Latest news with #SussanLey
The Guardian
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Gender balance in Liberal party should be based on ‘merit' not ‘quotas', says new senator Jess Collins
Newly elected Liberal senator Jess Collins has hit out at factional bosses and leakers within the party's NSW branch, insisting a push for quotas to boost female representation is the wrong approach for trying to beat Labor at the next election. Aligned with senior frontbencher Angus Taylor and state MP and factional force Anthony Roberts, Collins was elected to the upper house on 3 May, after beating senator Hollie Hughes for preselection. A former Lowy Institute research fellow, Collins used an email to constituents on Tuesday night to describe the Coalition's election defeat as 'devastating,' arguing more women would have been elected if campaign strategists and former leader Peter Dutton had done a better job. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email As Dutton's successor Sussan Ley pushes for reform of the party, and some moderates advocate for binding quotas, Collins criticised leakers who publicised comments from party figure Alan Stockdale suggesting Liberal women were 'sufficiently assertive' and that quotas for men might need to be considered. 'I am tired of factional hacks trying to weaponise the constitution to consolidate or hold on to power,' Collins wrote in the email seen by Guardian Australia. 'We are not going to find our way out of the wilderness if we can't change the status quo.' She said the leaking of the comments made in a meeting of the NSW Women's Council was disappointing, explaining she had met Stockdale and the party's administrative committee with ideas on how to improve the outcomes for women. 'If he suggested women were sufficiently assertive perhaps I am to blame.' Collins then wrote: 'Sorry, bad joke – please don't leak it!' The only newly elected Coalition senator, she conceded she was so low on the pecking order that she has 'no one to peck'. Ahead of a discussion about quota models in a special meeting on Wednesday night, Collins said there was more work to do to encourage women to run for parliament. 'That is the ongoing and big task ahead of us all. I was fortunate to have mentors like Anthony Roberts and Angus Taylor. 'If I can help other women like they have helped me then I'm confident we can achieve gender balance with merit in parliament. Not with quotas.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Party activist Charlotte Mortlock, founder of Hilma's Network which advocates for better female representation in the Liberal party, said quotas should be considered. 'I look forward to Jess' contribution to our democracy. I am sure she will do a great job, but I disagree with her on quotas. 'I am frustrated by the continual use of the word 'merit' which never seems to come up when questioning men's capabilities.' Moderates pushing for changes to party rules have proposed gender quotas be introduced with enforceable expiry dates, in a bid to win the broadest possible support for the plan. Proponents of quotas told Guardian Australia this week sunset provisions to remove preferential treatment for women must be included in any rule change. Party sources say a shift in sentiment could be emerging towards a quota plan, provided the right model can be agreed to. A rule change would require 60% support in a vote of the NSW state council. Taylor opposes quotas. He said on Wednesday he would actively campaign on 'sensible policies in line with Liberal values' to get more women into parliament.
Sydney Morning Herald
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
The Liberal Party has become a site for sore losers
The Liberals still don't get it if they want to throw money at trying to get a byelection in Bradfield ('Liberals push bosses to fund court challenge', July 2). The AEC is the most reputable and thorough election manager in the world, so what are the grounds to dispute the result, apart from sour grapes? Rather than make Gisele Kapterian look like a sore loser, get her ready for the next time in a winnable seat, if you can find one that is not already held or contested by one of your 'men of merit'. It has taken Labor 30 years to solve the same problem so you won't solve it in three years, and never solve it without quotas. You call yourselves the 'better economic managers' and the 'natural party of government' but right now, you just look like dumb, sore losers not even ready to be a credible Opposition in parliament. Peter Kamenyitzky, Castle Hill The Liberal Party would best be served by working out what it stands for, rather than trying to get a byelection in Bradfield via the Court of Disputed returns. Put another way – why would they risk another electoral defeat on their (yet to be reformed and reinvigorated) existing policies? They owe it to Australian democracy to become a credible opposition, to avoid the malaise of a one-party state. By the same token, the ALP has a once in a generation chance of embedding fair policies and legislation so that the conservatives would dare not repeal them in the future. Oh, for the likes of Robert Gordon Menzies, Ben Chifley and John Curtin to govern us all. Pasquale Vartuli, Wahroonga Another reason not to vote Liberal: they're sore losers. Are they hoping a court battle over one seat will distract the electorate from issues that do need attention and action? The wild weather this week is an unmissable reminder that our home planet is not happy with how we humans are treating it. Sharon Warner, North Turramurra Why? I would have thought the Liberals would be focused on developing a candidate and policy package that would recapture those voters who have left them (like me). Instead they seem to want to keep re-running the May 3 election, with senior members speaking against gender quotas and continuing to condemn Labor's energy policies. And now they are keen to have a byelection in Bradfield. Talk about a boy thing. My ego is bruised. I am not giving in. Michael McMullan, Avoca Beach This is the conservative way, from the Trump manual. Go to a court until you get the answer you want. Peter Bourke, Rockdale Good luck, Sussan Ley What self-respecting woman wishing to become an MP, even one of conservative bent, would want to join a Liberal Party in which the likes of Morrison, Abbott and Taylor wield influence (' Ley leads party that is anti-women ', July 2)? I admire Sussan Ley's political guts. Her story shows admirable aspects of character that enabled her to combat the sexual abuse she experienced and to get to the top of a menagerie of macho-macho men. I wish Sussan Ley well, yet I share Jenna Price's scepticism about how difficult it will be for her to alter or even modify ingrained attitudes of male prejudice, especially against talented women so capable of leadership roles. Ron Sinclair, Windradyne The wives and also many daughters of stalwart male Liberal Party members drifted away from the party some decades ago when they got sick of making suppers for male-dominated branch meetings and organising Miss Young Liberal balls. Sue Dyer, Downer (ACT) Safety in childcare Evidence increasingly points to serious flaws in staff management in perhaps many childcare centres (' Childcare abuse claims raise tough questions ', July 2). Yet again, we must ask whether safety considerations in childcare are so important that the risks are too great when profit is the primary motivation for owning and operating a childcare centre. The current government has taken giant steps to make childcare as affordable as possible, allowing parents to be gainfully employed. However, the substantial monetary support for the sector has created a 'honey pot', seemingly attracting individuals and corporations who may not be as diligent as required in recruitment, training and supervision of staff in their centres. Recruitment of quality carers is difficult due to low wages and there is a heavy reliance on casual staff, resulting in unstable work teams. To an outside observer, the fact that the accused worker in Melbourne worked for 20 centres over eight years seems to be a red flag. As the significant funder, the federal government needs to step in and strengthen the childcare sector so that no parent will have any doubts about their child's safety. Ross Butler, Rodd Point In addition to the trauma suffered by the families affected, who must be devastated, this will inflict damage on the whole childcare sector and those who trust and depend on it. I feel a special concern for young men who have found or aspire to a career in childcare, some of whom I know personally. I hope these criminal allegations will not be met with prejudice, stereotyping and assumptions to cast aspersions on the suitability of males to work in early childhood education and care. Meredith Williams, Baulkham Hills Trump v adults Well said, Graham Lum (Letters, July 2). His 'psychoanalysis' of Donald Trump is spot-on. In fact, I really can't understand why genuine leaders of the 'free world' persist in subjecting themselves to Trump's treachery and malevolence. I would love to see a situation where leaders of the world's major democracies send Trump 'to Coventry'; expel the US from NATO, cancel any treaties such as NAFTA and AUKUS, and announce that they will not be dictated to by Trump regarding their defence budgets. And on that subject, discontinue any defence purchases from the US. In short, treat Trump as persona non grata in world affairs. Let the adults run the show. Martyn Yeomans, Sapphire Beach It should be trivial for Australia to get an exemption from Trump's tariffs. All we have to do is to threaten to evict American troops from Darwin. If that's not enough, add Pine Gap. That's the kind of deal that he respects. Robert Fabian, Leichhardt Commonsense ruling Perpetuating 'age-old tropes against Jewish people', Wissam Haddad's (' Preacher's lectures ruled to be racist ', July 2) lectures being ruled as racist by the federal court would readily resonate with broader multicultural Australia. It is reasonable to argue that hate speech breeds fear; and that fear is a big impediment to harmony and peace. This is a commonsense win against hate speeches and intolerance, which are contrary to the notion of striving to live together peacefully in modern Australia. Hats off to the court decision that is firmly in line with the majority, and reasonable, public opinion. Steve Ngeow, Chatswood In climate war, we know the drill How many catastrophic weather events will it take to jolt politicians into saving our planet (‴ Bomb cyclone' set to intensify, 5m people told to take shelter ', July 2)? The latest list of unseasonal and catastrophic weather reports would presumably include the 'vigorous coastal low' stretching from the Mid-North Coast to the Illawarra, the long-running toxic algal bloom killing many marine species at South Australian beaches (both events attributed to sea temperatures about 2.5 degrees warmer than usual), as well as Europe's first wildfires and lethal heatwaves of the northern summer. Inconvenient as it is, the impact of climate change is now with us every day, in every corner of the globe. Can Prime Minister Albanese please assure us that, with all the political hot air that's happening about Australia's defence expenditure, his government is still committed to the war that is happening right now, namely the war against climate change? And that, notwithstanding the government's inexplicable approval for a 45-year expansion of the North West shelf gas project – and the current review into gas market regulations – will he really deliver the promised transition to renewables, which contributed in no small way to Labor's landslide election victory in May? Rob Firth, Red Hill (ACT) In cutting off the Australian access to satellite data on Antarctic sea ice, Trump has gone one better than shoot the messenger. It's now don't let them have a message. More seriously, this is part of a pattern of covering up the science on climate change to support the 'Drill, baby, drill' rhetoric. Steve Bright, North Avoca I certainly do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I speculate that two items have a sinister link. Trump's cutting crucial satellite data, reflecting the scale of global warming, is a predictable ploy, thereby legitimising his climate change denial. However, the reported mysterious disappearance of a satellite that monitors the highly effective greenhouse gas, methane, is simply too coincidental. Responding to Trump's 'Drill, baby, drill' imperative, oil and gas drillers will inevitably, in the process, produce considerable quantities of methane. To obfuscate this pesky problem, simply initiate the disappearance of the monitoring satellite! Roger Epps, Armidale Trump seems determined that his ignorance should be enforced on the rest of the world. The only upside of his satellite decision is that Mar-a-Lago is only one metre above sea-level. Ross Hudson, Mount Martha (Vic) Why, other than out of spite? What is the point of the satellites being there if not for scientific research? It's not as if they need to be reserved solely for defence purposes. Defence of what? Are they needed to monitor enemy bases in Antarctica? Presumably, somebody at the Pentagon has worked out the cost of providing this data to scientists. Has anybody worked out the cost of not providing this data? David Rush, Lawson Work-AI balance Your correspondent (Letters, July 2) suggests that one of the upsides to AI may be reduced working hours for the workforce. This attractive idea has always been put forward as a potential positive outcome for adopting the latest technology. Unfortunately, in the real world, reduced working hours also tend to mean reduced wages, unless our generous and enlightened employers are happy to keep paying the same salaries to the workers. A wonderful idea, but probably utopian. Rob Phillips, North Epping Worthy gambits A correspondent recommended chess as a hobby (Letters, July 2). Given its feats in the Indian village of Marottichal, chess does indeed have masterful capacity to transform people's lives. In the 1980s, a returning former resident disrupted the village's malaise, born of communal alcohol and gambling addiction, by introducing chess. With those problems now banished, some 4500 people, or 75 per cent of its residents, including children, are proficient and passionate players. Blind resident Gowrishankar Jayaraj, a teenager who visualises the board from verbal commentary, is an emerging national prodigy, sweeping towards the realm of grandmasters. Marottichal is now known as the 'Chess Village of India'. What other pastime brings such extraordinary provenance, and is said to have belonged to all civilisations on earth, from the Chinese to the Etruscans, Persians, Egyptians and beyond to modernity? Barbara Chapman, South Yarra (Vic) Parkrun, a free, safe hobby, is available to all, every Saturday, around the world. You don't need to be a runner; walkers are very welcome. You can't come last (there's a volunteer 'tailwalker'), and the vibe is friendly. Andrew McDonald, Menangle Seriously? You're just not trying if you can't find a cheap hobby. A ukulele or a harmonica only will cost about $40. Kenneth Smith, Orange Bell ringing? Now there's an interesting hobby. Just curious, though, could you actually ring out AC/DC's Highway to Hell over the rooftops? John Swanton, Coogee Your correspondent enumerated the joys of bell ringing but omitted its major downside. One becomes known as a campanologist. Rob Clifton-Steele, Chatswood Pen is mightier Your correspondent's (Letters, July 1) frustration in dealing with automatic, multi-choice telephone answering systems is shared by anyone who has ever had to deal with any kind of bureaucracy, government or business. One simple solution, at least in non-urgent situations, is to revert to pen and paper. Write a brief letter (to the CEO or department head if you're really upset). Nine times out of 10 you'll get action. Phil Rodwell, Redfern Centre holds The Coalition has yet to realise that Bob Hawke positioned Labor firmly as centre right – think privatisation of Qantas and Telecom, removal of protective tariffs and floating the dollar (Letters, July 2). Long term, Labor is probably more vulnerable on its left than its right. Michael Britt, MacMasters Beach
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Albanese's huge new salary is exposed
Anthony Albanese is getting a $15,000 pay rise as many Australians struggle financially - bumping his package above $622,000. Australia's Prime Minister is paid significantly more than other world leaders running nations with bigger economies and populations. Federal politicians, senior public servants and departmental secretaries are receiving a 'relatively modest' 2.4 percent pay rise from July 1. This is thanks to a Remuneration Tribunal ruling putting executive salary increases in line with inflation, which will see backbench MP pay rise from $233,660 to $239,268. Albanese's pay is rising from $607,516 to $622,097, which is more generous than Donald Trump 's base pay of $609,400 in Australian dollars. Australia's Prime Minister also gets more than his UK counterpart Keir Starmer on $360,282 and Canada 's PM Mark Carney on $469,600. Treasurer Jim Chalmers will see his salary rise from $438,111 to $448,625. Foreign Minister Penny Wong 's pay will be equal as Leader of Government in the Senate. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's salary will jump to $442,646. This is higher than Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's $418,719 salary as Leader of the House. But it's lower than Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on $490,499 as the holder of the Defense portfolio. An Australian needs to earn $408,974 to be among the top 0.8 percent of income earners, based on tax office data, and Cabinet ministers are certainly among that elite. Australia's most powerful ministers typically earn four times the average, full-time salary of $102,742 and ten times the full-time minimum wage of $49,300. The Remuneration Tribunal argued its 2.4 percent increase for MPs was appropriate. 'The tribunal notes the domestic economy is continuing to stabilize following a period of elevated inflation and that many Australians continue to experience financial challenges,' it said. 'In the current economic context, the tribunal considers an increase of 2.4 percent appropriate.' 'This adjustment reflects a measured approach, balancing the need for restraint given economic conditions with the recognition of the upward pressure on household costs.' The 2.4 percent increase for MPs was lower than the Fair Work Commission's annual wage review, which awarded a 3.5 percent increase to the 2.9 million Australians either on the minimum wage or an award. The tribunal, an independent body, said it had a longstanding policy of 'modest' increases in pay for politicians and bureaucrats. Since 2016, pay levels for Australia's most senior public servants has risen by 18.7 percent, which it argued was more moderate than the 25.6 percent increase in the wage price index for the same period. Former Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm, a libertarian campaigning for smaller government, said Australia's high pay for politicians produced careerists without life experience outside politics. 'It turns politics in Australia into a career, a well-paid career,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'I don't think taxpayers get good value for money but the big thing is that many of the incumbents in those roles can't do as well outside of politics so they have an additional incentive to hold on to their jobs, hold on to their positions in order not to lose the benefits. But Warren Snowdon, a former federal Labor minister who was in Parliament for 33 years, said politicians work hard and deserve the money. 'I won't comment on the money but I think it's a fallacy they don't work hard,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'I don't know of one member of Parliament that doesn't work hard. 'In my own case, I was in the Parliament for almost 33 years and for most of that time, I was at home, on average, eight nights a month, if you exclude the Christmas period. 'I had to travel inside the electorate which was 1.3 million square kilometers, very diverse communities; you can't be seeing yourself as someone who's an absent member.' But Mr Leyonhjelm, who was in the Senate for five years, said too many politicians were addicted to the pay and the perks. 'I subscribe to the latter view that you're not in it for the money, it's not a career and you should have a life before you go into politics, you should have a life after you come out of politics so that you don't lose touch with what you're there for and the people you represent,' he said. 'You can get into a philosophical argument here - is politics a profession, a calling or should it be people who spend a few years serving the public and go back to a normal life?' 'We should treat a political role as a temporary position no matter who you are.' While Australia's most senior politicians are well paid by international standards, their remuneration packages are only a small fraction of what Australia's top bureaucrats get. 'It's high by international standards, it's low by bureaucratic standards,' Mr Leyonhjelm said. 'So then the argument becomes - "Should the Prime Minister be paid more or less than the bureaucrats who are basically at his bidding?"' Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock is on a total remuneration of $1.057 million from a base salary of $811,108. But corporate chief executives are paid considerably more than Cabinet ministers or departmental bosses. Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn is on $8.977 million with bonuses, on top of his base salary of $2.5 million. Thousands of Aussies have still called for politician's pay to be based on performance. 'Imagine if they got paid on performance,' one said. 'Results based remuneration is the most appropriate form of remuneration for politician,' another added. 'It should be performance based - a huge deduction is warranted,' a third declared.
ABC News
a day ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Liberal Party dusts off same script on quotas to debate lack of women MPs
Is there a more ghoulish spectacle in Australian politics than the triennial round of hand-wringing and puzzlement that consumes the federal Liberal Party after yet another election bestows yet another round of shrinkflation on its ranks of female MPs? It's 10 years now since a covert report to the Liberal Party's federal executive warned that the party did not afford equal opportunity to female candidates, and strongly advised that a target of 50 per cent be set and met by 2025. At the time the report was written, there were just 17 Liberal women in the House of Representatives, a number sufficiently grim that the Turnbull government, in 2016, duly committed to the 50 per cent target. When Parliament resumes later this month, the situation will be visibly, morbidly worse. Just six Liberal women will take their places on the green leather. Assuming Liberal leader Sussan Ley takes a COMCAR to Parliament House, the rest of the Liberal women can get there in a Corolla. The truly transfixing part, however, is this: no matter how low the number goes, the script remains the same. Dismay is expressed. A review is called. A handful of party figures (mostly women) gently suggest that perhaps after 30 years of arguing about this while things get worse and worse, it might be worth looking at some kind of mechanism to improve the situation. At which point they are briskly reminded by various grandees (mostly male) that the Liberal Party is the party of merit, and quotas are to the party of merit as dancing is to the town of Bomont, Utah in the movie Footloose (a breakout hit in 1984, the last-but-one election year in which the Liberal Party's proportion of female candidates was competitive with Labor's). Quotas are illiberal, goes the party line. They are anti-democratic. They are anathema to the spirit of the Liberal Party. Which is weird, because the Liberal Party invented quotas for women. After the sickeningly dispiriting election of 1943, in which John Curtin's Labor Party trounced all comers with 58.2 per cent of the two-party preferred vote — still its highest ever — Robert Menzies built a grand coalition between the non-Labor forces the very next year, in 1944, and called it the Liberal Party. Lending funds and campaign expertise to the enterprise were women's groups like the Australian Women's National League, whose leader Elizabeth Couchman shrewdly negotiated a provision in Victoria that half the party's executive positions be reserved for women. Were those appointments made on merit? Quota purists would say no, of course. But Couchman and her colleagues must have been doing something right: the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party, in its first 25 years, did better than any other party branch in Australia at electing women to the federal Parliament, producing Ivy Wedgwood, Marie Breen and the magnificent Margaret Guilfoyle, Australia's first female finance minister. Quotas brought women to the table, sent women to the Parliament and played a strong role in ensuring that the Coalition enjoyed a consistent advantage among female voters all the way until the year 2001. The Liberal Party is perfectly entitled to reject quotas for women. It's a free party, practising free association in a free country. But to pretend that it runs a quota-free operation — even today — is risible at best. The Coalition agreement with the Nationals — renegotiated after every election — is principally concerned with how many Nats are proportionally entitled to demand frontbench positions. Is it a miracle of merit that there always turn out to be exactly as many matchlessly qualified National Party MPs available to serve as ministers as would decently reflect their share of the joint party room? No, it is not. Is the deputy prime minister in a Coalition government always a Nat because the regional junior partner has a freakish knack of always just happening to have the most meritorious chap for that particular office? Pull the other one. There's a formal quota in place for Nationals on the front bench, just like there's an informal one for wets and dries, and people from Queensland, and all the rest of it. Are preselections in the Liberal Party a matter of merit? Let's be realistic. Even if there were standard KPIs available for what makes a good MP — which there absolutely are not — it would be an uphill climb to convince any disinterested observer that they alone determine who gets to be a candidate, especially in safe seats. Much depends on the factional makeup of the preselection college. The appetite of the candidate for arm-twisting and white-anting. The presence or absence of powerful sponsors. "Merit" — a wobbly concept at best, and endlessly susceptible to human subjectivity — is a particularly gelatinous affair when it comes to politics. The candidate preselection system in the Liberal Party yields — just as it does in the Labor Party — a wildly inconsistent crop of candidates, by and large. Both parties — threaded as they are with factional operatives, seats that "belong" to one gang or other, and grassroots memberships that skew left or right or old or crackers — are capable of sending profoundly ungifted representatives to the nation's capital. Sometimes, they send brilliant people. Sometimes, average ones. There are unofficial quotas for unions, for people with influential mates, for good blokes judged to have missed out unfairly last time round. Let's not even talk about the Senate, which is the largest and most obvious quota system our Parliament operates. Does Tasmania get a grossly disproportionate number of senators to its tiny population because Tasmanians are more meritorious? Nope, they get the same number of senators as NSW because when our Federation was being designed, the drafters knew it was important to hear from everybody. And more to the point, they would never have got Federation over the line without cutting a deal for the smaller colonies. Politics is always about getting the numbers. If merit's involved, which it absolutely is, at least some of the time: brilliant. But let's never pretend that the long march of gaining preselection in a major party, making it to parliament, getting picked for the front bench or even becoming the leader of a party is reliably fuelled by merit alone. The Liberal Party's new leader, Sussan Ley, provoked all sorts of huffing and puffing last week by declaring at the National Press Club that urgent action was required to increase the number of Liberal women in parliament. She did not specifically endorse quotas. This makes her not even as venturesome on the subject as Scott Morrison, who declared in 2021 — to absolutely no perceptible effect — that he was prepared to give gender quotas a go. The hard truth is that preselections are a matter for state branches in the Liberal Party, and any federal leader wanting to revolutionise the system will require nerves of steel and a determined party room with an appetite for trouble. One compromise model — proposed in 2021 by the now-former Liberal MPs Nicolle Flint and Jason Falinski – is the "priority list" approach adopted in 2005 by British Conservative leader David Cameron. Determined to modernise the party, Cameron had the party's national leadership compose a list of diverse candidates from which branches were obliged to consider at least two in each preselection round. Rather than enforcing quotas, the reform forcibly expanded the field of candidates under consideration. Still, it was a long-tail, feather-ruffling business. For years, the women on the Tories' priority list were known derisively as "Cameron's Cuties". One of them was Kemi Badenoch, who 20 years later now serves as the party's leader. Power never gives itself away. And if you want to grab it, you have to be prepared to hold on, because it's never pretty.
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Ley's revelations about coercive control will help women. It's a shame her party won't do the same
When Sussan Ley revealed last week she'd been a victim of coercive control, my first response was 'poor bloody woman'. Then 'thank God she got away'. And then? A moment of reflection on where Ley is now: the leader of a political party which diminishes the experience of women every single day. In the week since, her revelation has been the hot topic in group chats and real-world conversations among women of all age groups across Australia, as we were torn between wanting to know more of her story, but not demanding trauma porn. Also, how can you have survived coercive control, yet work within a party which continues to deny the existence of women as equal human beings? How does a woman who's been a victim of family violence survive – and thrive – in a party with a history of neglecting the domestic violence sector? How is that humanly possible? The tension of that contradiction would kill me. This is what the opposition leader said at the National Press Club last week: 'I want the women of Australia to hear me when I say to them as a national leader: I understand the fear you feel when you go for a walk alone. Because I have felt that fear too.' And then: 'I understand the pain that comes with coercion and control. Because I have felt that pain too. I understand what it is like when you blame yourself for the actions of others. Because I have blamed myself too.' She resisted follow-up questions. 'Look, I have had personal experiences, and I don't choose to share them publicly, but I want the women of Australia to know that I know, and that I'm with them, and that I understand how it feels and what it's like, and how sometimes, only looking back, can you really understand what went on.' So what exactly is coercive control? I asked Monash University's Kate Fitz-Gibbon, a walking textbook on family violence in this country. She said it describes a pattern of abusive behaviours in intimate partner relationships that can include physical and/or sexual violence, but also a range of different coercive and controlling tactics such as financial abuse, stalking, technology-facilitated violence, intimidation. And here's the key to the harms of coercive control, says Fitz-Gibbon: 'It can eat away at a person's sense of worth, their confidence, their understanding of who they are.' I love that Sussan Ley escaped that in her personal life. But now she has to manage it professionally within a party that doesn't prioritise the issue. Angus Taylor was a no-show at his own leader's National Press Club speech. (His office says this was due to family health reasons and that he explained this to Ley.)
