Does the Nielsen poll show the dark side of Australia?

Last night Nielsen released their monthly poll that showed a further slump in Labor's primary vote. A loss of 3 percentage points to a dismal 29%.

What was more distressing about this number was that support amongst men had dropped a whopping 7%, with support for women gaining a modest 1%.

It seems from opinions in mainstream and social media that the interpretation of this poll result is PM Gillard's strategy of 'attacking men' has failed. Say what? Did I hear that right? Our Prime Minister is waging a war against Aussie men??? That parallel universe thing is happening again.

If this is the way most men view what has occurred over the last couple of weeks (indeed over the last three years) then I am gob smacked. I am appalled and I am so desperately sad.

Unless you live under a rock (or you take LNP happy pills) you will be aware that the PM has faced two highly sexist public attacks in the last week. The infamous #Menugate and Howard Sattler's crude and invasive questioning about the PM's partner.

A conservative man I follow on Twitter said, in defending the menu, that it seemed satire was OK if you were Kevin Rudd or Wayne Swan but apparently not if you were Julia Gillard. I tried to point out to him the difference in the so-called satire. The derogatory remarks about the PM were focused on her sex, demeaning her appearance as a woman. The menu jokes about Rudd & Swan had nothing to do with sex.

The big problem from my point of view is that he couldn't see that.

This underlying blinkered attitude was further demonstrated by Richards, the restaurant owner, who's LNP engineered response was quick to apologise to Mal Brough, but not a thought was given to apologising to the PM.

As if the #Menugate abhorrence wasn't enough we then have 'shock jock' Howard Sattler persistently asking the PM if her partner was gay. Never mind that Sattler's questions were totally and utterly disrespectful of the office of PM, they were also sexist. They would not have been asked of a male leader, pure and simple.

Of course these matters arose after the PM's #WomenforGillard speech.

Despite being painted as a veritable blitzkrieg by Murdoch & Gina's media minions, the speech was not an attack on men. If you took the reporting of mainstream media as truth you would think that the sole purpose of Gillard's oration was to say that Tony Abbott would marginalise women. All the hoopla was on abortion and blue ties. This was echoed on Twitter by right-wing trolls shrilly saying that the PM was 'starting a gender war'.

I would suggest that these reporters and twitter commentators either have not read the PM's speech or have taken a very narrow interpretation of it to suit their agendas. It was a significant presentation that covered many areas of importance to women.

The whole 'blue tie' reference was an analogy. She was saying that no amount of air-brushing, crisp white shirts, fake tans or blue ties would mask Tony Abbott's long standing attitudes and views on woman's issues, particularly abortion. Let's not forget the man has significant prior form on these matters, and most of it is retrograde. I acknowledge there was some politics in Gillard's speech, but no more than would be expected given the topic and the audience.

So we have two recent appalling sexist attacks on our Prime Minister, on top of the catalogue of previous nastiness 'ditching the witch' etc. Yet this poll result seems to indicate that many Australian men don't care, or worse, think that it's OK to behave in this fashion.

If that is indeed the case I have to ask what is wrong with the Australian male? Do most really think it's alright to treat women in this fashion and that they should just stay quiet about it? What if it were your wife, daughter, partner or mother? Just because it is focused at a strong female PM whom you may dislike doesn't make it any more acceptable. It's not a joke, it's not a laugh and it should not be fobbed off as harmless fun.

Entrenched attitudes like this have no place in 21st century Australian society.

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See this great post from Fiona Armstrong - "Sexism: I've had a gutful" via NoFibs http://nofibs.com.au/2013/06/17/sexism-ive-had-a-gutful/

And we are now getting international notoriety for all the wrong reasons - "Treatment of Julia Gillard shows extent to which sexism is tolerated in Australia" - Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/treatment-of-julia-gillard-shows-extent-to-which-sexism-is-tolerated-in-australia-1.1429432

If you're going to run away from Scott Morrison do it for the right reasons

This past week we have witnessed a spectacle that sums up everything that is wrong with our mainstream media. It was an embarrassment.

A media pack interviewing the Shadow Minister for White Folk, Scott Morrison, literally ran away from him mid interview.

Now I can think of many reasons to run away from Scott Morrison. In my view he is one of the worst types of racists. His mode of operating is to use xenophobic language to gain political favour with those who are predisposed to that way of thinking. He capitalises on fear and ignorance, in the process demonising those who are the most vulnerable. He is vile, so by all means, don't listen to him, don't interview him, don't give him airtime to pedal his lies and misinformation. Run a mile, as fast as you can.

Trouble is, the media pack didn't run for those reasons. It ran because it is more interested in political farce than any meaningful reporting. Their target was resident Labor Judas Clown, MP Joel Fitzgibbon, who they had just spotted with their wanker radars.

Now the day before Joel decided to be a smartarse and poke fun at party guidelines on how to respond to bad polling. Fair enough you might say. Good for a laugh. Bear in mind though, this is the same Joel Fitzgibbon that said we wouldn't be hearing anything more from him after Julia Gillard roundly defeated Kevin Rudd when Rudd took a tilt at the leadership. This is the same Joel that was constantly white-anting the leadership of his own party.

So how does has-been Joel try to make himself relevant again? By having a subtle go at the leadership of course! And it worked, because that's all our pathetic excuse for the fourth estate is interested in. Joel was rapt, pursued by the frenzied media - he even let slip "it's nice to be popular". I'm sure he's loving it.

Which brings me back to my first point. Mainstream political reporting in this country is, by-and-large, a complete joke. If they were serious Fitzgibbon and his ilk wouldn't get the time of day. We would get some meaningful analysis of policy. Maybe we would even get politicians held to account for what they say.

Instead we get clowns.

The parallel universe of Tony Abbott's rolled gold paid parental leave scheme

I'd like you to pause and imagine something for a moment..

Let's imagine "that ranga woman" (that's Julia Gillard, our Prime Minister) has just held a press conference. She has announced that Labor are changing their Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme. They are going to raise the number of weeks coverage to from 18 to 26 and increase the amount paid from the current minimum wage to the annual salary of the recipient up to $150,000. She says the scheme will be funded by raising the company tax on big business by 1.5%.

Now let's imagine the reaction..

Next morning's headlines in the News Corporation mastheads - "Great Big New Tax", "Welfare Gone Mad", "Drain on our Economy", "First the Carbon Tax, Now This!" - including bonus images of dictators, murderers, thieves & sad white families with 3 kids, 2 cars, 6 teles and their 'crushing' mortgage..

Piers, Andrew & Miranda frothing at the mouth about the Socialist virus that is engulfing society..

Alan, Ray & Michael apoplectic with rage, saying how more benefits like this will just encourage greater hordes of those vile, evil, bomb-loving terrorist boat people..

Gina's Fairfax political commentators pontificating about excess and waste..

Bluster bag Joe making more prophecies of economic doom and managing to get the word 'chaos' six times in every sentence..

and of course Tony, scripted straight from the Peta Credlin playbook, disparaging our Navy yet again with all his talk of 'drunken sailors'..

But hold on..

Instead, welcome to the Parallel Universe, where this is Tony Abbot's policy and the mainstream media is caught in a conundrum. Even they have to mention the discord within Liberal ranks, but not too loudly. No page one screaming headlines, no doctored pictures to whip up indignation, no graphs of red ink. Just a mention or two well away from the front page.

Yet this is a policy that is manifestly unfair, unaffordable and totally at odds with the LNP's justification for it's other policy positions.

Remember this policy is set against a backdrop of Abbott slashing public service jobs, reducing tax & superannuation benefits for the less well off, taking the slightly cheaper yet vastly inferior route on the NBN (perhaps the most important piece of public infrastructure this century), and flatly refusing to fund vitally needed education reform. All this in the name of fiscal prudence.

It's rolled gold insanity.