The Women's Weekly and politicians
January 31st, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Authoritarianism, Culture, Education, Federal Elections, Feminism, Media, Politics, Sexuality | 83 Comments
Over at Gatewatching, Jason Wilson references Andrew Elder’s very good question about the Australian Women’s Weekly being a graveyard for politicians, and asks another good one – given the magazine’s truly huge readership, were Tony Abbott’s comments ill advised?
The Weekly is a colossus, that really does reach an incredibly wide sweep of Australian voters. Looking bad in it means looking bad to a lot of people. For a man who is struggling with women voters, Tony Abbott has at the very least taken a huge risk with his comments. If they really were off the cuff, and really do hurt him, he will come to regret going unprepared to an encounter with the Weekly, one of Australia’s most important political publications.
To reiterate Mr Elder’s question – one that of course many feminists asked before either of us did – why aren’t magazines like the Weekly taken more seriously, more often, by more journos, scholars and political junkies, as both public sphere institutions, and as places where politics happens?
As summer holidays end, and Parliament prepares to resume, we’ve seen two stories this last week which have had lots of normally not so engaged voters talking; Abbott’s remarks about young women’s sexuality (quickly spun away as ‘private advice’ to his daughters when their potential for embedding a negative perception of his persona became clear) and Julia Gillard’s launch of the Myschool website.
Despite my own reservations about the latter, I have no doubt whatsoever it’s been a big political plus for the Government as the election year begins in earnest. Can the same be said for Tony’s thoughts about sexuality?
It all comes down to what a “win” for Abbott would be. This is where the view of Abbott as cynical power-hungry politician, just like all the others, is mistaken.
Sure, he’s power-hungry in the sense that he wants to impose his vision on the rest of us. But he isn’t power-hungry in the sense of wanting to get a better political job. He wants to win hearts and minds, not seats.
So in that sense, a win for him is convincing more people of the rightness of his views, and of making that kind of view more mainstream in the Liberal party. He would care about polling only in the sense that he needs it to win his battle for the soul of the Liberal party and the nation.
Because commentators are stuck in the mindset that it is an ignorable conservative backwater, full of safe little stories about food clothes and coffee table books.
At this stage of the electoral cycle a win for Abbott might consist of a few percent of the population saying in surprise “Oh is that Abbott bloke leading the opposition now?” I doubt many will remember his reported comments for more than a few hours and they are not the kind of thing the ALP is likely to trot out in a campaign.
I agree with you Anna that he’s a conviction politician when it comes to matters of controlling women’s bodies. But, I think he’d also be hoping that people would vote for him because of his views. I don’t think the Liberal Party is his only target.
I’m not saying I think he’d be happy to lose. What I’m saying is that he wants to win in order to impose his vision. If he can impose his vision another way, he’d do that.
What I’m trying to get at is the idea that him raising the issues is politically stupid or bad for him. What he wants to is get these ideas normalised, which requires him raising them. Whether it’s counter-productive to his election chances is beside the point.
@Anna Winter,
Yep. Classic effort at shifting the Overton Window. Mind you, despite the likely deliberate framing tactics, he still does seem to let his mouth run until it shoots him in the foot.
I still prefer “The Magic Pudding”, even if the shop assistant in the Queensland Book Depot thought it was written by Enid Blyton.
Spent the weekend being amused by incongruous sights in the Brisbane CBD, like the man whose t-shirt was endorsed with a slogan that I though read “Born To Bodgie” (in reality, it claimed that its wearer was “born to boogie”.
Me too. I MUCH prefer “The magic Pudding” to Tony Abbott’s views on “the virgin gift” as well Terangeree. Now if only someone would tell him.
But speaking of,
Look I totally agree. The minute I saw the photos. No gaff there at all, no ‘minders having kittens’. Further, he must be aware that these ideas are not very far from the already normalised patriarchal discourse regarding the value of women in a sexual economy. Strategic and staged. The photo of him surrounded by his daughters is working to normalise him, as quite simply, a loving father, who is concerned that his daughters not make the same mistakes he did. He is softened and humanised. What father does not worry about these things? These girls surround him like a halo of fragile light, all feminine and delicate. The main shot is of his daughters. The supplementary one of his wife. Why the focus on the girls as the main shot? Why else but to begin the process of making the seemingly archaic notion of closely guarded virginity, one which becomes subsumed into a wider and more familiar patriarchal narrative. Here he operates in the guise of the protective father who wishes to protect his daughters value in a very familiar sexual economy – virginity being a commodity which can be exchanged at full value or be devalued within that economy, depending on “whether the gift has been already unwrapped” as SATP so delightfully pointed out and thereby provided a stellar example of how pervasively the ideas on women’s sexual worth operate.
Further, suffering is the fate of transgressive females. This is what lies behind the advice of “not to give the gift lightly”. This is the the message Abbott is trying to get across. It is also the message of several commenters who have been vociferously reinforcing his ideas with woeful tales of what happens to women when they ‘let sex happen to them’ or ‘sleep around’. Once a woman falls, she destroys her very self.
I do not believe the risk is very great at all for him. I think he’s seamlessly conflating religion and familiar patriarchal mores. While people may reject the extremity of his religious conviction, they will identify with the finely wrought patriarchal sexual economy he invokes in his role as loving father.
Well, it could’ve been the New Idea. :)
I think Abbott might have thought he was reaching out to a conservative demographic. Given the wide variety of wommen who read WW (and the men who leaf through it in doctors’ surgeries or on the sly – he goofed.
“What he wants to is get these ideas normalised, which requires him raising them.”
If that really is what he is attempting to do in the second decade on the twenty first century, then he truly is out of touch not to mention rather thick. Is this conviction or pigheadedness? The jury will decide.
And really don’t see how the exposition @1 differentiates Abbott from any other politician. Basically if you can’t do those things then you don’t win and you have another 3 year tax payer funded holiday.
There are people from both sides of politics who are concerned that society has become too promiscuous even if they find “the gift of virginity” line gives them the creeps. So there is a possibility that this episode might actually have a net benefit to Abbot.
@9 Paul Burns Ding! Some stats here, which are not the most in-depth. But its interesting that almost half the readership are aged over 50 and do not work.
@John D,
this is where more clarity is required to make sure exactly what it is that people are talking about with “society has become too promiscuous”.
A: If we’re raising eyebrows at the commercial pornified raunch culture that represents women basically as life support systems for penetrable orifices, hey – I’m as appalled as anybody.
B: If what is being talked about is that young women are having premarital sex with people they like just because it feels good, then I’m not appalled at all.
The problem is that these are two very different things, and people who are outraged at the men-led commercial enterprises in A seem to be saying is that the answer is to control and shame the women exercising their personal agency in B. This does not compute.
Regardless of how people feel about “promiscuity” John D, I would’ve hoped that Australian voters are sensible enough to know that politicians, government and the state are best left out of such discussion. Down that path lies tyranny. It’s less than a generation since homosexuality was decriminalised in this country.
It’s a matter best left to families, and individuals, don’tcha think? If you want to see the shining face of public morality in all its glory, go witness a Taliban stoning of an “adultress”.
This episode has also underscored why it is that Abbott holds Julie Bishop in such high regard.
Bishop is everything that Tony Abbott thinks a woman should be: keeps quiet, presents well, knows her place, easy on the eye (if you like that sort of thing), supports the male in everything he says and does, poses no threat whatsoever, and there is zero risk of her outshining him with a dazzling display of achievement.
Merc @ 15,
“and there is zero risk of her outshining him with a dazzling display of achievement.”
Its early days yet, Merc. I adsmit its highly unlikely, but since its Abbott, you never know.
Ewe2 – ‘Because commentators are stuck in the mindset that it is an ignorable conservative backwater, full of safe little stories about food clothes and coffee table books.’ i can’t really add to that. i know that the ACT Woman and AIDs Forum took WW and co seriously enough to model a significant proportion of their education materials on the genre, one mag, called IE – Information Exchange, featured Liz Taylor on the cover and had headlines referring to Madonna.
I’ve said it before, other people have said it too, but making Ita Buttrose the Chair of the National Advisory Committee on AIDs was a stroke of genius. During her intro to the first national conference on AIDs in 1985 she slapped down the Drs, the forth estate and most importantly, the culture of fear that had been paramount in discussions of HIV.
Oh and i guess we need Ita
May also mean middle-aged people disapprove of the type of sexual activity they read is occurring in young people. There has been lots of media reporting on the subject. I think Abbott’s view will always go down well in that context.
For eg of the context see The Age
I have no idea or opinion on sexual mores of the young but can imagine net outcome for Abbott is positive.
Mercurius, your suggestion elsewhere that Malcolm return to clean up and rebuild after Abbott is not likely, surely? He has too much sense for that. You and Paul have here perhaps touched on the next likely turn in the twisting spiral of the Liberals dive down to self-destruction. Surely when Abbott falls on his face is not the time for Malcolm to return triumphant? What a mess! Who is going to clean up all that blood and gore? Cherchez la femme! Voila Julie! Such a good girl. And probably the only one who could possibly want the job and fool enough to take it. Not that I think she’s up to it.
Meanwhile the backroom boys must surely be getting their heads together? This is the party of the right and traditionally represents business, big and small, isn’t it?
Top of the agenda for the backroom boys will be how to regain Ansell Rubber’s financial support.
And which “middle aged people” would that be wbb?
Well, you see, FXH, I’ve got this friend, who’s middle-aged and ..
…@21…it would be the “middle aged people” who just need to keep reading about all the shocking, salacious, sexual sex that the young people keep having, because they’re so shocked and appalled that they have to keep reading more and more and more because it’s just so shocking. And appalling! ;-)
In fact, I’d better go have another look, just to remind myself how shocking and appalling it actually is, so I know darn well to keep away in future, unless of course I need to be reminded… :-D
” … middle-aged people disapprove of the type of sexual activity they read is occurring in young people.”
Like the ones involved in Melbourne’s undeground swinging scene? :)
Sydney, thou art no longer the city of sin!
(Hope the above is not in too bad taste.)
I think they were middle-aged themselves, Paul.
As another middle-aged person, I’m hard pressed to think of anything less interesting than young peoples’ sexual activities. I’m sure it’s all just as frantic as it was when I was that age, but who cares?
DI (nr).
My point about mentioning the recently reported on underground swinging scene in Melbourne was that all the participants in that scene, from various press reports, are middle aged, and probably still think they’re living in a world as defined by the personals in the now defuncy Nation Review. It was a riposte to the cooment about the middle aged disapproval of the alleged sex antics of the young which was meant to demonstrate middle aged hypocrisy.
My personal sentiments about all this, as an old bloke, are about the same as yours. (Don’t know which age bracket you fall into. :) )
Tony apparently thinks if he gets a predominantly older female audience and slags off young professional women on suspicion of flooziness, its a vote-keeper. I don’t know what assumptions he’s basing this on apart from a stereotype of prudish old biddies.
ewe2 @ 27,
If the “prudish old biddies” are still the same women I spent my extended yoof with, Tones has missed his target audience. :)
As wbb’s link shows, some people are born middle-aged. The rest of us either achieve middle-age or have middle-age thrust upon us.
I suspect I’m part of his target audience Ewe2 (apart from never reading WW except at the dentist) (so, yeah, about as pleasurable as pulling teeth, or at least drilling them, or plonking them in a vat of that disgusting mould putty), and his hair would curl if he really understood what some of us old bats think of him.
“…his hair would curl if he really understood what some of us old bats think of him…”. How true Helen, and these pages would spontaneously ignite if our witchy old thoughts were put in print…
*cackle*…
I’m a few years younger than you, Paul, but not very many. (I recently turned 59. Hoped I’d die before I got old … )
Although that seems to be a contradiction in terms, Anna Winter @1. lol
ewe2 @27, Tone needs to be careful, we “prudish old biddies” are quite likely mothers of these young professional floozies and quite probably did a spot of floozieing ourselves back in the day.
All this membrane worship is a bit creepy. I wonder if the Virgin Mary’s membrane is in a box somewhere in an obscure church?
Shouldn’t be since she ascended bodily into heaven! ;)
The Australian Women’s Weekly isn’t Cosmo.
Abbott is fairly safe spruiking mildly conservative ideas to a magazine that gets stacked on the coffee table next to Reader’s Digest in a large number of households.
At least half the magazine each month is about the Queen anyway as far as I can remember.
Correction Mark. She was assumed bodily into heaven.
The dear lady had no powers of self-propulsion, dontcha know?
(Was that caused by membranous impediment?)
Think there’s a phial of the blood of BVM somewhere in Italy. But there are so many phials of blood of saints in Italy turning from solid to liquid once a year, I could very well be confused. And wrong. :)
Sorry to inflict this long post on all of you but my blood boils at the thought of Abbott as PM and this is one of my biggest problems with him. I put this post up elsewhere (it’s a hateful place that I’m weening myself from – pleased to have found LP as it is far superior and reminds me of Blogocracy where I first started blogging)
Up above Nicole is right to blast Abbott about RU486 and NCG is merely an apologist trying to sidestep with BS. NCG while you try to deflect, by saying Abbott wouldn’t legislate against casual sex (obvious simplification to the point of absurdity) you try to ignore the fact that he already has form.
Abbott grossly misrepresented advice from medical experts on RU486 so that he could ban it – he used every tactic he could to keep it out of the country. Howard only caved in to allowing a conscience vote because of the proverbial hitting the fan – and while I know Howard held the exact same views (he voted with Abbott on the conscience vote) he was not stupid enough to let it taint his image (part of the reason Abbott was recognised as his head kicking henchman) perhaps he even thought he would have the numbers to back him up – after all not many women in parliament.
Not only that but Abbott set up huge funding for pregnancy counselling services (a good thing you say) except that he manipulated the outcome by only sponsoring religious counselling that would NEVER under any circumstances give any advice on abortion even if that is what is asked or pleaded for. While pro-choice counsellors received no govt funding this is a glaringly obvious abuse of power. He basically made it mandatory for women seeking help to be further marginalised and preached to by pro-lifers using disgusting emotional blackmail and totally unfounded medical claims eg ‘abortion causes breast cancer’ – I kid you not, that was one of their platforms.
“Repeatedly Abbott has proved incapable of making sound ministerial judgments on issues that relate to women’s fertility because he allows his decisions to be driven by his personal, religious beliefs. Of course, he is entitled to hold anti-abortion views but to allow his personal views to affect his ministerial decisions indicates the man is unfit for the job.” from The Age 2005.
Honestly I find Coalition politics to be a complete circus with him at the helm accompanied by Barnyard and can only hope that women and other more liberal, Liberals in the party hold him to account – there were many in the Coalition that stood against him and Howard on the RU486 vote – 95 to 50 was a solid win against Abbott but when you look further it was almost a 50/50 split in the Liberal party (defying Howard and Abbott) with many of those still in play. And for those saying Rudd has religious views as well trying to cancel it out of the equation – he knows to keep them to himself and not influence our secular society with outdated views. Rudd voted against Abbott on RU486 and has done nothing to indicate that he would ‘force’ religion onto the community. Whereas Abbott has done during his time as Health Minister – ‘god help us’ if he ever reached PM.
Abbott – Dangerous, Misogynistic, Regressive
Sorry forgot the links to the info above -
http://www.theage.com.au/news/sushi-das/mr-abbott-minister-for-meddling/2005/11/23/1132703249708.html
This will take you to The Age – where I lifted the quoted piece in paragraph 5
http://andrewbartlett.com/?p=138
I find it very interesting to see just who voted for and against RU486 and note that there are many Liberals that would also have a problem with Abbott’s views.
Gummo Trotsky @ 29. If you’re really lucky it creeps up on you while you’re not looking. It will even stay discreetly in the wings as long as you go on playing your part. And remember your lines, of course.
Is Andrew Elder saying that appearing in the AWW is a cause of a politician’s coming unstuck or a symptom of their lack political PR savvy?
Thinking of Cheryl Kernot at that time I recall her being in a haze of political hubris surrounded by ALP party leaders imagining herself as pivotal to overturning the Coalition, of major historical significance. What we didn’t know then was that she was also in love. I think it was that scarlet dress which proved too much for Laurie Oakes who spilled the beans on her affair with Gareth Evans.
Scarlet woman, Cheryl Kernot. Biffo boy, Mark Latham. Proud, protective Dad Tony Abbott? Or prudish patriarch? Hindsight will show us which image sticks.
Well now, I have only just yesterday put up the latest shot of Tony Abbott in his speedos on my Facebook page (out of a sheer world weariness and because of this certain way I have of laughing in the face of danger) and have inadvertently discovered from teh ladies both young and old that his speedos seem to operate as both a contraceptive and a chastity belt at the same time. It didn’t do much for Mark Bahnisch either by the way. In fact I’m not sure if he is still speaking to me.
I think this may be part of a multi pronged campaign to get girls to keep their knickers on. It’s certainly a weight loss aid. A friend of mine has just reported a sudden loss of appetite.
This man and his speedos are far more dangerous that we give him credit for. I think he wants us skinny and celibate. And it just might work if he keeps on prancing about in that outfit.
He needs to be stopped.
Indeed, Casey.
I, for one, am much happier when I’m fat and promiscuous (or at least sexually active). I’m not keen on anything that threatens that.
“I, for one, am much happier when I’m fat and promiscuous (or at least sexually active)”
Aye, but the rub is that one of my big drawcards for teh laydeez is my cooking, and at its best my cooking isn’t the lightest. So I can get into a spiral of increasing girth which ends up as a negative feedback on the chance of action – I must cook ever richer and finer foods to overcome the gut obstacle.
Is this what Hamilton meant by a Growth Fetish?
I feel (and share) your pain, FDB.
My lady friend reckons I cook better than she does. OTOH, I’m almost the size of a house (well, about 20 kg heavier than I should be).
You interest me, Casey. What is it about this man in speedos that is so off-putting. Sexually, I mean? Notionally it should arouse our interest, the image of an almost naked, physically fit male body. Some commentators have even suggested Abbott’s physique could be a political plus.
But here you are a young and feisty woman suggesting that for you and your peers his body beautiful is a big turn off. Or is it the speedos in themselves which are somehow unattractive, or even repellant? I can’t say they turn me on. Over the years I’ve had plenty of occasion when minding paddling toddlers to sit on beaches and speculate on the attributes of the body parts hidden by men’s bathers. Looking back I can’t think of one man with whom I became involved ever wearing speedos. Which in retrospect is puzzling.
So can you put your finger on it, Casey? Metaphorically I mean. Exactly what is it that makes you mock, or even recoil from, the idea of Tony in his budgie smugglers as he rides the surf triumphant on his board at Manly beach? There’s something Freudian in there which suggests fear to me. Free association might help. Perhaps the idea of his speedos hiding a priapic member suggests the awful thought of a prime minister to be?
I have to stop. I can feel a pome coming on.
Ladies of the Left don’t like it
When Tony talks on tele
Looking bronzed and very fit.
They say it makes them shudder
And his policies are sh–.
Methinks they do protest too much
As they deride his body bare.
At heart I think they’re really scared
Not of his policies as such
But of the message dangling there.
The tides we know are turning
The surf is up and soon we’ll see
Tony at last beach towel unfurling
Proud to proclaim his long hidden yearning.
Priapic Member! PM! PM to be!
That’s what scares the ALP.
Its not the Speeddos, Patricia WA, it the hair. :)
As a woman that very much appreciates a good male body all I can say is personality can be a HUGE turn-off. I know too much about Abbott and have a strong dislike – all I can do is gag at a photo of him in speedos. Now if I were confronted by a body double I’d say he looks after himself fitness wise but is a bit hairy and has an ugly mug. This fascination with looks is just unhealthy and a petty distraction that only serves to reinforce a stereotype of a flighty female voter. Sorry to be the fun police ;-)
There’s plenty of commentary about the way female politicians look and dress, so I see no reason for women to discuss Tony Abbott’s looks without seeming “flighty” [wtf? does that even mean?].
Abbott is unattractive because he over-shares, it’s all just too much information – aesthetically and intellectually….the budgie smugglers are just the [waaaay too] visual manifestation of his need to be noticed. Some things should remain private, Abbott seems to have no skill in discerning what those things are.
Hi FB I also don’t go in for any of the talk about female pollies looks as it’s reductive.
Flighty -
1. given to flights of fancy; capricious; frivolous.
2. slightly delirious; light-headed; mildly crazy.
3. irresponsible: He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.
4. emotionally unreliable; flirtatious.
Synonyms: 1. mercurial, undependable, irresponsible.
I was going to say superficial but changed at last minute – I meant an element of both.
Totally agree with your second paragraph ;-)
Apologies if anybody has mentioned this before, but I get the distinct impression (from some of his public utterances) that old Tone sees himself as quite the stud muffin. He appears to believe he is attracting women by wearing his speedos.
Nice to see he’s wrong on this as well.
Personally I couldn’t care less about his Speedos, particularly since he seems to wear them only when it’s compulsory i.e. when taking part in a SLSC event which also requires all the other male contestants to wear Speedos. I’m marginally more ready to mock wearing actual racing lycra rather than a plainer style for an early morning ride – but on the other hand it does have the feature of being high visibility, which when riding a bike in the dark is a damn good idea if you want to ever do it more than once.
That he obviously has some streak of vanity about his ability to maintain his athletic physique into middle age is a fairly mild character flaw in proportion to everything else he brings to the political buffet.
As an aside, tigtog, I actually own a pair of lycra bike shorts – they reduce chafing. I always make sure to wear a really baggy t-shirt, though. The sight of bike shorts over a fat gut has to be seen to be truly appreciated. If that’s the right word.
I’ve got no problem at all with plainer lycra, DI (nr). For the right sports it is a wonder fabric. It’s the racing pattern lycra for a solo ride that tickles my snort impulse.
There is something faintly unhinged about Abbott, near-naked in his budgie smugglers, talking about how women should protect themselves from male predation…
Incidentally, what if Julie Bishop had photo-ops in a similarly skimpy outfit, even if doing something sporty? Would a skimpy bikini be deemed suitable attire for a deputy leader of a major political party?
Does the answer depend on whether they are male or female?
I look at it this way.
A man who knowingly gives the media an opportunity to visually package him in garments specifically designed to showcase his genitalia should not then discuss his very nubile daughters’ virginity in a media outlet aimed at mothers.
I bet you much of his intended AWW audience would be going “Ewwhh! That’s just icky”.
On an apparently unrelated note, I recently had a fascinating chat over tea, scones and then some local experiments with grain alcohol with some 30 -60 something CWA stalwarts in Western Victoria.
“Weeds” was one of their favourite TV shows, they don’t trust any male pollie of any party at all, “hasn’t the weather been funny lately”, they want their kids and grandkids to get into nice well paying medical/agroscience/biology/general science jobs, they’re all enthusiastically researching family histories on the web, why the blinkety-fuckety is Melbourne stealing all their water and why aren’t their communities getting a cut of the bushfire reconstruction monies?
“Um well perhaps because you weren’t burnt out?”
“That’s not the point darling. We’re struggling too ‘cos of the GFC.”
“You mean, spread the wealth around?”
“Oh yes.” said a large sturdy squattocrary matriarch who you could easily imagine in her more carefree days ripping off the young Harold Holt’s moleskin wallaby smugglers at a B&S ball. I’d imagine if she ever saw Tony Abbott within a kilometre of her offspring, she’d pepper his arse with rock salt from a 14 gauge. Because he was RC, from Sydney and flaunting his body hair. And certainly not least because he was an out of town bloke that presumed to tell local mothers how to raise their kids.
And I bet her granddaughter has talked her into a Facebook account which she’ll use to the max to spread her take on that pushy, mouthy little Abbott man.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that Abbott is talking ABOUT women but he is talking TO men.
Once that perspective is taken into account, his minders’ choice of garb becomes explicable in the grim numbers game that is electoral politics.
Abbott is a distillation of many of the major male stereotypes of Australian culture: champion swimmer, life saver, beach dweller. These stereotypes are in turn nourished by the Gallipoli myth, which links back to the bushman myth.
Specifically, Abbott is using that body language to highlight what Rudd isn’t: a man’s man. Rudd may be an alpha male of a kind. But that kind isn’t the approved model in Australian male popular culture. Intellectual, process-driven control freaks don’t get a cultural leg-in in Australia.
This psychodrama isn’t “Father Knows Best”, it’s “The Sentimental Bloke”.
@Katz
Very, very good point. I still reckon he’s miscalculated.
Despite a theoretical appeal to blokes who admire a man’s man, Abbott’s also up against the blokey backlash against a smartarse git who is up himself. The true-blue dinkum Aussie ideal is a laconic larrikin, not a mouthy bully. The ratio of bullies to the bullied in the schoolyard, translated to the electorate, means that more people are repelled by head-kicking than admire it.
@57 great portrait, Nabs.
A fundraisin’ country lady is a force of nature. Males are advised to Wipe Your Feet!
I agree TT. From the point of view of winning politics it is disastrous.
In formal terms, Abbott is talking to his base. He has learned that trick from the Wingnut coterie of the US. However, we all know that compulsory voting renders such a strategy worse than useless. Everyone votes in Australia. The most reluctant voter’s ballot counts equally with that of the most powerfully committed.
Abbott’s strategy is the strategy of desperation. And as has been noted by others, the mirror image of Mark Latham’s strategy.
Is it a Sydney thing?
Nabakov@57: priceless, and so I would like to add the results of my own street research in one of the more down-at-heel suburbs in my town, where the local lunatic, a (mostly medicated) bloke, who has an old sofa balancing on the rimline of his roof and sits up there sometimes holding an umbrella surveying his kingdom, has been telling anyone who will listen lately, that he has it on the best authority that Tony Abbott is gay. I had no idea this bloke, or his voices, had any interest in politics at all, but there you go.
Abbott just seems unable to resist showing us what he looks like without his clothes on at every possible opportunity. Remember this? http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/youre-so-vein-abbott-under-pressure/2007/05/18/1178995411732.html
I’m waiting for another interview with his Celibacy Consultant from his seminary days; perhaps the question of his exhibitionist tendencies could be enquired into further?
Also this. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/opposition-leader-tony-abbott-opts-for-board-shorts-over-budgie-smugglers-at-pool-safety-campaign-photo-shoot/story-e6frf7l6-1225823364877 Has there ever been an Australian politician so determined to strip off for the cameras? In that linked story it says Abbott was participating in a safe swimming event and wore a sunproof swim shirt for part of the time. Yet he’s taken it off for the photo. I think he wants everyone to appreciate his rug.
Last weekend:
http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2010/01/31/1225825/224042-tony-abbott.jpg
I want to know who his friend is!
That’s his special friend who stand next to him to make him look buffer. Tony needs to consider the healthy exercise tips on his own website, which include these:
* Wear loose, comfortable clothing
* Protect yourself from the sun with clothes, sunglasses, a hat and sun block
Grace P @ 62. Well your local lunatic’s well placed up there to be getting his information straight from God. It amazes me, though, that the MSM haven’t tapped into a source much closer to home – Tony Abbott’s home, I mean.
I was surprised that Abbott would repeat his daughter’s description of himself as a ‘lame, gay, churchy loser’. We know he’s churchy and bound to be a loser so she’s proven half right already. The excessive athleticism and over concern with the body beautiful does open up the exhibitionist speculation but anything more is unfair to gays.
The lame description puzzled me too until I realized that he’d misheard her. She’s a good girl after all and what his daughter probably said was “Dad, you’re a game lay churchy loser.” That fits him perfectly.
@67 – yep, he needs to get his slip, slop, slap ON!
Funny Patricia. Although I don’t think it’s that surprising – he said in that WW interview that he loved his daughters but a bloke wants a son…my hunch is it sounded to him like a ‘modern’ version of the Bazza McKenzie style jokey blokey abuse where you call your mate ‘ya big poof’. Etc.
Patricia@68: no, I think he was confusing something his wife said about him being a “gamey lay”.
That’s quite enough now.
“I want to know who his friend is!”
That will be Tonksy, maaaaaaaaattt.
@66
Gaaah! Too much budgie!
So much Abbott flesh!
Tone’s penchant for deshabille appears to have predated the close attention of Liberal Party spinmeisters.
Looks like Tony has for long time placed himself on the meat display platter.
Clearly the spinmeisters haven’t prohibited it. I wonder if they like it.
This behaviour verges on exhibitionism. Does Tone own a shabby gabardine overcoat and a pair of elasticated trouser legs?
I see the photo has moved beyond Babebook and is having much the same effect here. Well good. Now I’d show you Malcolm in his red speedos but babebook is private and I can’t find it on the net. Youse would just love that too. Come to think of it, did you see Joe Hockey and Kevvie doing the Kokoda together locked in some kind of man hug in a river. My word. It was like Migaloo the whale in some mating ritual with an Orca.
Now all this is just appalling.
What I would like to know is why cant WE have Camelot????
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/22/obama-shirtless-in-hawaii_n_152873.html
See me in my office after class Casey. You’re in for some serious detention for that little piece of work.
“Gamey lay”
Does that mean he’s really smelly?
PUCK YOU Miss, why do I get dentention?
It was Laura and Mark that put up pictures of things not me.
I like your beret Miss. Is that from Sussan’s?
Say, Miss, why are Barry O’Farrell and David Clarke in love now?
Oh puck it, Miss. Not even God can explain that.
So. We gonna do that contract stuff again?
Ah, workplace romance amongst the city elites, in a story full of sex, power, and controversy. I think I’ve read the Melbourne edition.
…
“Oh David”, he said, with a moan,
“The sound of your voice on the phone
“Is a great Liberal hero’s
“Full of joyful eros.
“I’m so glad you threw the first stone”.
Still awaiting Tony Abbot shirtless with horse. http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2009/08/putin2.jpg
Fmar
Abbott will never go shirtless with horse
That’s too much like Putin of course.
Tony’s a Tory and will relinquish that glory
To red Rudd whom he knows looks weird without clothes.
Thus his rein Oz will no longer endorse.
Will Tone ever pose with an equine
It’d please the monarchists just fine
With Harry in drag
And a polo whip flag
They’ll give every wingnut a good time
Tony’s not a Welshman
Tony’s not a Thief.
Tone’s but a Model
Serving up Beef.
Tony’s not a Butcher
Tony’s not a Chief
If he won’t lay off,
He’ll turn every last person in the nation Vegetarian.
{trad., Dept. of Antipodean Doggerel}