Ok, I was not going to go here, all manner of Feminists,
accredited & self-proclaimed have had a say. Some I
agree with, some I think are getting hung up in exactly what many
of us on Twitter are always complaining about, that is, focussing
on a ‘gotcha’ instead of the actual merits of a policy.
I would love to be like some who try to be ‘above’ it all like
so-called ‘Legendary feminist Eva Cox’ (Mia Freedman’s words),
though unfortunately, as Ms Cox has defended Tony Abbott on a
number of occasions, her defence of Mr Abbott with "what Tony Abbott was trying to say in a
somewhat clumsy way..." really does not hold a hell of a
lot of weight with me. Ms Freedman chose a rather
provocative title for piece, when she came out to bat for Mr
Abbott, "I'm defending Tony Abbott. Let's
go.", again translating what Mr Abbott ‘meant’ for us poor
dumb punters as "He was simply making the point – albeit a
little clunkily". Yet other articles have used various
excuses for Mr Abbott such as “off-the-cuff”, “un-intended” etc.,
even Paul Kelly on Sky a few weeks ago had to always interject
with "So I think what you are saying..." the fact is,
they are probably right, he really probably did not mean for it
to come across as it did.
Tony Abbott would be an absolute moron to offend such a large
proportion of the population intentionally, so to a certain
degree I am sure that the example he used as to why this
policy,The Coalition’s Paid Parental Leave
scheme, is so important was basically just a brain fart on
his behalf. Before I go further down the Mr Abbott’s
all-time Bloopers road, let's do as I mentioned earlier, be above
the petty gotcha's and look at THE PPL policy. Personally,
not very pretty...
Now, considering Liberals are best mates of big business, as they
would say, it is in their DNA, it seems pretty stupid to be
annoying them telling them they are being smacked with a Levy
(note the Libs are allowed to use the word ‘levy’ unlike the ALP
or Greens Levy’s which are always ‘taxes’, no matter what they
are named) and told they have to fund this super duper ‘ladies’
special for him? The “Australian Industry Group” has
already publicly let everyone know they are not happy campers.
You then add in the fact that for the first time in forever there
is dissent in the ranks. Now the Liberals for the past few
years they have been tighter than ... (fill in the blanks) and we
now have 3 MP’s and counting, and there are more muttering, who
are not happy little vegemites going against what they call
“sound Liberal policy”. So close to an election, that is
not a good look.
Now I am not sure why Mr Abbott is staunchly defending his
policy? There does not seem to be any good reason as
basically we have a Maternity Leave policy in place that is
adequate and most women I know are more interested in actually
wanting to make sure they actually have a job to go back to AND
being able to have affordable & accessible child-care for
when they do 'hopefully' go back to the same job they had worked
hard to get into. So to put so many offside when the only
ones that will really benefit are a few highly paid female
excecutives, (because of course I know there are millions of them
- NOT) just seems pretty dumb.
For people who keep saying, business is paying for it, not
taxpayers, you are delusional. There is no way in hell a
Liberal Government is going to put a tax on their best mates, the
3000 big earning companies in this country without them getting a
concession at a later date in some way shape or form. If
they don’t publicly fight this policy then you know that the
nudge nudge wink wink deal has already been done. When big
companies get any sort of business concession that means less
revenue for the Government and we fill in the short-fall, the
taxpayer. Not to mention they will also double dip (as
banks tend to do) and pass on the so-called extra levy to the
consumer of their products. So in fact, you, the taxpayer
will probably pay for Mr Abbotts gilt edged PPL twice...
Chatting over a glass of wine, all we can come up with is that
Margie obviously suffered when she had to leave her job to have
Tony’s daughters and he has promised her that his “expensively
educated daughters of calibre” will never have to suffer the
deprivations she did? Who would know?
What I do know, is that a perverse part of me actually wants him
to stand his ground on this one, just for the sheer pleasure of
seeing the IPA storm troopers throw tanties
about it. They have already stated they don’t like
it. I would go so far as to say they are actually pretty
pissed off about Mr Abbott not toeing the line on their
'advice'. So, part of me just really wants to see if Tony
does have the guts to stand up to them? Seriously, I would
pay tickets to that show!
Anyhow, back to my original point, Mr ER UM AH ‘slip of the
tongue’ Abbott... This is where I feel our most serious
problem is.
This is not the first time he has been struck by foot in mouth
disease. Fortunately for Mr Abbott he has a forgiving media
that will explain away any gaffe of his with pleasure, combined
with a public that in general is more interested in who got voted
off the Voice last night (don’t even ask who got booted last
year, that is long forgotten), so he gets away with these sorts
of miss-spoken statements all the time. Though of course,
should you wish to revisit the classics, please visit the well
compiled "Tony Abbott gaffes" for a trip down memory
lane.
My point is, IF Mr Abbott is
to become our next Prime Minister as the Australian Media keep
telling me he is – Thanks for that, though if you don’t mind
I would like the courtesy of actually voting first, along with
the odd 23 million Australians – then how the hell is he
going to cope when every conversation he has with a foreign
power, drama overseas, terrorist situation etc., which is NOT
scripted. These very serious situations will happen.
Look at the last 12 months alone, Prime Minister Gillard has had
to negotiate with India, China and our conservative states on
NDIS & Gonski. Now we do not know what the future
holds, who Mr Abbott may have to negotiate with? Even the
easier stuff like the states may not be his conservatives mates
in the future. The fact is he will not be able to have
staff doing this for him, they can only prepare so much, he will
not have the likes of Peta Credlin at his side 24/7 to make sure
he doesn’t ‘miss-speak’ he will have to stand on his own two
feet. I find that pretty scary, as at the moment the bloke
shies away from a true challenging, live, interview?
Let’s face it. Mr Abbott may be very good at saying NO, or
a 3 words slogans, but actually answering questions or
interacting as a human in a real life situation UNSCRIPTED, the
man is pretty much an epic fail. AND maybe that is what we
should be talking about?
Cheers,
Noely @YaThinkN
09 May 2013 - Only 'women' mentioned in "The Coalition's Policy to Improve the
Fair Work Laws" what about same sex couples who adopt or have
a surrogate child?
If you would like to look at the D'oh! Peta graphic in a larger
format it can be found: Exposing Tony Abbott & The LNP -
Memes & Stuff
PS: If the Coalition & Mr Abbott's personal fan club, News
Ltd are putting up pieces like "What about men of a high calibre
Tony?", pretty sure Tony has a bit of 'thinking' to do
:)
PSS: Thanks to Sheila NomNomDePlume @stinginthetail for
editing. Often people talk about Twitter as outrage only,
but it is actually also for questioning and you often meet some
really wonderful people who are very talented & will ofer to
help you for absolutely no reason except that they are nice and
willing to share their skills. That is a good thing &
thank you :)
