From Turnbull to Morrison by Mark Evans Michelle Grattan Brendan McCaffrie

Author:Mark Evans, Michelle Grattan, Brendan McCaffrie [Mark Evans, Michelle Grattan, Brendan McCaffrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Australia & New Zealand, Political Science, World, Australian & Oceanian, General
ISBN: 9780522876147
Google: -caqDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2019-08-23T00:47:27+00:00

Bully boys and princess girls

While sexual innuendo and slut-shaming are overtly used against women in politics, it is perhaps the rolling claims of covert bullying of women MPs that will emerge as the legacy of 2018. Such claims came to a head immediately after the Turnbull–Morrison leadership spill, in which the so-called ‘people’s choice’ for leader, the popular and long-serving Deputy Leader and Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, was effectively shunned by her party, receiving only 11 out of 85 Caucus votes.1 By late February 2019, Bishop could see there was no future in parliament for a smart, loyal woman with more ministerial and leadership experience than any of the men on the government’s team, so she quit. As far as strategic statements go, it was a stunner. ‘Ultimately, Julie Bishop is the collateral damage of the Liberal Party’s macho politics’, wrote long-time Bishop observer Katrina Lee-Koo (2018). Famed for her fashion sense, often weaponised as political statement, the woman referred to as ‘one of the most successful Australian parliamentarians’ strutted towards a media pack on the day she announced her resignation as Foreign Minister, wearing bright-red, bejewelled heels (Williams 2019). It was a magnificent ‘Dorothy in Oz’ moment, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only woman secretly hoping Bishop would click those heels! Then, on the day she quit parliament, another snappy act of symbolism: Bishop’s choice of a crisp white dress was quickly interpreted by the media as a nod to the suffragette movement, with all of its pioneer and women’s warrior connotations (Murphy 2019a). But for a woman who shunned feminism (Ireland 2014), the ‘white shield’ was perhaps more about a personal crusade, a flag of purity and Bishop’s private claim to political integrity, in the midst of some of the worst testosterone-fuelled nastiness Australian politics has delivered (post that endured by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard from 2010 to 2013).

Once free of Cabinet’s shackles, Bishop began to speak her mind, telling an audience of women at a Women’s Weekly event that the bullying in federal parliament would not be ‘tolerated in any other workplace across Australia’ (Hutchens 2018). And just in case there was any doubt as to whether or not this was a gendered issue, Bishop elaborated on the ‘embarrassing circus’ of parliament led by her male colleagues. ‘I have seen and witnessed and experienced some appalling behaviour in parliament’, she said, as she mounted a defence of her Liberal colleagues Julia Banks and Senator Lucy Gichuhi, who had both made claims of bullying and intimidation by male colleagues (Murphy 2019b). ‘When a feisty, amazing woman like Julia Banks says this environment is not for me, don’t say “Toughen up, Princess”’, Bishop told the enthralled audience. ‘Say: “Enough is enough”’ (Hutchens 2018).

Banks’ sudden and dramatic resignation from the Liberal Party in late November 2018 had delivered a knockout blow, as she slammed what she called a ‘scourge of cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation’ of women in parliament (Karp 2018). And as if to underscore

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