Tony Abbott has accused Prime Minister Julia Gillard of “playing the gender card” when she branded him a misogynist and sexist in a scripted, scathing personal attack in Parliament last year.
“I don’t want to rant and rave about my opponent but she’s determined to win an election and thinks the only way she can win is by discrediting her opponent,” Abbott says in a wide-ranging interview for one of Australia’s leading fashion magazines, madison.
“The Prime Minister, to her credit, made a virtue of never having played the gender card when she first came into the job and, again to her credit, never played the gender card until the position was particularly dire.”
When asked how Gillard had “played the gender card”, Abbott replied: “A female accusing a male opponent of sexism and misogyny is playing the gender card.”
Despite that, Abbott said he was merely “bemused” by the Prime Minister’s accusations saying they “were so over the top [and] a complete personal attack”.
Abbott was speaking to a panel of some of Australia’s highest profile commentators and academics brought together by yours truly for the current edition of madison magazine with the stunning Diane Kruger on the cover (on sale today). It included respected columnist for News Limited’s national Sunday and daily papers, Miranda Devine, TV host, philanthropist and model, Sarah Murdoch, and Macquarie University academic Dr Kate Gleeson.
Devine said Gillard’s speech was “absurd. I was surprised, actually, that the speech that was so cynical – we’ve forgotten that it was to cover up the Peter Slipper stuff – became a great rallying cry for the Prime Minister”.
Murdoch agreed and said she felt Gillard “used that word [misogyny] as a political tool to distract from the real issue being discussed”.
Abbott added: “At the risk of sound like I am a partisan political analyst, it is now a standard part of the left’s political tool kit to accuse their opponents of being anti-women.”
And he was right. The Prime Minister was forced in Parliament yesterday to withdraw the comment “misogynist Tony is back”, uttered as she stepped away from the dispatch box.
But, as Devine points out in her column today, Labor’s “strategy to cast Abbott as a misogynist” has been destroyed by his growing popularity as shown in the most recent opinion poll.
Gleeson, who last year wrote that “women still fear Abbott on abortion”, also tackled the father of three on the emotional issue of abortion, the abortion drug, RU486, his position on gay marriage (for the record, he’s against it and doesn’t think he’ll be persuaded otherwise), and equal pay for women.
Abbott said it was “absolutely false” that he tried to ban the RU486 drug when he was health minister in the Howard government, and also dismissed as “mythology” that he tried to alter Medicare funding for abortion.
When I asked Gleeson if her two hours with Abbott during the madison panel made her change her strong views about him, she replied: “I found Abbott to be very personable but I felt as though he is trying to please everyone at the moment and it was hard to get a sense of who he ‘really is’ these days.”
And she conceded she believed he was “sincere in his commitment to paid parental leave” but reckons he doesn’t understand the significance of the gender pay gap to women.
Would the good doctor vote for him? “I think good political scientists never disclose their voting intentions”. (I suspect that’s a no!)
Abbott spent two hours with the madison panel during which Devine, Gleeson, Murdoch and I grilled him about issues ranging from his positions on indigenous health and welfare to the deeply personal revelations that he was “flabbergasted” when his sister, Christine, came out as a lesbian and left her husband for a woman.
“Whenever anything like this happens inside a family it shakes people up, you know. I mean, if people leave their spouse it’s very unsettling. It’s often shocking even if it’s not unexpected,” he said when I asked him what shocked him more; that Chris left her marriage or left it for a woman.
“So I was flabbergasted when Chris told me the story but, at the same time, you understand that these things do happen. And the point I made subsequently is that in the case of your sister, it doesn’t stop her being your sister.
“And in the case of anyone who you love the fact that there might be some dramatic development in their life, even some dramatic development in their life where you might have some views or judgements, it shouldn’t mean that you cease to love that person because the essential person is unchanged.
“It’s just that the circumstance of their life is different.”
It was a provocative, revelatory and at times fiery debate. And like all good debates, not all of it made it into print.
Abbott even tackled the publishing phenomenon 50 Shades of Grey, which he described as “rubbish”. To find out if he got any tips to spice up his sex life with wife, Margie, you can click on this additional pop quiz.
The man many believe will be the next Prime Minister of Australia also confessed that he thought his comment about “gospel truth” on the ABC’s 7.30 Report in 2010 “was not my finest moment”.
And I think I’ve found his Achilles heel. It’s not the over the top cries of “sexist” or “misogynist” or “Captain Catholic”, nor the claims that he’s “Dr No”, too macho and has a boxer’s swagger. It’s the focus on the red budgie smugglers!
“Just on the budgie smugglers, if I may….” Abbott said as he was interrupted by a roar of laughter from the panel. “Put it this way, if I were to comment on bikinis, for instance, people would say ‘there’s a problem’. Now, I don’t wear budgie smugglers down George Street. The only place I have ever worn budgies smugglers is in surf life saving.
“There isn’t anyone in public life who hasn’t been unfairly criticised whether it’s Julia Gillard, Paul Keating or John Howard. The thing about public life is [that] people who don’t know you criticise you for weaknesses you don’t have and, less commonly, people who don’t know you admire you for strengths you don’t have.
“That’s just the way it is in public life. So I absolutely accept that. But, nevertheless…the roll call of things that Sandra just gave us do get cited. There’s no doubt about that. And I certainly think that some of it’s over the top – particularly the budgie smugglers.”
At least he managed to laugh at himself.
The interview is published in the April edition of madison which hits newsstands today.
