

(There’ll be a delay in pubishing comments this evening – I’ll be at the very first Tipsy Rabbit, a panel discussion with Sevana Ohandjanian, Caitlin Park, and Richard Cartwright talking about music and writing about music. Doors at 7pm for a 7.30pm start, Red Rattler, Marrickville.)

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Posted in Feminism, Journalism

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All the better to see pointless journalism

Posted on January 31, 2013 by | 26 Comments

Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to be blogging a lot about stooopid journalism between now and September 14? I kinda feel bad for the Sydney Morning Herald because I always focus on them, but I don’t read News Ltd rubbish so I don’t blog about their nonsense.

Anyway.

Today’s example of pointless journalism is All the better to see the opposition with, by Judith Ireland and Shelly Horton.

Here’s the story in the paper, on page three:

Story about Julia Gillard's glasses in the Sydney Morning Herald

The large blue photo holds the story

Page three is important real estate. Yet almost half of page three is taken up by this story about the Prime Minister’s glasses. Specifically – ooh, it’s a glasses pun – what people on twitter said about the Prime Minister’s glasses.

It took two journalists.

To write 306 words.

About what three people said on twitter.

As the Adelaide writer and “vampire hunter” Michael Scott Hand posted: “I don’t remember seeing Julia Gillard wearing glasses before. Is it because THIS TIME SHE MEANS BUSINESS?”

Some punters hypothesised that the member for Lalor was courting the youth market with the trendy new accessory. “It seems @JuliaGillard is already campaigning to the hipster voters with those new glasses. Well played,” wrote Kath McLellan of Sydney.

Then again, the glasses were suspiciously similar to the pair sported by the outgoing US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. How hipster could that be?

Justin Colee (who describes himself as pro-carbon tax) had other ideas: “did @JuliaGillard borrow her glasses from Greg Combet?”

But they must be three influential people, right? People with thousands of followers, like @GrogsGamut or @HelenRazer? Nope. Michael Scott Hand has 215 followers. Kath McLellan has 29. And Justin Colee has 19 followers on twitter. Only the tweet by Kath McLellan was retweeted, and that was once. Now, I’m not trying to poo on their sandwiches. I’m just questioning the editorial judgement of using two journalists to write a piss-arse story about what three people said on twitter, and then filling almost half of page three with that piss-arse story.

I’d also like to know if Julia Gillard said anything else during her address to the National Press Club on Wednesday. Because the coverage would indicate that she rocked up, said “Election’s on September 14, bitches” and left.

Here’s how the story is promoted on the smh.com.au homepage:

Smh.com.au makes a big deal out of the PM's glasses

It’s a pair of glasses. Get over it.

The caption under the photo of Julia Gillard reads: “What’s with the glasses? Election announcement plays second fiddle to PM’s specs.”

If a pair of regular, everyday glasses has played second fiddle to the Prime Minister’s address to the National Press Club, then it’s your fault, journalists. So what if a few people tweeted about her glasses? THOSE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE NATIONAL PRESS GALLERY. If you thought the coverage of the last election was bad – and pretty much everyone did – then just wait to see the rubbish the mainstream media will call “news” this time.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think news has to be stuffy and serious all the time. If it’s stuffy and serious then you’re not thinking enough about how you can tell stories. But honestly, this?

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Posted in Journalism, Politics

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The everyday shit they call journalism

Posted on January 24, 2013 by | 50 Comments

There’s a story in the Sydney Morning Herald today that’s a great example of how meaningless political journalism has become. It’s not about a manufactured scandal, or a gaffe, or something that happened decades ago, but is just the everyday political journalism that is, frankly, rubbish.

I don’t think it’s because political journalists are stupid. It’s more that they write for each other and not for the public, and they don’t ever stop to think about what they are actually writing. When I was a journalist, I used to write in journalese, just like every other journalist. Every now and then, the news editor made half-arsed murmurs about not using journalese – like Person A “slammed” Person B, or “Thailand’s restive south” (go on, google that and see the 497,000 results for a phrase that no one but journalists use) – but journalese was only ever seen as particular words, and not the sentences that make up a story.

So, Rudd backers turn on PM for celebrity choice, by Mark Kenny and Jonathan Swan (interestingly, if you look at the URL, the “news story” is filed in opinion…):

The move to parachute the Olympian Nova Peris into Parliament has re-ignited discussion about Julia Gillard’s political judgment and the value of so-called “celebrity” candidates.

Now, the article contains no discussion whatsoever about the “value of so-called “celebrity” candidates”. None. Not a single sentence. The online version includes photos of Cheryl Kernot, Maxine McKew, and John Alexander, without any explanation of why these photos are there. Which is pretty suckful when you consider that the online version is almost permanent and will be the information that other journalists use when they write their stories. The paper version runs a pretty lazy story on the side of the main one, also by Mark Kenny, using these three people as evidence that celebrity candidates don’t work. Kernot shouldn’t be in that list. She was a senator for the Democrats from 1990-1997, then for Labor from 1998-2001. That hardly makes her a celebrity candidate. After all, no one says Billy Hughes was a celebrity candidate and he changed parties five times while in federal parliament, including while he was Prime Minister.

So that leaves McKew (a former ABC journo) and Alexander (a former tennis player). McKew won Bennelong from John Howard in 2007. Alexander won Bennelong from McKew in 2010. I hardly think Kenny’s case is made by one seat. Particularly when you consider Peter Garrett, Andrew Wilkie, Malcolm Turnbull, cyclist Hubert Opperman and cricketer/hockey player Ric Charlesworth all had high profiles before getting into politics and lasted quite a while. (And these are just the recent ones that I’ve found with a quick search. Remember the days when journalists did basic research?)

Anyway, moving along to the bit about how the move has “re-ignited discussion about Julia Gillard’s political judgement”.

But Labor figures loyal to the former prime minister Kevin Rudd rounded on Ms Gillard on Wednesday, calling the drafting of Ms Peris to replace a sitting Labor senator for the Northern Territory “unprecedented”.

Who are these Labor figures? Oh, look, there’s just one:

“Because we are in an election year, most MPs will bite their lips, but people are furious,” said the MP, who wished to remain anonymous.

One. Unnamed. MP.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who didn’t have the guts to put his/her name to his/her words.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who wanted to undermine the PM and asked the journalists to leave out his/her name and they agreed.

One. Unnamed. MP. Who is a bit shitty about something and is using docile, unquestioning journalists to have a bit of a whinge. Can Mark Kenny and Jonathan Swan seriously not see how they are being used? Are they that blind? But I guess “One MP has a bit of a whinge about something” isn’t as exciting as OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO KEEP WRITING ABOUT RUDD IN CASE THE PARTY DUMPS GILLARD AND RETURNS TO RUDD EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO INDICATION THAT ANYONE WANTS THAT BUT MY GOD WE AREN’T GOING TO MISS IT AGAIN.

But wait, there’s more.

In an article about Nova Peris being endorsed as a Labor candidate there is no mention of her suitability. Except this bit:

“Unfortunately Nova doesn’t realise she’s being used by Julia Gillard,” said Michael Anderson, a former leader of the Australian Black Power movement and a founder of the Aboriginal tent embassy.

“Ms Peris-Kneebone is only being used as a public relations exercise for Labor. She has not been involved in major political processes, rallies or otherwise. She has been missing in political action all the time.”

Which is wrong. The journalists should have indicated that Anderson was wrong, not only for using her old name (she hasn’t been Peris-Kneebone in over a decade), but for having no fucking idea what he is talking about. Nova Peris was awarded the Order of Australia, she was a treaty ambassador for ATSIC, she created the Peris Enterprises charity to promote health and education for Indigenous children, then there’s the Nova Peris Girls Academy. And she was an international ambassador for the World Health Organisation (for youth suicide prevention), and a national ambassador for Reconciliation Australia, and a delegate to the National Constitution Convention, and a national patron for Beyond Blue. And here’s a list of 17 things she’s been involved in that make her one of the best candidates for political office that I’ve seen in a long time.

I found this information in less than one minute. Yet Kenny and Swan didn’t even make a basic effort to point out that Anderson is completely wrong. They published his ignorance/lie, playing in to the narrative of Nova Peris being an unskilled celebrity candidate who will no doubt crash and burn and it will be ALL JULIA GILLARD’S FAULT.

I started this post by saying Kenny and Swan’s story is a pretty bad example of political journalism. But now that I’ve dissected it, and seen how lazy and how wrong the story is, I’ve changed my mind. It’s fucking appalling journalism and they should be ashamed of themselves.

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Posted in Journalism, Politics

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On wanting the PM to be everything

Posted on December 14, 2012 by | 28 Comments

When Julia Gillard became PM – and it wasn’t because she “knifed him” as the MSM mindlessly repeats, but because the majority of the ALP decided that she’d be better than Kevin Rudd – I got very excited.

Very.

excited

I’m not a Labor voter, but I was so very very pleased that we FINALLY had a woman as Prime Minister.

And even though I disagree with the ALP on lots of issues (like their breathtakingly cruel asylum seeker stance) I think Julia Gillard is doing a pretty good job. Particularly faced with a hostile/stupid media who are being taken for a ride by the Opposition and who berate the Government for not being able to get their message across when at every policy announcement they ask the same questions about leadership, the latest Opposition beat-up and blah blah blah. Seriously, political journos have no idea how silly they look to the rest of us.

Of course, as a woman in power, she is being held to an impossibly high standard. If she isn’t considered The World’s Greatest Leader by people on both sides of politics then it will be taken by many as “proof” that she wasn’t a very good PM. Which, apart from being fucked, is fucking ridiculous.

Anyway, I realised something on Saturday. (It was during a pub lunch that started with tequila and finished with me ranting at my poor friend at 2am, so be kind.)

A lot of us want Australia’s first female Prime Minister to be AMAZING. We want her to make Australia a better place so we can point and say, “See? She did that”. We want her to implement marriage equality, save the environment, pump funding into public education, end homelessness, increase support for people on low incomes, and to do all these things even if the rest of the ALP doesn’t support them.

In other words, we want the leader of the ALP to be an autocratic Green.

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Posted in Feminism, Politics

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A story about nothing

Posted on August 6, 2012 by | 22 Comments

I love how when you’re thinking about something, you tend to notice examples of it around you. This morning I read ‘Young people, politics and television current affairs in Australia’ by Evans and Sternberg (ref below) and came across this bit:

… young adults also feel it is not worth investing time in television current affairs because any political information received from the programs is usually trivialised and played for entertainment value, (1999, p. 105).

And then I read this article by Jacqueline Maley, in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: Gay marriage pledge puts pressure on PM:

THE Prime Minister is again under pressure on the issue of gay marriage as the Labor Premier of Tasmania, Lara Giddings, said she would face down any constitutional challenge of proposed legislation for same-sex marriage in her state.

To get all Journalism 101 on you (and apologies to those who know this), Australian journalists use the “inverted pyramid” model of reporting, in which the first sentence is supposed to give the audience the most important information, and everything after that fills out the story with more detail.

Maley’s first sentence suggests that Julia Gillard has threatened a constitutional challenge. But she hasn’t. According to the story:

The Greens called upon Ms Gillard to rule out a constitutional challenge to the Tasmanian legislation but she did not.

“We don’t have any details on [the Tasmanian gay marriage bill], so it’s far too early for anything like that,” she said.

In other words, she’s not going to comment on a bill she hasn’t seen. Which, frankly, is the appropriate response. You can’t possibly give an informed response to something you haven’t read.

Every time I read about a politician refusing to “rule out” something, I know the story is going to be rubbish. Our group-think political journalists are hooked on the “rule out” game, because it’s a really easy (ie, lazy) way to create controversy. If someone refuses to rule something out, the headline breathlessly implies that the politician is being cagey BECAUSE THEY REFUSED TO RULE IT OUT. If the politician does rule it out and then later changes the policy, then GOTCHA! YOU RULED IT OUT SO YOU’RE A BIG DIRTY LIAR AND THAT WE’VE CAUGHT YOU IN YOUR BIG DIRTY LIE MEANS WE’RE DOING OUR JOBS PROPERLY. The idea that a politician should rule something out forever and ever amen, even if the situation changes, is terrifying (check out the scariest graph in the world).

The Greens know journos love the “rule out” game and journos dutifully played right along.

The story is 548 words. The last 129 words are on leadership bullshit, so we can immediately delete them. And there’s 107 on Cairns getting the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in 2014, so we can delete that too. What we’re left with is 312 words about a constitutional challenge that no one has proposed, to legislation that may or may not even be drafted, that happens to be different to two pieces of federal legislation that are not named or explained (the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2012 and the Marriage Amendment Bill 2012 for more info), and no mention of when the two parliaments will deal with the relevant bills that might trigger the constitutional challenge that no one has proposed. If the purpose of the news media is to inform the audience, then that’s a massive fail.

Now, back to that first sentence, about how Gillard is “again under pressure on the issue of gay marriage”. As she says in the story:

“The Marriage Act is a federal law and we do have a bill before the federal Parliament dealing with same-sex marriage,” the Prime Minister told reporters in Cairns. “I determined that this should be a conscience vote for the Labor Party and people will be free to determine how they vote.”

So, the pressure we’re talking about is pressure for Gillard to change her personal opinion. There are two options here:

1. Journalists are trying to get Gillard to change her opinion on marriage equality because ending discrimination is the right thing to do. But if ending discrimination is the goal, then they should be pressuring Abbott to allow a conscience vote because that would ensure the bill’s success. Journalists couldn’t be so stupid as to think that Gillard changing her personal view is all that’s needed for the bill to succeed, could they?

2. Journalists have already written their BACKFLIP!!!!!!!! stories and really, really want to publish them. And then Abbott will say something about how women change their minds and so can’t be trusted, and then the journos will write about how feminists have “branded the Opposition Leader’s comments as sexist”, and then they’ll get to write about leadership tensions because the PM changed her mind and hey look, there’s another week in which they don’t have to do their jobs properly.

From the Maley story:

Ms Gillard would not countenance a question on the security of her leadership, saying: “I can’t be bothered with any of that today.”

Neither can we, Prime Minister. Neither can we.

References:
Evans, V. & Sternberg, J. (1999), ‘Young people, politics and television current affairs in Australia’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 23, no. 63, pp. 103-109.

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Germaine Greer and body-shaming

Posted on March 21, 2012 by | 47 Comments

Germaine Greer is a professional shit-stirrer. She wasn’t the only feminist in the 70s (and onwards) yelling loudly about the need to treat women like real people, but she was one of the loudest. And for that, Australian women owe a lot to her. (Even those who think feminism is bad.)

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call her on it when she body-shames someone. We should always call people on that shit.

Here’s the footage from Monday’s QandA. Everything she said up until 1.16 was great. And then, well, that’s what this post is about:

(Miranda Devine illogically says that Greer’s comments mean ALL FEMINISM IS A SHAM. But that’s what News Ltd pays her for, and I don’t pay very much attention to her. Check out Clementine Ford on that one.)

Greer is not a perfect feminist. I don’t think there are perfect feminists and we shouldn’t hold someone up and say, “See! This one’s perfect!”. I’m certainly not a perfect feminist. The other day, when Lady A told me she was having a little boy, I said that her (very active) partner must be happy about that since he’ll have someone to be all fit and active with. And then corrected myself, because seriously, what a dumb thing to say. And when I walk down the street, for all my talk about body acceptance, I still secretly compare my body to other bodies and feel better when I decide that some body part of mine is better than some body part of someone else’s. It’s stupid. The size of my arse hasn’t stopped me getting a degree and a masters, doing a doctorate, having loads of wonderful funny smart friends, and having a fabulous relationship with The Most Awesome Man In The World. The power of popular culture is a hard one to fight. But every time I catch myself doing these things, I make an effort to correct it and to not do it again. To be a better feminist.

I’m not excusing what Greer said. Not at all. It is completely unacceptable to use a public forum to make negative comments about someone else’s body. It is even more unacceptable when you’re adding those negative comments to a discussion about their professional life. And it is worse for a celebrated feminist to make such a comment than it is for Joe Douchebag to make it. None of us are perfect feminists but that doesn’t mean feminism is faulty. Nor does it mean that when a feminist says something stupid, other feminists should just say, “oh, it’s ok, she’s a feminist, we’ll let that one go”. And that is how we all get a little bit better*.

* and take down the patriarchy

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Posted in Celebrity, Feminism

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But they’re women, they should be nice

Posted on March 4, 2012 by | 47 Comments

In The Fitz Files today, Peter Fitzsimons wonders why Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop – two women with pretty much the only thing in common being that they have good jobs – can’t be nice to each other:

The venom between them is palpable, the delight they take in putting each other down in Parliament very obviously personal. One might have thought that as two accomplished women who are political pioneers, there might be at least a whiff of fellow feeling on the journey. And yet, quite the reverse. What is that about?

Now, leaving aside the fact that “accomplished” is never used to describe men who have good jobs, it’s disappointing that Fitzsimons sees respect in the Gillard-Abbott arguments – Despite their political divisions, it was so apparent that they respected the other’s political nous and abilities – but when it’s two women whose jobs require them to argue with each other, he says it’s personal.

Sure, politics is a tough gig for women. But saying that two women on opposing sides should be nice to each other simply because they’re women doing tough jobs suggests a rather shallow view of women. No one says that men must be nice to each other at work, that being nice is more important than whether they are good at their jobs, yet women still have to put up with this crap.

Pulling the ‘women should be nice’ card also ignores the reason why it’s a tough job for women: the mainstream media treats female politicians differently. Particularly columnists, who focus on the personal rather than the professional. I don’t regularly read his column so I could be wrong, but it’s unlikely that he’d write, “Hey, Rudd and Abbott both believe in God, why aren’t they BFFs?” Or “Bob Brown and Scott Morrison are both blokes, why aren’t they best buddies?”

When Kristina Kenneally became NSW Premier, a male colleague asked me if I was going to vote for her because she’s a woman. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you vote for a male politician because he’s a man?
Him: No, of course not.
Me: Then don’t insult me with such a stupid question.

And it is insulting to suggest that women would vote for a party simply because ooh look, vagina. It’s just as insulting to suggest that women should be nice to each other simply because they are women. Not to mention the sexism in suggesting that women need to be nice. Now, I don’t believe that Fitzsimons is sexist, so I’m looking forward to reading his thoughts on why Abbott and Rudd aren’t besties. Because what is that about?

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Four powerful women is like Ladies’ Day at the races

Posted on October 20, 2011 by | 39 Comments

You had to know I’d be blogging about this nonsense from Tony Wright today: Ladies in waiting for Queen’s visit.

He’s talking about the Prime Minister, the Governor-General and the Chief Minister of the ACT. And yes, I know he didn’t write the headline, but a lady in waiting is an Elizabethan era PA to the Queen or Princess. Hardly the role played by these three women.

AS ROYAL visits go, it was ladies’ day: the Queen, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister of the ACT.

Yes, the PM, the GG and the ACT’s highest-ranked politician greeting the Queen is just like a racing club having free entry for women on one day so they can enter a fashion competition because women are only interested in clothes, and because if lots of women are there, then men who don’t normally go are more likely to turn up and spend their money on overpriced booze and horses they know nothing about, and so Fairfax and News Ltd can run condescending photo galleries the next day of drunk women so all their readers can talk about what slappers they are while peering for flashes of undies. He’s right, you know. It’s exactly like that.

The powerful women gathered on the tarmac at Canberra’s Fairbairn RAAF base, their husbands and partner relegated to bit players.

Oh noes! Men are just “bit players” because their ladies took the important jobs from them. Quick, someone get a glib comment Tony Abbott about what women need to understand as they do the housework.

The Governor-General, Quentin Bryce – a symphony in pink to the Queen’s quieter aqua – offered a curtsey. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in sensible navy two-piece suit, bent her head a bit in what might have been construed as a bow.

As @popebrentus pointed out on twitter, no one has to curtsy for the Queen. But, predictably, we’ll now have curtsygate. This will be The Most Important Thing that journalists talk about today. Oh look, News.com.au is already on the case:

News.com.au curtsygate

OMG, Gillard did nothing wrong, that's the WORST THING EVER! It's time to call an election.

Wouldn’t it be nice if journalists actually checked the facts before ducking from those falling bits of sky?

(Update 11.20am: Since we’re talking about News.com.au, they’ve “moved the story on” to “Gillard defends” – which apparently took the news ed, a journo and a wire service to write, yet we all know the un-bylined AAP writer did the heavy lifting – but yet still no one bothered to check what the protocol actually is.

Update 3pm: The Age has also moved the story on:

Still no one at The Age has checked the facts

Still no one at The Age has checked the facts

But they’re presenting it as “Gillard claims” she did not break protocol. This is despite many people tweeting the link to the Royal homepage dealing with protocol, which very clearly states that a handshake is fine. When your whole story hangs off whether or not someone has to curtsy, you’d think the very first thing you’d do was check if it was true. If it’s too late and you’ve already published, then you make the story quietly disappear from your homepage and hope Media Watch and The Hamster Wheel don’t mock you too hard. *mumble mumble, fuckin’ amateurs in newsrooms*)

Also, I look forward to Tony Wright mentioning all those grey, navy and charcoal suits that men in positions of power wear when they meet.

Ms Bryce’s husband, Michael, and Ms Gillard’s partner, Tim Mathieson, stood by, while Prince Philip trailed his wife by a step or two. Yes. Ladies’ day.

Yes. Complete sexist nonsense from the national affairs editor of The Age that was front page news in two states.

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Posted in Journalism, Language, Sexism

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Meanwhile, over breakfast in the News Nips household

Posted on August 22, 2011 by | 112 Comments

Me: Pah! The people did vote. Just because you don’t like the outcome doesn’t mean we should have another election. We had to put up with Howard for ten years.
ManFriend: Yeah, suck it up, princesses.

Convoy of No Confidence

Indignant dude in the Convoy of No Confidence. Picture: Stefan Postles/SMH

Signs like this one crack me up. We did vote. And we’re not going to do it again just because you don’t like the winner.

Years ago, an ant bit me on the bum while I was in bed. ManFriend laughed so hard and said the look of indignation on my face was fantastic. That’s what this “Convoy of No Confidence” stuff is like. Being bitten on the bum by an ant. You’ll get over it, but it feels better if you throw a little tanty.

Yes, they should rally. If they want to spend their money to protest over having to spend a little more money to make our environment cleaner, then go for it. (Although I have to laugh at Nick and Fluff Weckert who spent $3000 on fuel driving from Port Lincoln to Canberra to protest over the rising cost of living.)

If they want to demand a new election, then go for that too. But it doesn’t mean we should have one. Particularly when the 2010 election cost us $161 million. And particularly when their argument is “the politician is a liar so let’s have another election”. If we had to have another election every time a politician said one thing and then said another – or broke a core or non-core promise and thankyouverymuch John Howard for that slimy contribution to political discourse – then we’d be at the polls every fucking weekend. It would bankrupt us.

Sure, Labor went to the last election saying there’d be no action on climate change, which is why I didn’t vote for them. But minority governments change the game. It’s called compromise. You know, that thing you arrive at after negotiating with the people you have to form government with. The people who were voted in by lots of other people. Deal with it. Besides, it’s no different to the “never ever” GST. Many politicians will say anything to get into power and I can’t believe people are whining “oh, but they liiiiiiieeeeedddddd”. I don’t recall any pro-Abbott fans protesting over his constant changes of mind. His political opportunism is embarrassing and makes me think his supporters must be stupid. Or selfish. Probably both.

But I do have to laugh at the sign above: “Let’s take our country back”. That’s exactly how I felt in the lead up to the 2007 election when it became clear that we’d finally be able to take our country back from the Coalition and their mean-spirited policies.

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Posted in Politics, Tony Abbott

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Making mountains out of Gaga molehills

Posted on July 12, 2011 by | 28 Comments

The Australian MSM can be pretty parochial when it comes to visiting celebrities. Embarrassingly so. But this Herald Sun story – being run on all News Ltd sites, of course – is a complete beat up: Lady Gaga’s Gillard gaffe in Tracy Grimshaw interview:

LADY Gaga was almost engulfed in a political storm during her interview with Tracy Grimshaw last night.

In a case of mistaken sexuality, the pop diva assumed Prime Minister Julia Gillard was a lesbian after an ambiguous question from the ACA veteran, the Herald Sun reported.

Grimshaw apparently “asked the pro-gay-marriage singer if she thought Gillard was hypocritical living with her partner in The Lodge but also banning homosexual unions”.

Firstly, the question doesn’t even make sense. How is it hypocritical to live in a heterosexual relationship if you don’t support marriage equality?

Secondly, the language of the question implies that Gillard is gay. There’s nothing “ambiguous” about that.

And thirdly, do we really expect a visiting pop star to know the sexual orientation of our Prime Minister? After all, the Dalai Lama thought the PM was male, and he meets Australian politicians a lot.

But the question was clearly playing on the Born this Way star’s mind, and she double-checked with Grimshaw once the cameras were off if the PM was in fact gay.

So, Gaga doesn’t actually think Gillard is gay – she was simply responding to the question which implied that she was. Sorry News Ltd, there’s not really a story here. Unless you want to use all of your Australian websites to insinuate that the Prime Minister is gay.

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Posted in Celebrity, Journalism, Politics

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