Another day, another dismal reminder of what appears to be a gangrenous affliction in conservative politics: an entrenched culture of woman-hating.
Please observe, just this week, the singular viciousness unleashed upon Julie Bishop for her role in the Malcolm Turnbull ascendancy. Alternatively, collect up the bile poured upon Peta Credlin as those on the losing side of the spill seek out a scapegoat to blame. For good measure, record a colleague’s instruction to Kelly O’Dwyer that she should “express more milk” rather than leave the parliament to breastfeed her child.
They’re symptoms of a disease apparently widespread. Consider now the extraordinary scenes in the Northern Territory parliament on Wednesday: a government minister from the Coalition’s local iteration, the Country Liberal party, decided that it was appropriate to tell an opposition MP that he felt like slapping her.
It was an extraordinary scene, in the context of a debate that itself deserves far more scrutiny: a proposal to grant NT police the power to search any person’s car without a warrant, ostensibly to investigate possible distribution channels for supply of the drug ice.
This was no feral backbencher making a gaffe, but John Elferink, the attorney general. What’s more, he’d already thumped his fists upon a table to interrupt an opposing speech from Labor MLA Lynne Walker, before adopting a disturbingly cooler tone to say of Labor’s Natasha Fyles: “Yeah, look I’m really tempted to give her a slap right now, figuratively speaking of course...”.
The episode was shocking and prompted eight women to walk out of the parliament with the support of a ninth. More shocking, however, is that this kind of misogynistic behaviour is nothing new. Four female CLP MLAs have resigned from the party and joined the cross bench in the past 18 months, former deputy leader Robyn Lambley among them.
The eight women who walked out on Thursday said it was to condemn the sexist “bullying and intimidation” to which they’d been subjected. In a parliament of 25, eight walking out is no small number. The only two female MLAs who did not join them were the two who remain in the CLP.
“Women across the NT, women across Australia should not accept this behaviour,” Walker said. “My position in the CLP parliamentary wing became untenable due to this type of behaviour,” Lambley added.
It took a whole day for Elferink to even apologise, which chief minister Adam Giles decided was sufficient. Increasing calls for Elferink to resign are unlikely to be heeded – treasurer David Tollner of the CLP accused the women of “victimhood” and declared, “I certainly wouldn’t have (apologised), I would have said ‘toughen up, princess, this is politics.’”
If “this is politics” for the CLP, it’s got dire implications for the NT under their government. A blithe, laidback attitude towards violence amid government ministers is of deep concern given that the Northern Territory has five times the rate of homicide of any state or territory in Australia.
Specifically, it has the highest rate of domestic violence against women in Australia, and that of the domestic murder of women as well. Now, consider that Elferink is not only attorney general, but minister for children and families, too, while Tollner, as treasurer, is the man with the power of allocating resources to address the poverty, inequality and deprivation that experts have again and again explained underline the territory’s violence.
What policy outcomes do people seriously think will come from ministers who bully and intimidate the women they work with and then victim-blame those women when they are called out on it?
One of the NT’s former female CLP MLAs, Alison Anderson, who walked out yesterday, observed the events as the symptom of her former party’s culture.
“We don’t need this ugliness,” she said, “This is in the DNA of the Country Liberal party.”
It’s a mutation that strains against the values of a fair Australian society. I only hope the revolt of the NT’s female MLAs begins the process of killing it off. Figuratively speaking, of course.
