The new leader of the Federal Opposition, Tony Abbott
Within minutes of Tony Abbott’s unexpected ascent to the leadership of the embattled Liberal Party yesterday, the women in the Twitterverse that I follow were baying for blood. Abbott’s blood, and lots of it.
They were furious that the man who has been dubbed Captain Catholic or the Mad Monk had toppled the “progressive” ETS-champion Malcolm Turnbull by a single vote.
The invective was so instant and so prolific that it prompted me to Tweet shortly after 10am: “Boy, oh boy, Tony Abbott has a lot of ground to make up to the Twitterverse women – there is anger out there, Mr Abbott.”
Popular Tweeter and influential columnist Mia Freedman wanted to know Abbott’s position on contraception and IVF, pretty much around the same time she Tweeted, “there are still some women who don’t know where their own clitoris is”. She said Abbott’s leadership equalled a bad day for women.
A few months ago I ran into Abbott and we were chatting about IVF and he said he was for babies, any which way they came.
As for contraception, well, as we all know from the man himself, he didn’t use it – he has publicly spoken and written about the unknown son he wrongly thought he fathered in his teenaged years. Not using contraception doesn’t mean he’s against it; neither does it mean he’s for it.
I can’t recall anyone asking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, another committed church-going Christian about his position on contraception, abortion and IVF.
For the record, Abbott voted against removing the restricted goods provisions from the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 on the abortion drug RU-486 in 2005. But he was not Robinson Crusoe when it came to the conscience vote. And he wasn’t the first health minister to impose the restrictions.
Another professionally successful and clever woman, Marino Go, Tweeted: “I would rather eat my first born than vote for Abbott (with apologies to my first born)”. She later assured me the baby – now 16 – was safe. Phew!
Yet another typed: “Abbott once said that abortion should be outlawed in this country. People have such short memories. 1950’s here we come again!!”
Award winning journalist Tracy Grimshaw from A Current Affair
Last night Tracy Grimshaw pulled on the gloves and asked Abbott – on his first appearance as leader on A Current Affair – about his position on abortion.
He answered he was for “safe, legal, rare”. Who isn’t?
Somehow, Tweetchicks, I don’t think we’re headed back to the 1950s, even though Abbott does want to reintroduce fault-based divorce alongside the no-fault system, but only for those crazy masochists who prefer the harder, blame-game route to divorce.
Another popular Tweeter, journalist Julie Posetti, reckoned that Turnbull sounded 10 times better in defeat than Abbott with his “divisive and robotic” style.
Yet another wrote: “Oh God, Abbott’s even worse than I thought.”
The attacks were loud, many, and varied (I’m not even going to address those by the anti-Abbott blokes on Twitter, of whom there are also many).
What is it that makes some women hate Abbott? Is it because he’s proudly conservative? Or a Catholic? Would they be so vehemently anti-Buddhist, anti-Anglican, or anti-Muslim?
And is the antipathy rational? Or is it, as Miranda Devine wrote in her excellent Sydney Morning Herald column today, just that the chattering classes don’t like him?
A few months ago, Abbott launched his book, Battlelines, and as I wrote back then, Melbourne University Press boss Louise Adler agreed he was the “Liberal Party’s intellectual”. And she’s not known as a conservative.
Abbott likes women. He supports paid maternity leave, has taken part in the annual Pollie Pedal to raise money for breast cancer research (and other charities), and has raised three lovely daughters.
He even admitted in Parliament yesterday that the “flirting” with the Deputy Prime minister, Julia Gillard, must now stop.
She giggled.
Firting with the enemy? Yeah, Abbott’s really down on women.
