Tag Archives: Tony Abbott

Dear Tony: calibrate this.

8 May
Suck that pencil, baby.

Suck that pencil, baby. Oh, yeah.

I can’t be arsed trying to whip up outrage about your latest “women of calibre should have babies” gaffe. You keep sticking your foot so far in your mouth the tip of your shoe can been seen poking out your anus, but the real mystery is in spite of that, you still seem to be more popular than the Prime Minister.

The irony is, Tones, nobody with any calibre would give you a second’s consideration as leader of this country. If you win that office it will be because rank idiots, who, according to you probably ought not to be encouraged to breed, have voted for you.

Money, dear, does not necessarily equate with calibre, though there are some moneyed persons who possess calibre as well. Your values could do with a tweak. Hanging out with pedophiles can discombobulate the strongest moral compass, as thousands of Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals continue to demonstrate, across the globe.

The fact that in spite of your many incompetencies your party continues to hold you in esteem as their leader says everything about their capacity for judgement. There comes a time in every party’s life when presenting a united front behind the leader is tantamount to grievous self-harm, and surely that time must be bearing down like a runaway horse on the LNP?

Who is advising you? Who is telling you what to say? Or are you making it all up on the run? I’ve heard rumours about your alleged use of Botox. Well, dear, I’m sorry but you’re putting it in the wrong place. Try your tongue. Oh, you already have?

Personally, I don’t think you or anyone advising you had the gumption to think through the many ramifications of your call for “women of calibre” to reproduce ourselves. Which I have already done, by the way, without, I might add, any assistance from any government, though it would have come in handy. These ramifications are on a continuum from the unpleasant to the downright eugenic. That would not have occurred to any of you, because you really believe there are such binaries as women with and without calibre, based, apparently on our capacity to earn.

I’m not sure where this leaves nurses, teachers, firewomen, policewomen, carers and all the other professionals we consider calibre-worthy, but pay jack shit.

What is really frightening is that people such as yourself, lacking all wisdom, insight, and judgement, driven only by the most rapacious will to power I have seen in human beings since my children were two-year-olds, apparently appeal to the Australian voter so much more than the government.

I just Googled “stupid photos of Tony Abbott” and there were so many my internet broke. Sometimes when I have nothing to do I try to imagine you with world leaders. Bwahahahahahahaha! Mate, you don’t have the calibre. You’re not a top gun.

In fact, you’re just a very small bore.

Cheers, Jennifer.

 

Tags:

Dear Kevin

20 Mar

First up, I hate what they did to you. I really do. Even if you were totally hopeless in the job, you didn’t deserve what they dished out. There were other ways they could have used to address their problems with you, but they were too unimaginative, ignorant, ambitious, short-sighted, and just plain nasty  to do anything other than what they did. So I don’t blame you if you still want to kick their miserable, rat-fucking arses.

But Kevin, we’re all in seriously deep doo doo now. We’re looking at Prime Minister Abbott. This prospect casts an unimaginable blight on all our lives, Kevin, and I’m sorry if I sound harsh, but all our lives together are bigger than your one. You know this in your heart. I know you do, you are a decent chap. You are struggling with the clamourings of your ego and the demands of the greater good. That’s understandable, I would be too.

But Kevin, if there was ever a time for a man to force himself to move on from the self-interested concerns of his seriously affronted pride, mate, this is it.

I know you were gutted when they chucked you out. I watched you cry and mate, I cried with you. I’ve never fully recovered, so I can see how hard it’s been for you.

It will take a real man to do this but if you do, everybody will be gobsmacked with gratitude, Kevin. Stand up, and tell the world in a great big voice that under no circumstances, and no matter what transpires, you will never, ever, ever agree to lead the ALP again during the term of this government. Take yourself right out of the contest, mate. Leave no possibility open. Let us all know, unequivocally, that you are out of the race. End it, Kevin, I’m begging you. End it now while there’s still a glimmer of hope for us.

Kev, they are a bunch of chunts, there’s no denying it. And they are reaping what they sowed. Anybody with an ounce of psychological insight could have told them that it could only ever end in tears, and it has, mate, it has. But Kev, all of us are crying, and we are (in the main) innocent bystanders.

So Kev, while you have a right to be a destabilising influence for as long as you want, I’m begging you, for the sake of my unborn grandchild, due in April, think of the bigger picture. Think of us under an Abbott government. Think of what you can do towards helping us avoid that fate. Think like a hero, Kev. Think like a hero, and walk away from any possibility of resuming the leadership.

Because if they do change leadership you, Kevin, are the absolutely very last person who should step into the breach. This is no time for revenge, mate. I know you want it, and it’s probably due, but Prime Minister Abbott? None of us deserve that fate.

Yours sincerely,

Jennifer

∫

Dear Blog Regulars

Would you like me to set up a permanent space where you can talk about whatever you want?

Tags: , ,

How The Conclave of Creepy Old Men could erode women’s reproductive rights

1 Mar

Just when you thought Opposition Leader Tony Abbott might have pulled his dessicated head in on the topic of abortion in Australia, up pops DLP Senator John Madigan to take over the megaphone.

Madigan declares himself to be “unashamedly pro-life.” Guess what, so am I except when I’m unashamedly pro euthanasia, but that’s another story. Personally, I’m not acquainted with anyone who is avowedly anti life, probably because they’d have to take their own if they were to stand by their principles.

The good Senator for Victoria also counts rabidly anti choice and former Independent Senator for Tasmania Brian Harradine, as his personal hero.

Harradine, as readers of this blog will remember, employed as his ethics advisor anti-abortion campaigner, all-round morals defender & “don’t call me a Baptist or I’ll sue you” celebrity Melinda Tankard Reist, during the period when he managed to deny women at home and abroad access to reproductive information, and the drug RU486. You can refresh your memory if you’d like to at my post, “Who would Jesus Sue?”

There is a possibility that after the next election Madigan may find himself in a situation similar to that enjoyed by Harradine – holding the balance of power in the Senate. It was this privilege that allowed the former Senator for Tasmania to impose his anti choice vision not only on Australian women, but on women in developing countries as well, in exchange for telephones for Tasmania.

Madigan’s argument, if such offensive twaddle can be dignified with the name, is that Australian women in great numbers are availing ourselves of abortions when we are unhappy with the sex of the foetus we are carrying. It happens overseas, he claims, therefore women in this country must be doing it to such a degree he has to introduce legislation to stop us.

Madigan makes these claims based on no evidence at all, but what the hell, who needs evidence, everybody knows women are lying, scheming, unhinged humans, who will do anything we like to a foetus unless a man stops us. Oh bugger, I didn’t want a boy/girl, we say, and stop off at the abortion clinic on a Friday afternoon before we go to the pub.

What women need is for our politicians to call a halt to this stupidity. I am going to make a generalisation here and say women do not, usually, take abortion lightly. It’s time creepy male politicians stopped acting as if we do. In my life I have met only one woman who regarded abortion as a form of contraception, and I didn’t find her tough radical stance convincing.

Apart from anything else, unless you’re somehow involved with the foetus a woman is carrying, what she decides to do about her pregnancy is nobody’s business but hers. There is something hideously creepy about ageing white men like Abbott, Harradine and Madigan spending so much of their time focussed on what women do with our bodies. The image of them indulging their nasty pre-occupations makes my skin crawl.

The only reason to take notice of Madigan’s “let’s have a Tea Party” anti choice views, is the concern that he might chuck a Harradine. With the anti choice Abbott in the running for PM, and the quaintly named “Pro Life Labor” conclave as well, we might find ourselves yet again fighting for our fundamental reproductive rights.

Gentlemen, there is much for you to occupy yourselves with as you progress through your political lives. Please be assured that women are very capable of making considered decisions about our reproductive health, and that we do know where to go for advice when we need it. Your obsession with our reproductive practices is impertinent, and most unhealthy.

Your obsession also insulting, however, as the man who was kicked by a donkey observed, we will, this once ,overlook the insult, upon considering its source:

Braying White Donkey

Braying Ageing White Donkey

Tags: , , , ,

Tony Abbott: I’m your man

7 Feb

If you want a boxer 
I will step into the ring for you 
And if you want a doctor 
I’ll examine every inch of you 
If you want a driver 
Climb inside 
Or if you want to take me for a ride 
You know you can 
I’m your man* 

It’s unsettling to observe the speed with which Tony Abbott is attempting a personal transmogrification from street fighting, slogan-chanting, Putin-wannabe stuntman into calm, responsible, intelligent and concerned alternative prime minister.

Some might argue this is an indicator of the man’s ability to adapt to changing situations, and therefore positive. Others might point out that Abbott’s willingness to turn himself into whatever he thinks you want him to be is a troubling personality trait for the leader of the country. Does it indicate a lack of certainty on his part as to who he really is? Or, if he does know who he is, does his preparedness to adapt indicate a compulsion to act out what he thinks is required of him in any particular moment, rather than be himself?

We saw a similar early attempt to be who she thought we wanted her to be on the part of the incumbent PM, Julia Gillard. Ms Gillard went so far as to publicly declare the emergence of the “real Julia”, in retrospect not the most wise course of action for a leader, and likely a contributing factor to the punters’ lack of trust in her. Announcing that you’re going to be real now, as Abbott has done without actually declaring he’s doing it, can only cast troubling doubt on what you’ve been until that declarative moment.

The majority of punters don’t really care for leaders with shaky personalities. Someone who will change with the wind doesn’t inspire trust. There’s a fine but important line between mature adaptability, and self-interested false accommodation in the interests of gaining or maintaining power.

Abbott has spent the last two years showing us his aggression, his wilful ignorance, his inability to deal with anything remotely complex, his fascist reliance on slogans, and his willingness to use women close to him as human shields. In the space of forty-eight hours he wants us to believe he’s become prime ministerial material. All he’s done is change into yet another set of new clothes and clothes, as my grandmother always told me, do not maketh the man.

*Leonard Cohen, I’m your man.

fire fighting abbott

Tags: , , , ,

Credlin’s IVF: it’s all about Tony

9 Jan

abbott credlinDuring the last couple of days I’ve heard a few women praising Peta Credlin’s bravery in coming out about her IVF treatments. Her unflinching account of how her boss, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, allowed her to store her fertility drugs in his fridge and not only that, sacrificed his private bathroom in support of her pursuit of motherhood will, these commentators claim, inspire so many women who are enduring the same arduous and testing journey towards reproduction.

Then, as The Australian columnist Cassandra Wilkinson explained on The Drum last evening, Credlin has courageously shown us that even powerful women with successful careers have their troubles, just in case we nastily thought their lives were perfect.

I would be more inclined to feel compassion for Credlin’s circumstances were I not so mightily offended by the manner in which she has chosen to reveal them. Usually when I read stories about the IVF process in which a partner is involved, there is somewhere in the account a mention or more of the person who is sharing the journey. Quite frequently there are photos of both parties, and the supporting partner usually has something to say.

In Credlin’s coming out, as reported in the mainstream media, the photos are of her and Tony Abbott. She makes no reference to her husband, Brian Loughnane, Federal Director of the Australian Liberal Party, but speaks glowingly of Abbott’s compassionate and patient understanding of what she is going through.

Of course, Mr Loughnane may not have wanted to participate in his wife’s gut spilling. After all, a husband in the story would detract from Tony Abbott’s role and on the face of it, Tony’s role in the couple’s pursuit of parenthood appears to have precedence over their own.  Tony Abbott has the starring role in Loughnane and Credlin IVF story. In the mainstream media Loughnane, husband and hopefully father to be, doesn’t get a mention.

I find this disturbingly dysfunctional. Isn’t there something just too weird about a husband being usurped by a boss in a woman’s IVF story?

Then, in case you find me cynical, Abbott next takes the golden opportunity created for him by Peta to beg understanding from the general public. People who know him understand his views on IVF, abortion and contraception, we’re told by both him and Credlin, but the punters haven’t got a clue. Well, whose fault is that?

It’s important, Tony continues, for people who know his real views to speak out about them. Why? Why doesn’t he speak out about them himself? Why hasn’t he been speaking out on abortion, for example, given that women find him ill-informed and offensive on matters that relate to our health and well-being. If he wants to change our perceptions, why doesn’t he just come right out and tell us his views instead of asking other women who are related to him or work for him to do it on his behalf? That tactic is certainly not going to endear him to us any time soon.

This piece on his website from 2005, for example. Titled “Rate of abortion highlights our moral failings” it is all we have to go on, and what a vile piece of woman-hating propaganda-disguised-as-concern it is. Abbott may well have made statements about his views on abortion since that time, but they are not written down, and as he himself famously stated, we can believe nothing he says unless he writes it down.

It is really quite baffling, that a man who claims his views have so radically changed does absolutely nothing to address that change on his website.

Then up pops Christopher Pyne, falling over himself in his slavering anxiety to tell us how Tony supported him and his wife through their “IVF trauma.” By god, Tony even went against the Catholic church’s teachings in order to do this!

So what next? Can we expect a woman who has been supported by Tony Abbott as she went through the process of pregnancy termination to come forward and tell us how he held her hand?  Has Tony Abbott ever spoken to women about their abortion experiences, I wonder?

IVF is no joke, I’m sure. A woman needs all the help she can get to go through it, I’m sure. I don’t think Peta Credlin and Tony Abbott have done anything much to encourage and support women and their partners who are on this journey. Indeed, I think they have, by using this story for political gain, shown once again that nowhere in a personal life is there an exploitation-free zone, whether they choose that exposure for themselves, or inflict it on others.

Brian Louhgnane

Brian Louhgnane

Tags: , , , , ,

Abbott: When I grow up

20 Dec
WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE AN ASTRONAUT
AND DO VERY IMPORTANT THINGS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE. 
Astronaut training.(AAP Image/Andrew Taylor)

ASTRONAUT TRAINING
(AAP Image/Andrew Taylor)

Tags: ,

Flexing my mussel

15 Oct

WARNING: this post contains images of shellfish and flowers that some readers may find confronting

I’m not at all disturbed by the disgraced Peter Slipper likening my lady bits to a shellfish, in one of many private text messages sent to his then new friend James Ashby.

For a start, as I have often said, one overlooks the insult (if indeed we confer on this text message the status of insult) on considering the source, and chooses not to waste one’s time and energy getting exercised about it.

Secondly, the comment is hardly original. Women’s genitals have been likened to fish of one kind or another many times before. Does anyone recall that scene in Bliss, the Peter Carey novel turned film, in which sardines cascade from Bettina Joy’s vagina? Yes. Well. Is it a boy thing?

For myself, I’m more inclined towards the Georgia O’Keeffe visual analogies such as this one:

But hey, whatever floats your fishing boat.

On the other hand, I find Opposition leader Tony Abbott’s comments on women profoundly disturbing. For example:

It would be folly to expect that women would ever approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, their abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons. 

Or:

The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience… Even those who think that abortion is a woman’s right should be troubled by the fact that 100,000 Australian women choose to destroy their unborn babies every year… When it comes to lobbying local politicians, there seems to be far more interest in the treatment of boat people, which is not morally black and white, than in the question of abortion, which is.

Why anyone would spend five minutes of their time worrying about how immature men describe female genitalia when we have an aspiring Prime Minister who thinks like this about women, is a mystery to me.

Then there is the semantic quarrel about the difference between sexism and misogyny. You don’t have to hate women to be sexist, apparently, but you do have to hate us to be a misogynist. Why do I not feel consoled by this distinction?

And let’s not forget hatred can take many forms. It does not have to be overt. It adapts itself readily to many guises. If I am treated as inferior because of my sex, as Mr Abbott suggests, am I to feel better about this if it is described to me as sexism rather than misogyny? Surely sexism is an expression of misogyny?

Tony Abbott has three daughters. He feels their virginity is their most  precious gift. He reduces his daughters to a hymen, a reduction I would argue denies them their full  humanity, as so many of Abbott’s statements about women deny us our full humanity.

What we need to ask is do we want a Prime Minister whose default position is to deny women our full humanity?

And why would he want to do this if he doesn’t hate us, however well that hatred may be disguised?

Tags: , , , , ,

Abbott’s vast vault of verbal mediocrity revealed

23 Aug

On ABC’s 7.30 Report last night, interviewer Leigh Sales unmasked the man who would be PM for the empty vessel he truly is.

Abbott is comfortable only when he can mouth slogans. Take him out of that comfort zone, as Sales did last night, and he’s close to inarticulate. Incapable of coherent human exchange, and in a fashion approaching the robotic, he searches desperately for the slogan he needs from his vast vault of verbal mediocrity. With the fierce concentration of a five year-old tying his shoelaces, mouth working, eyes swivelling,  tics pulsing, Abbott digs deep into the black back caverns of his memory, and after a delay that causes the viewer to practically cringe with disbelief, he emerges to triumphantly flourish a slogan he’s finally managed to recover, the one he hopes will save him from actually having to answer a question.

I can’t remember an interview that has so thoroughly exposed Abbott’s utter uselessness as a leader, or indeed, as an MP at all. Racist, misogynist, ill-informed, incapable of intelligent debate on just about any topic, riddled with insecurities, Abbott’s only talent, if it can be described as such, is chanting Liberal mantras, those repetitive, monotonous utterances that mean nothing, inspire no one, and address none of the issues facing this country today.

Combine this lack of talent with an overwhelming ego, an excessive sense of entitlement, and a delusional belief that he is born to be PM while conspicuously lacking all the qualities that position demands, and Tony Abbott is revealed as the pathetically proud owner of a piteously inadequate mind.

We need many more interviews such as this one, in which Abbott is called to account for his lies and mischief. He’s been getting away with it for far too long. A few more encounters like last night’s, and surely the Liberal party will have to think hard about who they’ve chosen to lead them into the next election.

PS: Sorry for the polemic.

Mr Abbott addresses his peers

Tags: , ,

More Abbott on women: equality is “folly” ‘cos biology.

11 Aug

It would be folly to expect that women would ever approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, their abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.  Tony Abbott

As recently as 2010, Tony Abbott was given the opportunity to elaborate on the above statement and to withdraw it, if it no longer represents his views on women. He did neither, so I can only conclude he continues to hold these biologistic views about women’s potential.

I wonder if Abbott extends his beliefs on biological determinism and inequality to any group other than women?  It seems unlikely that someone holding to that ideology would only apply its doctrines to sexual difference.

What are these “large number of areas” in which women can never have equal representation, cos vagina? The only one I can think of is being a sexist dick.

Abbott reveals in this statement his belief that difference is a barrier to equality. Women can never be equal to him because we are biologically different from him. Only those who are biologically the same as him are his equals. Ergo, all others are in some way lesser beings.

Does he apply this theory to skin colour as well as genitals?

The prospect of a leader of this country who holds views that are the basis for the theory of eugenics, ought to give us all pause for thought.

Not only are women lesser beings and therefore un-entitled to desire equality, it is , according to Abbot, folly to believe that we can ever be otherwise. Foolishness. Silliness. Nonsense. Madness, even, to think that women, hampered by our biology, potential destroyed by our vaginas, can aspire to even approach equal representation in large, but unspecified numbers of areas. Areas like medicine? The law? Politics? Academia? The finance sector?

In which areas of life does having a vagina determine your ability or otherwise to think?

I don’t think Abbott is unequal to me because he’s got a penis. He’s unequal to me because he thinks owning a penis makes him superior, and that makes him a fool.

Tags: , , , ,

In one sentence Abbott reveals what he thinks of women

8 Aug

The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience. Tony Abbott. 

Reduced by whom? Who has reduced abortion to a question of the mother’s convenience? Well, according to Tony Abbott it must be women who have reduced abortion to a question of the mother’s convenience, presumably because:

  • Abortion is a “grave” matter and women are incapable of perceiving it as such because they are women, stupid.
  • Women are dumb, or at least a whole lot dumber than Tony Abbott.
  • Women need men like Tony Abbott to guide them on the matter of abortion because they are too wilfully unintelligent to grasp its complexities all by themselves.
  • Women will, willy nilly if you let them, rid themselves of unwanted foetuses because they don’t know any better and what’s more, they don’t feckin care, do they?
  • Women actually have no moral compass.
  • Women are innately frivolous and untrustworthy.
  • Women don’t know half as much about abortion as do men like Tony Abbott.
  • Women must be made to understand how serious it is to abort a foetus because they clearly just don’t.
  • Women are twats.
  • Women will murder their children unless men like Tony Abbott stop them
  • Men like Tony Abbott have a moral obligation to protect women from themselves.
  • Men like Tony Abbott have a moral obligation to protect a foetus from its mother who will kill it, just because she thinks it will inconvenience her.
  • Women are pathologically selfish when it comes to a foetus.
  • Women have no grasp of the awesomeness of life.
  • Women are not men.
  • Women are not Tony Abbott

 

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries

%d bloggers like this: