Memo from ALP Publicity, re: Tanya Plibersek

The following memo was found next to a severed hand, in a dumpster, behind ALP headquarters in Sussex St, Sydney.

FROM: Barry Shank, ALP Publicity
TO: All staff
RE: Tanya Plibersek; Sunday Life

Comrades,

First of all, well bloody done!

I knew that when Pickles the Policy Monkey flung his breakfast at a picture of Tanya, thus signalling her as the party’s Next Big Thing™, we were onto a winner. The choice of Sunday Life was a good one as well – you can take the candidate, and introduce her to a mostly female audience in a laid back weekend supplement. That way she doesn’t have to actually, you know, ‘speak’ with any authority about matters of substance, policy and the like. We all know that the ladies aren’t big on substance (but we also know that Tanya is well versed on her portfolio and any number of policy issues; but that’s neither here nor there).

And, good choice, Pickles on Sunday Life. It’s a good thing we did a dry run ten years ago with Julia in the same magazine (Good Weekend, same-ish), basically the same story so we could make the mistakes and learn from them (learning from your mistakes is, granted, a new policy drive in the ALP). We do what we tried with Julia: sound the ominous warning of a hip young(ish) female as a rising star in the ALP. But unlike Julia, we show the ladies of the nation that Tanya is a married mother of three, ergo a breeder (and not ‘purposefully barren’ or suspiciously linked to a ‘male hairdresser’), and there’s not an empty fruit bowl in sight – quite the contrary: as part of the whole ‘you CAN have it all’ approach we’re compelled/conditioned to make about women in politics or business, we were cunning enough to have Sunday Life frame the whole thing as ‘Tanya-as-mum-on-the-go’. Open the whole thing with Tanya making her own mayonnaise. Nice touch!

I know that while this may have come across as a kind of shaming and bullying, comparable to one that Daily Life reported on recently, but that’s one of the licks we’re going to have to take. It’s not about what she has to contribute, policy wise, it’s the small miracle of how she manages to raise three smiling kids, look stylish in whatever outfit the stylist at Sunday Life set up for her, and maintain the public image of deputy Labor leader. Sure, nobody ever profiles a man in power and asks him how he manages it, coz we just assume he has a wife, right? Moot point. Tanya’s got kids, AND a job, AND looks great on Q&A, AND makes her own mayonnaise. Isn’t she clever???

We’ve learned the hard way (boy, have we!) about what we expect from lady politicians, and how the people of Australia (including the women) respond to them. But this Sunday Life profile really threw women voters the double blind: it showed them a source of inspiration minus anything of policy substance, and simultaneously chided them for being listless, unambitious tarts for not achieving the same level of career success and domestic stability. Also, that photo? Awesome. You might as well have taken it for a toothpaste commercial. They’re so white they’re almost blue.

Capital effort, people. Now, if you need me I’ll be with the rest of the chaps making decisions.

An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Australia

Dear Prime Minister,

I thought I’d reach out to you, as there’s been some clearly bone-headed insanity taking place over the past couple of weeks (or is it months and years?) that has reduced the political debate and news media in this country to a shambles.

I’ve had some quandaries with the decisions you and your government have made over the last three years; like I had some problems with your predecessor’s government (which you were a part of), and infinite problems with the Howard government. All of these problems and counter-points were based on policy decisions and politics, and none of them had anything to do with anyone’s gender or bedroom antics. Aside from anything else, ew. Seriously. Ew.

Your government has made some decisions that bothered me. I’ve disagreed as to the right way to solve certain problems, addressed various grievances and suggested alternatives. As a remorseless, unreconstructed Whitlamite, I’m more than a tad discouraged by the direction Labor has gone in the past few years; at a book signing, I asked Mungo McCallum why he thought the ALP had swung so severely to the right – he countered that they (you) hadn’t, they’d just swung severely to the bottom. Seeking out the approval of the lowest common denominator. Dirty pool, Ms Gillard.

I’ve had problems with your personal style of politics, the manner by which you got to be Prime Minister, your ‘captain’s pick’ of someone grossly unqualified to be in the Senate, the mishandling of the Slipper and Thomson matters, the non-starter that was media reform, and the fact that your big tentpole speech in the House about misogyny directed at Tony Abbott was heralded as some kind of feminist milestone, which it would have been in my eyes as well had you not crossed the floor to vote with him about half an hour later. Your values and principles are really only worth something if you exercise them when it’s inconvenient. But it’s a moot point.

Your feminist credentials haven’t really impressed me that much (said the white middle class, middle aged straight man from the suburbs). I mean, it’s great that we have a female PM, but feminism – to me – suggests equality among all women, with men. And that’s all women, not just the ones that look best in photo ops. Equality under the law and society which should mean leading the charge for the rights of women who are gay and want to get married, women on a boat on the Indian Ocean currently seeking asylum, women in remote Aboriginal communities, or women who are single mothers and used to get more funding than what is in the NewStart allowance. And just on that whole gay marriage thing, can I ask you, how do you look Penny Wong in the eye and tell her that she can’t have equal rights under the law because of who she loves? Not cool. Gay marriage is really none of my business, and it seems like it’s none of yours either. But more on that later.

There was an episode of The West Wing where Sam Seaborn criticised a speech written about rich people and swimming pools, because it looked like it was written by a teenage girl. They have a lot of things to offer the world, but good writing isn’t one of them. Which brings me to the ‘men in blue ties’ speech. It was, to my ear, a bit of clumsy, poor speechwriting that smacked of a 14-year-old girl who had just read the Cliff Notes on The Female Eunuch. Speculation abounded about what motivated this clumsy, to my mind hackneyed bit of sputter shot gender warfare, and frustratingly I agreed with Julie Fuckin’ Bishop when she labelled it a desperate and condescending act of political sleight of hand.

But the media seemed to lap it up. I wasn’t buying it, especially since the forum for this speech, the launch of ‘Women For Gillard’ (the gender equivalent of ‘Christians For Jesus’) appeared to be a cynical exercise born of desperation. The class warfare thing didn’t cut it, so let’s play the gender card. Men in blue ties? Give me a break. Pass.

Then that Liberal fundraiser menu scandal happened. Now, on the surface, it looked to be just more unfunny nonsense, and I was on the verge of giving Mal Brough the benefit of the doubt on whether or not he knew about it. The restaurateur said he printed one out as a joke between him and his son, and it was then leaked to the media. I was thinking that it was dopey and unfunny, but not enough for you to get riled up about. I figured you’d just let it go through to the keeper, but you blew it up, adding fuel to the gender politics fire, which given what’s been going on recently seems like a fair enough choice. I’d have gone differently, as I wouldn’t want to give it credence and encourage like-minded reactionary twits to do something similar. I figured that Mal Brough probably didn’t know about it, because if he did and lied about it, that would make him close to the dumbest man in politics, and not even a Tory from Queensland can be that mentally deficient. I seem to have been proven wrong about this. Then that oxygen thief Joe Hockey seemed to revert back to his seven year old self and rationalised the menu joke by saying that you once called him fat. Truly head-slappingly stupid. I weep for the future of political discourse in this country.



Is it me or is the Australian news media like that dog in Up?

Oh, look, poor poll numbers! Speculation of an electoral wipe out! In-house scuttlebutt! Kevin Rudd on the loose!

SQUIRREL!

Gender politics! Sexism! Men in blue ties! Sexist menu joke! Howard Sattler!

Howard Goddamned Sattler. Prime Minister, as I illustrated before, and many times in various forums, I disagree with many of the things you’ve said and done. The gender thing was – to my mind – clumsy and unnecessarily polarising.

Then 6PR’s ‘turd that won’t flush’ asked you those questions about your domestic partner.

I would like to apologise to you, on behalf of Australian men. On behalf of men originally from Perth. On behalf of thinking primates. Under no circumstances would Howard Sattler have ever questioned Sonia McMahon’s sexuality, or the validity of John & Jannette Howard’s marriage. There is no way anyone, EVER would use the same kind of specious reasoning (hairdresser = gay) for a male political leader. I can’t imagine the Sattler/Jones/Mitchell/Hadley types saying to Tony Abbott, “Well, Mr Abbott, you’re Catholic. Are you a paedophile? It’s just that those kiddie fiddling priests were also Catholic, so, you know, it makes sense…”

I was wrong to assume that your take on gender politics was a cynical exercise or a strategic fake-out. I’m endlessly impressed with the fact that you didn’t just stare at him when he asked you that, and ask him “What the holy fuck did you just ask me?”. I would’ve punched that smarmy, reactionary hack right in his stupid fat head. Where I used to think the more prudent thing would have been to just brush that dirt off your shoulder, all of a sudden I’ve concluded that if you wanted to go militant separatist feminist and start spelling ‘wymyn’ thusly, then it makes perfect sense. Start a riot grrrl band and name roads and bridges after Andrea Dworkin. Anything you say and do on the subject of gender and sexism won’t register a peep out of me from here on in.

The minute I saw that clip, all I wanted to do was that hand gesture blackjack dealers make when they change shifts at the casino. I’m done.

Go to town. I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to voting for your party on September 14, but if this is the predominant mentality incarnate in what would be Tony Abbott’s Australia, then my vote’s with you.

So that’s it. Sorry about the language.

Sincerely,

Matt Reddin, chap.