Sky News Australian Agenda Sophie Mirabella 14 October 2012

Interview with Sophie Mirabella Australian Agenda program, 14 October 2012

Peter Van Onselen: Welcome back, you're watching Australian Agenda and we're joined now by Liberal Party front bencher and industry spokesperson Sophie Mirabella, joining us out of Melbourne. Ms Mirabella, thanks very much for your company.

Sophie Mirabella: Good morning.

Peter van Onselen: You're lucky enough to be one of only two females in the Liberal Party that are on the front bench within shadow cabinet. There's only I think 20% of the Parliament that are women. Is this because Liberal women aren't good enough to make it that far up or is it because there's sexism in the Liberal Party?

Sophie Mirabella:

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Well, no. There are many reasons why women enter and don't enter Parliament and I think Tony has got an extraordinarily strong team. Let's not descend to the level where everything that doesn't happen to women is sexism or if they don't get a job it's sexism. Let's just actually operate on merit on the best possible team and in a political party that is the best possible team to communicate the party's message and to go to an election.

Peter van Onselen: But you can't surely think that based on merit there's only two women in the Liberal parliamentary party, indeed the wider movement, that are capable of being shadow members of the cabinet?

Sophie Mirabella: No, there are many shadow ministers. Tony Abbott has always had a female chief of staff and there are all sorts of issues that go to promotion. I don't think the promotion of women is an issue. Look, I probably wouldn't be in the Parliament if it wasn't for Tony Abbott. He was seminal in getting me involved in constitutional political debate 20 years ago, he actively supported my pre-selection when very few people thought I would win, and he has made me Shadow Industry Minister, the first woman to hold that position either in Government or in Opposition. So I actually judge the Liberal Party and Tony Abbott by its actions and I certainly haven't felt that there's a problem in the Liberal Party.

Simon Benson: We heard just recently from Christine Milne . She claimed that she found the term "handbag hit squad" offensive. That was delivered by one of your women
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backbenchers. Do you think that was a particularly unhelpful phrase to use, do you think it's a sexist term?

Sophie Mirabella: Absolutely not. Here is Christine Milne saying that you can only be a feminist if you conform to the Greens image of what a feminist is. Kelly O'Dwyer is an absolute star, she's passionate about politics, and she had had a gutful and encapsulated in a brilliant phrase the political use of women in the Labor Party to attack Tony Abbott as a deliberate campaign to deflect from their poor performance, to deflect from the problems that they are facing: the budget blowout, the border protection problems, the problems within caucus. So let's call it for what it is, and the Labor Party was upset that they were caught out. This is a deliberate strategy, probably straight out of the dirt unit in the Prime Minister's office, and they were caught out, and Kelly captured it beautifully.

Simon Benson: Assuming it is a deliberate strategy, and no-one will be surprised by that, it is a fact though that it has hit home amongst a lot of women voters, whether it's real or not a lot of women believe that Tony Abbott is a sexist. I wouldn't use the term misogynist, I think probably chauvinist will be a better term to describe what they're trying to ascribe to Tony Abbott, but it is a problem for him don't you admit?

Sophie Mirabella: There are different views about Tony Abbott and I can only give you my personal view that I have seen close up and out there in the electorate. I have tell you I was at the Wangaratta show yesterday and dozens of people came up to me. They have had a
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gutful of what they see as a deflection on the real issues that are hurting them: the carbon tax, cost of living, business confidence down. They feel offended. They feel offended that there are these ridiculous claims against Tony Abbott. So now the Prime Minister is saying every time Tony Abbott looks at his watch and she's speaking somehow that's sexist. When they look at the Prime Minister's accusation of sexism a non-gender specific term, ie you're a piece of work, has now become sexist. What happened in 2004 when a female Labor member called Tony Abbott a piece of work? He didn't complain, he didn't say anything, because it is not a gender specific term. So people want their politicians to be accountable and if they see some sneaky, clever political strategy to prevent the proper and right scrutiny they get very angry, and that's what's happening out there in the electorate. People have all sorts of views of why they like or dislike Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard, what is really dominating their feelings about that at the moment is they feel the Government is trying to slink away from actual responsibility and talking about the things that really matter.

Peter van Onselen: I wrote about that "piece of work" comment in a similar vein to what you've described it. I think that people that are concerned about sexism need to be careful they don't start using terms that are just simply meant in a derogatory way but not actually sexist in nature. Help me with this one though, because something Tony Abbott admittedly said 14 years ago back in 1998, but he was a member of the executive in the Howard Government at the time, this does sound far more sexist to my way of thinking. What did he mean when he said: "But what if men are by physiology or temperament more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command". He said that in a roundtable discussion with Michael Costa.

Sophie Mirabella:

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Well firstly, Peter, I don't exactly know the full context of the discussion and what was going on and...

Peter van Onselen: I will help you out with that then because Michael Costa had said that he hopes that his daughters are able to do anything. Now in fairness to Tony Abbott he said that he agreed with that, before then adding "but what if men are by physiology or temperament more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command". Now in my view it was certainly a misused attempt at the Socratic method, but it also had pretty strong sexist undertones didn't it?

Sophie Mirabella: I don't think it did have sexist undertones. He did agree with the statement and it was a hypothetical. It was 14 years ago. Tony Abbott has three daughters. He wants them to be able to achieve whatever they are capable and whatever they want to achieve, and he's raised three very clever, well developed girls with extraordinary confidence. I think that says it all. I know from my personal experience that is not how Tony Abbott operates. I think for the Labor Party to dredge out a hypothetical question from 14 years ago shows how desperate they really are. You do, you have to judge people on what they do and how they behave. If we look at sexism and the worst affront that's occurred to me in the Parliament has come from the Labor Party. And the worst possible thing that anyone could say to a pregnant woman about to give birth is that evil thoughts would turn her child into a demon. Now that can only affect a woman because only a woman can be pregnant, but what did Julia Gillard as DPM and Kevin Rudd as PM say? Belinda Neil is a good local member. The problem with the Labor Party is they are using this sexism tag and they've totally over-egged it and they haven't looked at their own record. They have defended the indefensible. Poor

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judgment. They cannot reflect community standards, which is why they didn't condemn Belinda Neil at the time. They defended Peter Slipper as the indefensible.

Peter van Onselen: Can I just jump in on that if I can, because I agree with you but about that but isn't this why this wider issue of sexism needs to be put in in a better context. And let me just do it this way with that quote from 1998. If this was race rather than gender how would you feel about the following statement: but what if whites are by physiology or temperament more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command than blacks. Now that is the same thing but it's making it race rather than gender. That would be the end of his political career, I would have thought, if it was in a race context.

Sophie Mirabella: I'm not going to get into hypotheticals. Now we're getting to a silly level where we are hypothesising about...

Peter Van Onselen: It's exactly the same thing.

Sophie Mirabella. ...what if Tony Abbott said X. What the Australian people actually know is what happened this week in Parliament. Julia Gillard and the whole Labor Party voted to defend the indefensible. Even Peter Slipper knew his position was untenable. And Julia Gillard will wear that hypocrisy around her neck. Here she is saying oh, Tony Abbott

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you're sexist because you called me a piece of work, oh, but Peter Slipper you're OK. And somehow using the fact that there is a proceeding going on to mask their inaction. We had Christine Milne before excuse the fact that the Greens supported Peter Slipper in the vote, that it would be the first time that the Opposition has got rid of a Speaker. Their excuses keep changing. The fact that they voted to keep Peter Slipper has everything to do with political survival in the Labor Party and nothing to do with any conflict or any inappropriateness regarding the court case. That is a totally separate court case. So we've seen massive hypocrisy, absolute shamelessness in the use of sexism by this Government. They will stop at nothing. They will stop at nothing to hold on to power as tenuously as possible.

Simon Benson: Sorry to interrupt, we are going back over ground we have covered pretty comprehensively. I just wanted to take you back to something that allegedly occurred earlier this year in Parliament. There were reports today that apparently the Prime Minister had taunted Tony Abbott to come over to the other side of the chamber and hit her. The Prime Minister's denied that ever occurred, some Coalition MPs are suggesting that was overheard. Did you hear that or do you know anyone that did hear that, or is it just nonsense?

Sophie Mirabella: No, I didn't hear that and I haven't spoken to anyone that had heard that so I can't really comment.

Peter van Onselen:

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In terms of the jibes that go back and forth across the Parliament, it's pretty true to say, isn't it, that on both sides there's some pretty, A, robust comments and, B, sexist comments on both sides of the chamber that do get hurled around?

Sophie Mirabella: Look, the chamber in the Westminster system has always been very robust and there are always things said across the chamber. I'm sure all members of Parliament have thrown things across the chamber. The point is, is it worse now than it has ever been? I don't think so. I don't think so. If you go through Hansard you'll see all sorts of comments being made. The real question is, is there hypocrisy in crying foul over current parliamentary proceedings, and I think there is. For example when I forced Bill Shorten to withdraw an offensive comment he sat down and threatened that he was going to get me. Now that could be considered as a sexist remark but I didn't think so. I just thought it was typical union behaviour that he'd adapted from the AWU, and I laughed in his face. So there is all sorts of things that you can pretend to take offence at and there's actual parliamentary debate that is robust.

Peter van Onselen: I don't think it's likely to change any time soon. Hopefully, however, the next time we get you on the program we'll talk about more than just the politicking of the week and we might get into a bit of policy. Sophie Mirabella, we appreciate you joining us on Australian Agenda, thanks very much.

Sophie Mirabella: Thank you, gentlemen.

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