Tag Archives: Julia Gillard

Game on

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So this week in good old democratic Australia has been a strange one. One day soon, commentators will be comparing our political landscape to Italy’s and that will be embarrassing. This week we dumped Julia Gillard, our first female Prime Minister, because she looked like losing the Federal election and we put the other bloke who used to be Prime Minister back because Mr and Mrs Bogan in western Sydney seem to like him more and might, just might, vote for him over the bloke with the ears who doesn’t like anything much.

What have we learned from the first female Prime Minister’s term in office? Well, nothing new. We are a misogynist country. Most men ( and many women) resorted to dealing with Ms Gillard by demeaning her appearance or her voice. Any female in public life – newsreaders, broadcasters, politicians, etc.etc. – knows that’s how it goes. Nobel prize? Jolly good, but your hair it’s awful. Walkley award winner? Splendid, hate your glasses. And so it goes. It seems that we are pathologically unable to hear what is being said by women. We can only see who is saying it and make small minded judgements accordingly.

By all accounts, the Gillard years with a vicious hung parliament and a vicious, vapid press have been the most effective legislative years in the short history of Australia. Congratulations Julia Gillard. Incredibly impressive. Now move along for the hearty vengeful bloke please.

By observation, I’ve decided that the way we can judge how highly women are regarded is by watching panel shows on television. Here’s a sample: QI has 6 panellists. If you’re lucky, one of them will be Jo Brand. Otherwise, 6 utterly hilarious chaps telling sexist jokes to male host Stephen Fry. ‘Would I Lie to You?’ has 6 panellists and on a very, very good night, 2 of those will be women. Usually it’s 1 and a male host.

Channel 10’s clever ‘The Panel’ has 1 woman to 3 or 4 men. You can see where I’m going. Feel free to try this test at home…

When I can turn on my television or radio and be informed or entertained by just as many women as men, then I might think we’re getting somewhere. In the meantime, the panel show in Canberra just got a whole lot worse.

ENOUGH!

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Actually, I don’t care about polls and whether Julia Gillard is less popular than Kevin Rudd, or that Malcolm Turnbull is four thousand times more popular than Tony Abbot. When did popularity alone become the thing by which we choose our politicians? What has happened to us that popularity matters more than policy? Partly it seems to be a product of the unrelenting, exhausting ‘news’ cycle – which sends previously self respecting ‘journalists’ rushing for the shallowest question ( you win, Howard Sattler), the least thought out glib summary. There is so little of what we used to call ‘news’ in our papers and televisions and radios. There isn’t much more online. Journalists, with a few notable and excellent exceptions, are merely reporters now. And they report crap. They may be sent out with orders to report crap, but report it they do. Whose business is it that the Prime Minister’s partner has a caravan on a private piece of land way out in country Victoria? Why is that any of our business? It’s not, but the Melbourne Age made it front page news with photo. Not news. Every day our papers are filled with not news and their many accompanying opinion pieces.

Policy matters. Vision matters. Economic management matters. Education matters. So do debates about misogyny and racism and the culture we are becoming – selfish and thick. But every Monday, it’s the polls we hear about. Shut up about them, Australian newspapers and leave us alone to worry about the proper, democratic poll on Election Day.