Well, hasn’t it been a busy week or so for NSW Minister John Della Bosca and his wife, Federal backbencher MP Belinda Neal?
Of course, for the last few days we’ve only been hearing about her, despite Della Bosca’s documented history of multiple traffic offences leading to a revoked driving license and allegations that he was part of the alleged drunken and abusive behaviour in a Central Coast nightclub last weekend.
Last month Della Bosca’s licence was revoked for six months following a series of speeding offences, after which he reportedly swore at a newspaper photographer for taking pictures of him riding a bicycle.
Yesterday, he refused to speak to irate teachers who invaded his office to vent their fury at the Government’s decision to change the rules under which school principals hire staff. [source]
Perhaps the newspapers are a bit bored with Della Bosca’s temper, plus although people like to lampoon him he’s simply not that easy a target for anything more (such as collecting a political scalp for the editor’s wall), due to the degree of power he wields in the NSW Labor party. But his wife doesn’t have the same powerbase behind her, and besides - a woman with a filthy temper, there’s a news story with legs - cue hordes of gleefully chortling editors. Neal’s excesses have made the international newspapers now, which gives us a very pithy summary of the key points that are being latched onto for the news cycle:
Minister sent for anger therapy
An Australian politician who told a pregnant rival that her baby could be born a demon was ordered to seek anger counselling after a string of allegations about her behaviour.
Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, interrupted his official visit to Japan to rebuke Belinda Neal, a member of his centre-left government, ordering her to improve her behaviour and warning her about her political future.
His intervention came after a string of media reports about Ms Neal, including her comments to Sophie Mirabella, revelations that she was suspended from a football team for kicking a fallen opponent and allegations that she threatened and abused restaurant staff.
“I’ve said to her that there appears to be a pattern of unacceptable behaviour,” Mr Rudd told reporters in Tokyo.
Ms Neal is married to the New South Wales state minister and political powerbroker John Della Bosca. She narrowly won her seat for the Labor Party in the lower House of Representatives at last November’s national election. She told reporters in Sydney that she had agreed to anger management counselling. “I think frankly that it will be a good thing,” she said. (Reuters)
It certainly seems that a lot of people, not all of them political rivals or opponents, are relishing the chance to dish the dirt on their experiences of Neal’s combative nature, including her son’s former trumpet teacher (Neal didn’t want to pay GST because “she didn’t agree with it”, a rather disturbing attitude for a member of a legislative body to take towards a legal requirement).
Despite noting that there’s more than a whiff of sexist prejudice in the media coverage of Neal’s transgressions compared to her husband’s, I don’t accept the argument from senior Federal MP Julie Irwin that the way that Neal has been handled by Rudd shows a sexist double standard regarding the disciplining of MPs.
Ms Irwin earlier said the ALP never punished former Labor leader Mark Latham for assaulting a taxi driver.
“Why is it that women are singled out by reporting of these incidents?” she asked.
“Why the Cheryl Kernot, the Kelly Hoare and now Belinda Neal? Why not the men?
“I’ve been in the Parliament for 10 years and can think of a dozen occasions where men have behaved offensively.”
I’m sure she’s right about previous overlooking of offensive behaviour in the notorious case of Latham particularly, but that long pre-dates Rudd and Gillard. Kelly Hoare was disciplined similarly for her errors, and it probably did contribute to the calculations involved in disendorsing her as a candidate for her seat in the election in favour of Greg Combet, but unless Irwin can point to a particular incident of offensive behaviour from a male Federal Labor MP in the interim between last May and now she can’t really argue that it’s a pattern of this leadership team - sometimes the distribution of datapoints really is simply skewed over a short interval. It strikes me more as this is Rudd firmly demonstrating that he expects certain standards from all MPs, and it’s just that the first erring MPs on his watch have turned out to be women. The rest of Irwin’s criticisms seem far more to do with the media reaction to errant female MPs compared to how they report on errant male MPs, where, as I said above, I’m sure she’s absolutely right about a double standard being displayed.
The commonality between the vulnerability of Kernot, Hoare and Neal to harsh party discipline may be a more indirect feature of sexism in the party, of course. All three women owe their original pre-selections as candidates more to the influence of party headquarters factors rather than to their own power-broking abilities - Kernot lost her original power-base when she left the Democrats and was never able to build another one of her own in the Labor Party, Hoare “inherited” the seat from her father and seems to have relied on a dwindling rump of his legacy-support in Parliament rather than building influence herself on top of that legacy, and it’s extraordinarily difficult to imagine Neal gaining pre-selection for such a safe Federal Labor seat without the benefit of being Mrs Della Bosca and all the NSW Party influence his name entails.
Hoare and Neal particularly are not strong politicians of independent ability and their preselection as fairly unremarkable candidates may itself reflect larger systemic issues of sexism in the party as a whole with regard to how it chooses female candidates. Also none of the three women mentioned by Irwin have a history of swinging their own support in caucus - they all had to follow their factions rather than lead, although of course Kernot had a legitimate history of power-broking as a member and then Leader of the Democrats, and shouldn’t really be included in the same second-tier as Hoare or Neal - Kernot’s failure to be effective as a Labor politician was due to a miscalculation of the negative public reaction to her jumping the party horses midstream, not due to a long pattern of dependence on others for her political success.
Listening to the radio this morning, the announcer said that she found it telling that no-one in Canberra was coming to Neal’s defence on any of the claims of abusive or violent behaviour, none of her fellow backbenchers were stepping forward to say “this is not the Belinda I know”. Of course, she’s only been in Canberra since November, so how would anyone there know what she’s like, really? Fresher MPs have a lot to absorb and don’t have the time or energy to spare for as much socialising as the veterans. So Neal’s only defenders have come from the NSW party, where Della Bosca is a heavyweight, and this is not a good PR look.
Julia Gillard has denied that there is any sexist double standard at play in terms of party discipline. One can’t make a definitive determination based simply on Rudd publicly rebuking Neal and NSW Premier Iemma being much more circumspect with Della Bosca - you could hardly get two more different leadership styles than Iemma and Rudd. Certainly Neal’s alleged behaviours are cause for concern, just as Kelly Hoare’s were, and a public announcement of the request that she attend anger management counselling really doesn’t seem overly harsh, embarrassing for her though it might be. The arrogant streak that Neal and Della Bosca both display must also ensure that making examples of them is an awfully tempting thought for many of their less abrasive colleagues, which again might explain why Neal appears to perhaps have been singled out. We shall simply have to wait and see how Rudd and Gillard react to the next incident of offensive behaviour involving a male Federal Labor MP.
Belinda Neal’s formative political experiences were as a law student and a Labor Right student politician at Sydney University and in the Australian Union of Students, in a context where the Labor Right saw everything to the left of itself as the main enemy, and the Liberals and National Civic Council as actual or potential allies. I have commented elsewhere on this phenomenon and its consequences under the rubric “from little finks big finks grow”.
After graduation she worked for the Federated Ironworkers Association (a bastion of the anti-communist Right in the labour movement, now merged into the Australian Workers Union) and then practiced law for seven years before entering parliament for the first time as a Senator.
In other words there is nothing in her formative political years which can be expected to produce any kind of sensitivity or sympathy towards ordinary working people such as the club employees who had to deal with her alleged behaviour and her alleged threats to their employment. And, continuing with the “from little finks” theme, this is a trajectory which she shares with several members of the current NSW Labor Government.
Well that’s what happens when you implement an arbitrary quota for an arbitrary class. In order to meet such a quota you may end up choosing substandard people purely based on their membership to that arbitrary class.
I also think that (rightly or wrongly) traffic offenses and drunken incidents are a different kettle of fish to violence on the sports field in Australian culture.
In fairness, I must acknowledge that she was always polite to me when we met during AUS Annual Council meetings, and later on in the 1980s when we would meet in the Sydney CBD en route to our respective workplaces (the CPA and the FIA) and in King Street Newtown en route to our respective watering holes (Cecchini’s in her case, the Sandringham in mine).
Thanks Tigtog. Beyond the ‘revenge’ factor that may be fueling some of this - a SMH photographer who caught the banned-from-driving Della Bosca on a bicycle was called a f…..c..t - the sexism tag is far-fetched IMHO.
A couple of queries. The seat of Robertson is far from safe and Belinda Neal holds it on a knife edge.
Also Neal was a senator for some four years during the 1990’s so there must be some track record from Canberra that could throw light on her current behaviour and that could have warned of possible problems ahead.
Now that the NSW Police are involved over widely differing Stat Decs and Commissioner Scipione regards it as very serious, the issue of possible intimidation, threats, misuse of power has a very bad look for one or both.
Desipis, it’s hard with both major parties these days to sort out where the various strands of nepotism, actively exclusionary elitism and ideologies tangle together. There’s an awful lot of substandard MPs of both genders who owe their pre-selection to whom they are related to as much as any time put into actual organised politicking.
However, I suspect the style of networking for both major parties tends to be especially off-putting for women who lack the advantage of relatives to act as mentors, meaning that a lot of the more independently able women in the major parties end up getting sidelined because without a senior bloke to shepherd them through the blokey networks (and the opportunities the networks offer for getting known and “proving” oneself) such isolated able minds are all too easily ignored as unknown qualities versus the known mediocrities.
If you’re keen to find sexism within political parties you’ll probably find some, but although that prejudice must be fought against, it may not be the main problem. I’ve commented on other threads about a sense of entitlement, seemingly just as strong through family dynasties and “jobs for the spouses” in the ALP as in other parties.
Downer clan etc in Libs, Anthony clan etc in Nationals, and in Labor a whole lot too: Beazeley, Crean, Whitlam, Cain, etc. In the Federal seat of McMillan the ALP put up the-wife-of-the-defeated-State MP last year. She lost.
This business of family ties can be dismissed by saying that “a young girl or boy raised in an intensely Parliamentary family is likely to follow….” but I reckon that factor’s not sufficient explanation.
I’d look to terms such as privilege, status, entitlement, patronage, nepotism. The whole tawdry lot….. Every party needs to improve its Parl’t candidates and improve its preselection processes. The ALP more than most, I think.
Favours given in preselection may seem like small beer, but cumulatively they give the Parliament an unpleasant odour.
cheerio
“Of course, she’s only been in Canberra since November, so how would anyone there know what she’s like, really?”
She was a Senator in the 90s and even apart from that everyone in the Labor Party knows or knows about about Belinda Neal. She’s been active in politics (not just student politics) since the early 80s. She has not changed one little bit. It’s kind of weird. Usually people do change between the ages of 18 and 45.
Not one iota of feminist sympathy should be given to Belinda Neal.
None.
Zero.
Nought.
Nil.
Zilch.
I do feel sorry for John Della Bosca.
If I may quote amused from 11.02am yesterday:
“Della, or more particularly, his unlovely and untalented wife, did that all to themselves, I can assure you. ‘Don’t you know who I am’ is her perpetual cry, as she threatens working class stiffs in her electorate with the sack on a regular basis, for the crime of actually doing their jobs, and not deferring to her claims for special and different treatment.
Don’t waste any time over that pair. It would be better spent on the numerous people who have been threatened with the sack by that appalling woman, just because she likes throwing her weight around. She is a particularly graceless example of the type thrown up by one of the tight and tiny family networks controlling one part of the dominant faction in NSW.”
It seems that some folk, at least in NSW, are very well aware of the lady. We Victorians are only just now getting a whiff, and are delighted with the show so far. Good production values, varied locations, grainy security camera footage, highest level press conference in Tokyo, soccer (alleged) victim, spousal connections, it’s got everything
We had Bylinda, youse’ve got Belinda. And looks like youse are stuck with her.
Great post Tigtog, and I agree wholeheartedly - her treatment by media has been resoundingly sexist, and that doesn’t excuse the fact that, as you say, she doesn’t seem appropriate MP/nice person material at all.
Interesting note that Della is getting off relatively lightly. Then again, he’s been so dodgy already.
Also, to be fair, her alleged comment about Sophie Mirabella’ baby is probably not that unreasonable.
Though, I do note we have now moved beyond the sixth day of the sixth month.
Tigtog @5, it would seem to be an inevitable property of political parties that those individuals with power in the party would focus on mediocre people who will remain loyal rather than quality individuals in their own right.
Bullying in the workplace, bullying at the watering hole, bullying in the school ground; violence against women, “robust debate” (abuse); ah it’s a fine old story is it not?
I reckon Mark Latham copped a lot over the contact-sport taxi driver: once revealed it was mentioned incessantly. It went to the question of character. And he gave us a minor reprise by a threatening handshake with JWH outside a radio studio near the end of the campaign. Just to dredge it all up from the collective sub-conscious. And to go very neatly alogside his remarks about being a “great hater”.
That’s one of the advantages of an electoral system: occasionally the voters get the chance to weed out a dud before he gets the chance to do MAJOR damage. Cool, eh?
Mark Latham - taken with a grain of assault.
A prediction. If Della-Bosca has a case to answer in relation to charges stemming from Iguana Stat Decs..conspiracy to pervert….threats with malice, whatever, then Iemma will have to sack him. If Bellinda was knowingly involved then Rudd will follow suit. Robertson gets an unlikely Independent til next election unless criminal convictions rule them out of representative politics.
tigtog,
While I am second to none in my fondness for general musings on the way gender shapes discourses of various kinds, particularly in relation to the exercise of power I would really like eveyone to know that in this case, Ms Neal’s problems derive from an almost perfect track record of high handed disdain for the hoi polloi. This is typical of the so called ‘realistic Right’ in the ALP, who, to a person, disdain any empathy at all for anyone, who is not rich, not powerful and who doesn’t automatically genuflect at the latest manifestation of conventional thinking on just about every subject.
Her colleagues are critical, because there is plenty to be critical about. I for one am not prepared to waste any sympathy at all for a woman whose whole careeer has been built on who she knows, rather than what she can contribute, and whose trademark epithet where she comes from, is ‘Don’t you know who I am’. She regards people giving up their time to get her elected as nothing less than her due. Della is one thing, she is simply a ‘thing’.
Give it a break.
Interesting observation that Della got off pretty lightly in comparison with Belinda. Perhaps so, but he does have to live with her.
But it does raise another interesting query on the NSW Right, which is odd to us interstaters. We are told that Della is one of the real brains of the NSW Right. After some especially insensitive blunder a while back, I thought that it didn’t say much for the brains of the rest.
Yet maybe there is something to it. By putting up Belinda as a senator and then as an MHR, Della is able to distract attention from his own political troubles. Can he really be a Rasputin or Svangeli?
“Interesting observation that Della got off pretty lightly in comparison with Belinda.”
He is a shambolic, (almost) likeable, character, the human face (albeit with looks of acne scars) of the NSW Right.
She is as likeable as a funnel web spider.
Therein lies the explanation for the different treatments.
Plus, as you say Don, he does have to live with her.
Forget the politics for one moment. Suppose you came across a couple like them. What would your reaction be?
Agree with most of this thread Neal is being singled out because she is a woman. Old Wilson Tuckey who spews vomit nearly every time he speaks is seen as a bit of a knock about bloke but Neal is a harridan.
But please don’t keep bringing up the Sophie Mirabella’s baby example. Sophie is a big girl and can take care of herself. She is milking this for all it’s worth. I suggest anyone who wants to see what a piece of work our “heavily pregnant” Sophie is to have a look at her speech about the apology to the stolen generation.
Thanks for that Spiros. Reaction? Head for the hills pronto!
Do you not think it is just as off-putting for men who lack the advantage of relatives to act as mentors, meaning that a lot of the more independently able men in the major parties get sidelined because without a senior bloke to shepherd them through the blokey networks (and the opportunities the networks offer for getting known and “proving” oneself) such isolated able minds are all too easily ignored as unknown qualities versus the known mediocrities?
Also, have you not heard of Emily’s List, which forms an identical function to the “blokey” networks and contributes as much to the rise of mediocrities (think Joan Kirner who ran Victoria into the ground during her Premiership)as those blokey networks do?
Just fouled up a post so will confine my comments to A) A witchunt against Della Bosca because he is anti electricity privatisation.
B ) Mirabella/Panopolis is the ultimate funnel-web. God bless Bel Neal for telling this sinister, misanthropic, superstitious and spectral creature her kid would be born purple with three heads, or whatever.
I’ d give Neal a medal and a big cuddle for her outspoken, courageous and overdue remarks, regards above.
Actually the above is a cherishable example of why many of us love women. So empathetic, so refreshing…
Paul Walter, I’m second to none in my views on the vileness of Mirabella but Neal was way out of line to bring her unborn kid into it.
It is sad for you that you cannot understand that.
I’d be quite happy for Neal, or anyone else in Parliament for that matter (and I’d be pretty sure that there’d be more than a few on Panopoulos’s side of politics who’d like to) to point out what a sinister, misanthropic, superstitious- though all to corporeal- creature Mirabella is but only a low life who exists at the same level as Mirabella, and therefore is not in any position to condemn her, would think it’s OK to attack her through her kid.
Paul Walter has got it right. It is all about power privatization.
[link]
Incidentally, that mock video clip was a rip off of one done on Youtube in the US the previous week called “The Downfall of Hillary”, using the exact same sequence from the movie Downfall, with Hillary’s words substituted for Hitler’s.
Excuse me for maybe pulling this a bit off-topic (who? me?)
I’m totally lost with who’s who and what’s happening in the NSW ALP, particularly after watching those two youtube videos with Hitler.
I now realise I’ve been getting Bosca and Costa mixed up since, like, forever. But what’s with Della Bosca and the electricity sell-off. I keep getting implications he’s opposed, so I assumed he was on the Left. But then I get the impression he’s in favour of privatization, but not very good at getting the numbers. Or is the Right split? IS the Left split?
BTW, Neal is the member for Robertson, right? Which Labor won back in 2007 with 50.11% of the 2pp vote (on a 7% swing, which must be a bit higher than the NSW average?). I can’t see that as a safe seat by any definition.
It’s Labor’s most marginal seat in Australia in fact!
The suggestion I read somewhere was that no one thought Neal would win it.
Sounds like the ALP in NSW is in appalling shape. How did it get this bad and how can it be fixed?
Don Wigan writes:
Um, yeah.
The difference between Neal and Della’s treatment is in their leaders. Rudd can give Neal a slap because he’s walking on water as far as the Federal ALP is concerned, and NSW Right’s influence isn’t quite so pernicious. But nobody in NSW is going to slap Della without thinking very hard about it first. It IS possible that Iemma is waiting to use the situation to his advantage in the electricity privatisation issue, but that seems a bit sophisticated for him.
Maybe the media are being harsh on Belinda Neal as part of their ongoing attempt to embarrass the Rudd government and declare, yet again, that “the honeymoon is over”
Someone commissioned some push polling prior to the last NSW state election highlighting the stellar qualities of Belinda and Della in contrast to the sitting member who was near retirment age. Much specualtion as to who was responsible but clearly someone close to Woy Woy Bay. The problem being that the dear old lady Marie Andrews was the only person with a hope in hell of hanging on to the seat if there was a swing against NSW Labor. Marie Andrews contested the redistrubted seat of Gosford and won.
Belinda Neal is then supposed to get preselection for Robertson unopposed when it went to the National Executive. A local branch member with more money than sense contested preselection but received not a single vote. Belinda Neal then gets over the line thanks to a really strong local Rights at Work campaign. The workers must be thrilled.
It would be fair to say that she would have struggled to win a local preselection. She is an extraordiarly divisive character amongst local Labor branch members. Many branch members have experienced a lot worse than the alleged behaviour at Iguana Joes. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard to their credit are the first in the party to actually call her bluff and give her the carpetting many believed she deserved years ago.
Yes, sorry everyone about the slip-up re Robertson being a safe seat. I was getting confused about Hoare’s very safe seat that went to Combet and that one got past me.
The idea that Neal only got pre-selection in Robertson as a poisoned chalice is rather appealing. She really does seem to be a very unlikeable character.
Re GregM
The nepotism is obviously off-putting for anyone who doesn’t have an existing power-broker to take them on as a protege.
However, in a blokey networking environment, guys without relatives as mentors can still go to the golf days and the footy box gatherings as singletons to do the schmoozing without an eyebrow being raised and to general approval if they do it well. Women without relatives as mentors don’t get to do the same and get approved for doing so - it’s seen as pushy and inappropriate unless they’re shepherded by someone with power, whereas men doing so on their own are seen as plucky and showing ticker.
That’s exactly what Emily’s list was designed to mirror - the standard networking opportunities were a macho environment that directly and indirectly discouraged women’s participation, so women built their own networks targeted to socialisation that appeals to women rather than men. Of course it will still have its factions and nepotism built in, just like the macho networks. It doesn’t have anything like the power though, still.
It may be close to caricature this blokey environment you’re talking of. Have a look at John Button’s reminiscences of overthrowing a self-important, divisive and thoroughly closed-shop (and elkectorally unsuccessful) outfit in charge of the Victorian ALP circa 1970.
Just a few persistent, intelligent branch members putting the case for democracy within the ALP (heavens forfend). Arguing, writing, criticising, speaking, campaigning; not too many BBQs or pub nights involved. Blokes they were, but independent. No patronage. They faced entrenched obduracy - and almost hermit-like obscurantism.
Very little outside support until finally Clyde Cameron and Gough Whitlam helped out. The royal road of patronage and perks is not the only route to success.
Maybe there is hope for Belinda. She just needs to get in touch with her inner social democratic self again, reject the politics of division and embrace unity. The following is an extract from her first speech to the House of Reps on 18/2/08.
“Most of all I am proud of the Australian people, who at this election rejected the exploitation of workers and embraced a fairer relationship between employees and employers, who rejected the politics of division and embraced unity, who rejected self-seeking opportunism and embraced a caring society, who turned their backs on mean-heartedness and embraced generosity of spirit, who rejected the short-term exploitation of our environment and chose to protect our natural beauty and to make plans to deal with the challenges of climate change. This breadth of spirit was vividly illustrated …. with our national apology to the stolen generation, and I look forward to its continuation. I am ambitious for an enlightened social democracy built on the goodwill of the Australian people and formed on the foundations of a strong and vibrant economy.” (www.aph.gov.au)
“Maybe the media are being harsh on Belinda Neal as part of their ongoing attempt to embarrass the Rudd government and declare, yet again, that “the honeymoon is over””.
Maybe.
Though it might be more about the NSW electorate ready for a “divorce”.
More an issue for that state and it’s poor government, I would have thought.
What a delightfully quaint nineteenth century view of society you have with all of this chaperoning going on. It ignores the fact, however, that we are now in the twenty-first century, fully two centuries after the time of Jane Austen’s novels, where women do go to golf days (assuming they can play golf, but then plenty of “independently able” men can’t) and to footy box gatherings (although “independently able” men who are bored stupid by footy wouldn’t want to go to those too often for fear of exposure of not being “blokey”) without their male relative mentors and without being seen as pushy and inappropriate.
Pity,though, the poor “independently able” man who goes to too many dinner parties, that other great opportunity for networking that you neglect to mention, as a singleton. Definitely not a “blokey” thing to do. Eyebrows would be raised and it might be suggested to him that he pursue a career as a puisne High Court judge rather than in politics.
Neal was on the Federal Executive on the ALP in the ’90s and, as I’ve said elsewhere, is a known quantity. Her treatment reminds me of that meted out to male - yes, male - sportsmen who have nightclub incidents of their own. The Irwin comment holds if you assume that Neal’s husband is getting off scot-free, which he isn’t, so it doesn’t (besides, Irwin’s only held her job for quota reasons - so Julia, shhhhhhhhhh).
The fact that she sunk to the level of Sophie Mirabella is a hanging offence in itself.
You can call Robertson a Liberal gain next election right now. I don’t care if Rudd wins 100 seats and two-thirds of the Senate and the election is two years away and the Liberals elect Sophie Mirabella as leader, the Liberals will win Robertson. Bet against it only if you are tired of having money.
As I said, Irwin’s claims of sexist party treatment didn’t convince me. The media treatment of the incident is a different thing though.
Andrew E is right to point out the similarity to shaming sports figures who act offensively, and the outrage certainly seemed to spike after the claims about the soccer game kicking. We don’t like ‘em nassssty on the sports field, do we?
GregM, mentoring/patronage is not at all the same thing as chaperonage and I never claimed it was. My reference to would-be pollies going to functions as singletons was meant to refer more to their factional statu
es than their marital status.Tigtog, I’d believe you except that the criterion you laid down was male relative mentors, not just of male mentors.
If that’s not chaperonage in the context of “blokey” events I do not know what it could be.
Also, if “singletons” refers to factional status rather than marital status, then why (as Ambigulous points out about John Button) why would they want to go through all this “blokey” factional networking which could only compromise their factional “singleton” status as “independently able” and factionally unaligned politicians of either gender?
I’ve taken instant dislike to very few people in my life, especially opposition MPs I need to work with. But when Belinda Neal was shadow Minister for Housing (as a Senator) she was the MOST obnoxious person I came across. And totally disinterested in policy reform or anything to do with the portfolio really. In fact, so obnoxious that 10 years later I still loathe her.
Considering we were supposed to be on the same “side”, she was rude to me and others. Much ruder than Mark Latham when he had the portfolio. And to his credit, he had a policy view that he wanted to promote, had thought through the issues and even though I agreed with some of it, I respected his intellectual capacity.
She had none of that. No redeeming features at all. As someone said today “pity the counsellor.”
Interesting to consider both issues ie “sexism” in the media and the assumption of “nepotism”, namely that Belinda Neal only got to where she is through being “Mrs Della Bosca”. I don’t doubt that John has supported his wife’s political ambitions, possibly leaned on a few people during pre-selection but she is not without her own raw political ambition or credentials. Mentoring is now regarded as a positive thing but I guess that it is often easy to blur the line between mentoring and nepotism. Obviously, Senator Kerry Sibraa helped the political ambitions of both John and Belinda first by employing John as a Research Assistant & later resigning at a time favourable for Belinda. Whether he mentored them or monstered others to give John & Belinda the inside running I cannot say.
Putting together a bit of a biographical time line based on entries on their respective Parliament’s websites and First Speeches to Parliament we see that John & Belinda were political animals from an early age. Both joined the ALP at 17 years of age – he in 1973 in Sydney and she in 1980 (perhaps in Orange where she attended high school). He was active in student politics in the mid-1970’s at UNSW whilst completing a BA. She was active in student politics at Sydney University in the early 1980s whilst completing an LLB.
I read somewhere that they married in about 1987. Their paths probably started to cross from the early 1980s given their respective involvement in the NSW ALP - he became State Organizer from 1983; she became a NSW State Conference Delegate in the same year.
His first job was Research Assistant to Senator Sibraa 1976-1979. He then went to a position with the Transport Officers Federation. After that he held just about every job in the organizational wing of the ALP in NSW including as General Secretary from 1990 – 1999. He was elected to the NSW Legislative Council in 1999. He became Special Minister of State & Assistant Treasurer about two weeks after the election. Clearly, he was on some sort of a fast track in the political wing but based on a long apprenticeship in the Party.
Post university, Belinda worked as a Union Officer with the Federated Iron Workers Union from 1986 – 87 and then practised as a solicitor from 1987 – 1994. She was elected as an Alderman with Gosford City Council from 1992-1994. She was appointed to the Senate in 1994 following the resignation of Senator Sibraa. From 1996 – 1998 she held several Shadow portfolios. She resigned from the Senate in 1998 to contest the seat of Robertson. She was unsuccessful in the General Election of 1998 but won the seat in the 2007 General Election. She has an impressive list of participation in parliamentary committees including Senate Standing, House of Representatives Standing, Joint Standing, Joint Statutory and Joint Select Committees and Senate Estimate Committee D. She is obviously prepared to put in the hard yards.
I have no doubt that she would enhance her impressive credentials with the addition of a Certificate in Anger Management. However, it is patently obvious that many other parliamentarians could also benefit from such a course.
While Belinda Neal did not exactly cop the charges relating to the nightclub incident she rose in my estimation by the way she copped the very public Rudd imposed censure & agreed that anger management counselling was a good idea. I look forward to counselling becoming the norm for male offenders as well.
I eventually came to the conclusion that everyone just automatically accepted and took on board the “ethnological turn”; that beneath all the cobblers about idealism it was indeed, just about about patronage and nepotism; eg totally nihilistic and necessarily devoid of consciousness, which is why we have politicians of the make up of Iemma and Nelson; now exotic variations like Neal and Panopolis, rather than Garibaldi, Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer.
It’s all so removed from reality, this extreme example of “culture”, absolutely all self referential and discrete in the scientific sense.
Tosca, did you have in mind folk like “Iron Bar” Wilson Tuckey and the wretched Michael Costa for anger management ( folk used to think of it as toilet training failure, involving “anal” types like Kevin Andrews- anyone have a Lacanian take on it all? ).
Some great posts here and Greg M, I take on board your chidings, that post was a response to something someone earlier had mentioned.
Nepotism means familial favouritism, GregM, for pedants such as I am. That’s why it’s a distinct concept from broader networks of mentoring/patronage. Historically, until very recently there simply were not senior female figures in the party to act as mentors to younger relatives of either sex, which is why I confined my commentary to the established blokey ALP culture, because that’s what mainstream ALP culture still is.
There’s also still a social habit of viewing mentoring relationships between people of the opposite sex with a degree of salacious speculation, whereas if the two people are related it’s all A-OK. Therefore senior men mentoring younger men to whom they are not related is seen as a fairly natural part of building a power-base and trading favours as part of it all, while if they decide to mentor a woman both parties need to be willing to shrug off such salacious speculation. Just another straw upon the camel’s back for ambitious women without a nepotist network to fall back upon.
Also, I referred to Neal et al’s lack of independent ability as power-brokers in the ALP. Nobody can be an ALP power-broker without being part of a faction they can swing behind them, but all the factions have plenty of sheep, a number of sheepdogs to keep the sheep in line and only a few shepherds telling them all where to go. Neal has never been a shepherd.
Of course Neal had her own independent political ambitions. But she does not seem to be someone who swings other people to her will on her own merits as a persuasive opinion leader. She’s a loud sheepdog at best.
“She’s a loud sheepdog at best.”
But when the sheep dog bites and attacks you get your gun out and shoot that dog.
The possibilty that the ructions are the inspired handiwork of Obeid , Tripodi and Costa going against the slime of the NSW ALP’s nepotism and frankly intimidatory behaviour is bathetic.
So it must be time for the parties mealy mouthed apologists to tell evryone it is best to join your local branch and really make a difference - oh ,except all votes at conference mean nothing and the pledge is a joke now so don’t worry , be happy.
Emily’s List was formed in 1996. Joan Kirner became Victorian Premier in 1990, after the state economy and the Labor government’s electoral fortunes had already been sent on a southward trajectory by her mostly male colleagues. The two portfolios she held prior to becoming Premier were Conservation, Forests and Lands, and Education, neither of which involved immediate responsibility for economic (mis)management. My own perception of Joan Kirner, based on witnessing her involvement in education politics in the early 1980s and the accounts of others, and her record as a reforming Conservation etc. Minister, is that she was not and is not a mediocrity.
It is also worth noting that Belinda Neal was not an Emily’s List candidate at the 2007 Federal election.
Re Emily’s List, I propose a local version of Godwin’s Law: whenever the List gets mentioned as an example of elevating mediocrities/why feminism is evil and silly/Bring Back da Menz/etc, the conversation is over and whoever mentioned it lost the argument.
I was living in Melbourne before and during Kirner’s Premiership and met her a couple of times and ‘mediocrity’ is a laughable way of describing her. She was thrust into the leadership in the wake of the Pyramid-Tricontinental-State Bank of Vic financial disaster under Cain because they knew they were going down anyway: the Labor Party did the thing it so often does and handed the poisoned chalice to a woman so they could say ‘There you go, look, we’ve got a woman.’ This policy is also known as Face the Future with a Woman on a Stick. Bob Hawke initiated it by handing the Australia Card fiasco to Susan Ryan some time in the 1980s and they’ve been doing it at state (especially) and federal level ever since.
(With the honourable exception of Keating, who really did get it, and tried harder.)
/rant
Yes, Dr. Cat, Joan Kirner was appointed toilet cleaner on the Titanic after Captain Cain and First Mate Jolly had hit the iceberg. Same for Carmen Lawrence in WA in the wake of WA Inc.
“This policy is also known as Face the Future with a Woman on a Stick”
Lol.
Reports are that Iemma is going to sack Della Bosca today. The trigger is the revelation Della drafted the apology from Iguanas after he said he didn’t.
He won’t come back from this. And with him gone, his trouble and strife’s career is over too. Her enemies, accumulated over decades, will line up 10 deep to dance on her grave. But even without her as its candidate, the residual stench might be too much for Labor to hold on to Robertson in 2010.
Who have thought a bit of a blue at a pub on a Friday night could end two political careers?
Yes, I saw that too, Spiros. I can’t see Della Bosca surviving that admission either, and the likelihood of a decisive swing away from Labor in Robertson as a result of all this is very strong.
The telling thing is that it was their response to the blue at the pub that did them in, not the blue itself. Leaning on the Iguana’s owner to retract statements made by the staff was arrogant (to be somewhat expected) and stupid (fatal for someone who’s not personally likeable).
I think the difference is not based on sex. It is that Neal is a federal member and Rudd the federal leader has some leadership qualities. Della Bosca is a state member and his state leader, Iemma has absolutely no leadership qualities.
Della Bosca is a disgrace for multiple reasons.
Can anyone name one good minister in the Iemma government? Good luck.
Indeed. The blue at the pub was an exhibition of common human frailties (although ones we’d prefer they did something about). The response exhibited a pathological complex towards politics, power, government and ethics which can’t be tolerated in a democracy.
Pavlov’s about Joan Kirner, yes your summary is fair. But wasn’t Joan Deputy Premier under John Cain, so that when he resigned abruptly (Joan claimed he gave no prior warning) she was left sitting next to the podium as all other Cabinet members hastened backwards away from the chalice?
In other words, she did her duty. She was loyal to her Party and her Government. I’m not sure she was put up as a fall-person, though. But I agree with Klaus that your “Face the Future with a Woman on a Stick” is funny.
My recollection is she was competent in both ministries: Education and also Conservation, Forests and Lands. It was a breath of fresh air to have a female senior minister. I agree she wasn’t mediocre.
ABC News radio said Mr Iemma’s news conference about Mr Della Bosca is scheduled for midday. Were the ALP to expel Belinda, would she sit on as an independent in the Reps?
Or would she relish the pay-back opportunity of resigning and letting Kevin and her tormentors suffer a byelection defeat?
BTW, Treasurer Costa is also a delight to watch. In Victoria he appears usually in a non-speaking role in short TV news items. We aren’t subjected to excerpts from his Conference speeches. The older viewers recall Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family”: beaming bald good humour and the ability to light an electric globe clenched between his teeth. Is that Plan B if electricity privatisation goes wrong?
“Can anyone name one good minister in the Iemma government?”
Carmel Tebbutt.
I reckon the worst of them is Frank Sator, who is doing his very best to wreck whatever vestages of planning law that the state once had.
Plus he has developed the party line in arrogance and rudeness into an art form.
Surely the worst is Joe Tripodi.
In response to Ambigulous:
They’re creepy and they’re kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They’re altogether ooky
The Iemma Family
How about some more casting suggestions? Morris as Gomez (obviously) and Eric Roozendaal as Lurch come to mind.
Yes, Carmel Tebbutt was a good education minister, but she resigned a few months ago and Della took over.
Ambigulous, by the time Kirner became Deputy Premier in the second half of 1988, the financial situation was already dire — the electorate just didn’t know about it yet. And certainly the perception at the time, at least in some circles, was that Kirner had been set up — knowingly — to take the fall. You are quite right about her loyalty.
I hate to admit it but I pinched, um, adapted the Face the Future line, years ago now, from an early Leunig cartoon, dating from the days before he had kids himself. A little classic-Leunig man is depicted in quite a savage and obvious parody of the WW1 propaganda in which the Huns are skewering babies on their bayonets; he’s holding a forked stick ahead of him like a weapon with a baby stuck, kebab-like, on the end of it, with thunderclouds and lightning bolts in the background (I may have made that last but up but it is certainly atmospherically true), and the caption ‘Face the future with a child on a stick’.
Adrian
She did? My bad.
In that case, Verity Firth.
The Editor of the Sunday Telegraph (just so you know how reliable this is) was beside himself with glee on the Today Show this morning that the Dellabosca/Neal fiasco will bring down Morris Iemma.
Reading between the lines, it might all really be a consequence of the electricity privatisation furore.
“…. the Dellabosca/Neal fiasco will bring down Morris Iemma.”
Not sure why The Editor would be so thrilled, Paul.
A clean sweep now, might actually give Labor a chance of winning that states election.
Mind you, I find NSW political machinations, generally, as alien and incomprehensible as American politics.
Joe2,
Its just this whole anti-Labor bullsh*t that pervades the Today Show.They’re the TV version of the Australian op-ed pages. + huge egos delighting in the power of the MSM, I suspect.I couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed to adjust my attenna to watch Sunrise.
Latin American politics is actually closer to the mark, and not at all incomprehensible. Think Peronism with an ossian accent. That’s the NSW governance model. It’s a corker, and the best thing is, everyone is related-sort of. Except for the orthodox comrades, who struggle to grasp some of the moolah off the boys and girls from St Pats, St Kevin’s and the rest of the Christian Brother schools. There is not one woman of any substance in NSW ALP circles who is not there courtesy of male relatives and their networks. Some of the women have a little talent, but by and large they are someone’s squeeze, ex-squeeze, ex or current spouse, or a cousin, niece, sister or in-law. It is a wondrous creation to behold.
I always wanted a t-shirt with ‘Face the Future with a Child on Stick’.
Kirner was no mediocrity, just the one who was left with the stinking parcel once the music stopped.
My parents had all their retirement money in Pyramid. Rob Jolly who was Treasurer kept reasuring the hoi-polloi that everything was fine. Luckily my father is one to doubt pollies and got all the cash out just before it crashed.
Well tell me, as an obvious expert, amused, is there much inbreeding between NSW Labor right and NSW Liberal right?
It seems like a possible “perfect marriage”, since they all seem to believe in the same things, including heaven, anyway.
Not in public. But at the better feeding troughs, the NSW labor Right extend the hand of understanding and friendship to those in the Liberals who tire of having to constantly ‘clean-up’ after the enthusiasts in their own turnout. Carr is very understanding, as is the current Treasurer. The political class in NSW have some very heavy burdens, and it is right and proper that they are shared, in the interests of ‘good and responsible government’. For all of us.
Thanks Pavlov’s at 11.42am.
Sorry, I thought you meant when Joan was made Premier. Seems you meant her appointment to Deputy-Premier-Ultimate-Future-Flak-Catcher. And did she catch it! But Cain and Jolley had already copped a lot by then. Leunig: the gift that keeps on giving.
Fine’s Dad: congratulations! Do you follow the golden rule - “when a pollie says your gold is safe, head for the hills with the nuggets in your pockets!”
We had a small sum of pin money in Pyramid and were able to ride out the hiccup. But it was a well-learnt lesson for many Victorians.
BTW, when the collapsed Vic State Bank was merged into the Commonwealth Bank, they said the little black portion in the lower right of their new logo represented the Victorian Black Hole. Hah!
Mr Della Bosca has been stood aside
[link]
Della is stood aside and it seems that the momentum is there to remove Premier Dilemma. Stay tuned folks this thread has a long way to go yet.
Carmel Tebbutt and Nathan Rees are being touted in one report to be the new dream team. Carmel is the partner of Anthony Albanese & stepped down from ministerial duties to look after the young Tebbutt-Albaneses. She also went to the same school as Della, though years apart. She actually mentions that De La Salle Cronulla is her Alma Mater on her parliamentary website; Della made a reference to same in his First Speech. BTW Michael Lee, Member for Dobell 1984-2001 which adjoins Robertson (Neal’s electorate) also went to DLS Cronulla as did Senator Michael Forshaw. Must be something in the water!