You can take the boy out of up-country Queensland, but…
February 15th, 2010 by Paul Norton | Published in Authoritarianism, Federal Elections, Feminism, Government, Howardia, Parenting, Policy, Politics, Women | 214 Comments
…it would appear that it’s not so easy to take up-country Queensland (or, at least, 1970s up-country Queensland prejudices) out of the boy.
Nina Funnell in today’s SMH describes her gobsmacking encounter with the Prime Minister:
At that point one of my friends introduced me, dropping in that I am completing a PhD. At this, Rudd rolled his eyes and in a terse voice lacking any sense of irony remarked that is the “excuse” that “all” young women are using nowadays to avoid starting families. Since then I’ve come up with numerous one-line retorts, but in the moment I just froze in shock.
This tends to confirm the suspicions that a number of us at LP have expressed over the past three years.
Update: As of 12:53pm Brisbane time (that’s 1:43pm in NSW, ACT and Victoria) there’s nothing in the MSM or from the PM’s office responding to or denying Nina Funnell’s statement.
Elsewhere [by Mark]: In A Strange Land, Legal Eagle.
I think thats Abbot 1 Rudd Nil
Are you sure there is not an irony alert involved?
Might just be deadpan drollery on the PM’s part, misconstrued?
Otherwise…
Spoken like the true Liberal you are, tssk.
So it appears this years election will be a simple question of “which 1950s Christianist do you reckon is a better bloke?”
That’s an extraordinary story if true, and extremely disappointing. I would find it hard to believe that any decent modern person would hold that view – surely Australia needs more PhDs?
*cough* education revolution *cough*
Couldn’t google any info about Jessica Rudd’s education attainment…
Rudd said that? What an arsehole. He’s just as bad as Abbott.
On the basis of complete hearsay it’s on.
And what are those “suspicions that a number of us at LP expressed”, Paul? A bit of clarity might be nice.
Joe2 #6, a number of posters at LP over the past 3 years have expressed the view that Kevin Rudd is quite conservative and authoritarian in his views on a number of issues.
I suppose there’s no chance that the remark was misinterpreted?
I would take anything published in the Herald with a very large grain of salt these days – particualarly if it involves portraying Rudd in a negative light.
No, tssk. It’s Abbott nil, Rudd nil.
Glad someone here caught this so early. I’m thinking about a post on it for chez moi, but at this stage am still too utterly gobsmacked, outraged and generally hornswoggled to form a sentence, much less marshal a line of argument.
Just to settle the argument about the score – it’s Abbott 1, Rudd 1 thanks to own goals on both sides.
Why are women’s wombs constantly up for discussion? I get so sick of this.
As wilful said, if it’s true, there are no excuses.
One down or nil-all, it’s time for Gillard to get subbed onto the field.
Seems like a beat up to me. Are you sure dear Nina isn’t a Liberal Party stooge?
I must admit to being a little surprised that Rudd, even if he held such views, would be careless enough to utter them in public.
The man is extraordinarily self-disciplined in his public comments.
Well at least you preface your insinuation with “it would appear”, Paul. Quite frankly, I very much doubt Rudd is anywhere near the fuddy-duddy you imply or those who follow your lead suggest. It might just be, that Nina has misinterpreted his reaction and is just running with her own aggenda.
I don’t think the women of Australia want to be told to do with their bodies by ………. (insert Australian political leader here).
In fairness to Rudd, his attitude represents a bit of an improvement on 70′s up-country Queensland, where the prevalent excuse young women used for not starting a family was that they wanted to finish high school – maybe even go on to university – first.
Could Julia just give him a smack up-side the head? (Yes, if it’s true.)
Joe2, it’s possible that Funnell misunderstood a sarcastic joke, but as Paul said at #7, it’s far more likely that Rudd’s off-the-cuff humour is the product of well-thought out, long-held political beliefs, ranging from the regrettable to reprehensible.
On the proviso that the alleged remarks are true, my reaction was akin to silkworms’s: what a fuckwit. Say it ain’t so, Kevin. And if his comments were true, I think you owe Nina Funnell an apology.
Lloyd: I doubt she’s a Liberal stooge. In the same article, she attacked George Brandis for misogyny as well.
He is really channeling the stupid with this remark and showing a considerable ignorance about what female PhD candidates do with regard to having children.
Heh. Severely disappointed, but then I’ve never liked Rudd that much. It’s really a question of which one I dislike MORE. I’d agree with PC, Rudd Nil, Abbott Nil.
In any case, I am living proof that one can do a PhD & have kids. If one WANTS to. There should be no guilt trip – it’s a woman’s individual choice. Not every woman wants to have kids, and that’s fine by me.
Seconded here for Gillard to take charge. (My dream team would have been Gillard as PM and Rudd as Deputy but I don’t think the masses are ready for that more’s the pity.)
It seems to me that we have a small number of possibilities.
1. Nina Funnell is lying about her conversation with Kevin Rudd (not logically impossible but highly unlikely given the likely consequences for a young columnist and aspiring academic for making things up about what a Prime Minister is supposed to have said).
2. Nina Funnell misheard what Kevin Rudd actually said (less unlikely than 1, but one would expect that she would have asked her friends if they heard what she heard before going into print about it, and that she would not go into print unless they had confirmed what she had heard).
3. Kevin Rudd made those remarks in a misconceived and poorly executed attempt at humour (which I am prepared to believe and possibly accept as the most likely explanation, although it still leaves open the question of the attitudes underpinning such an attempt).
4. Kevin Rudd was stating what he honestly thinks (in which case Nina Funnell’s criticisms stand).
Women should be ironing, not studying PHDs… /jk
Personally, I don’t give two flying shits what Rudd believes in his private life, however regrettable or abhorrent I find the view. I care about his opinions as prime minister, on record, in public, and through policy.
One of the things I hated most about Howard was his insufferable compulsion to pass public opinion on every topic under the god-damned sun – opinions that shoud have been private (assuming – ha! – they were genuine), secular, and rarely if ever relevant to his governance (the colour of the cricket team’s uniform, someone’s salary, the consistency and regularity of a newsreader’s bowel movements).
Rudd is entitled to his opinion as Kevin Rudd, citizen. And we’re entitled to disagree with him. If he was on record, representing Australia or the office of prime minister (which, i would argue, this aside was not), then that’s a different story.
Also, like Robert, I’m not questioning the story, per se, but it seems very uncharacteristic of Rudd to be so loose with his persona.
Because our bits are the only bits of us that matter, Fine. Surely you know this by now.
Paul at #25, I too have dwelt at some length on possibility #3. Nina Funnell’s piece turns on the phrase ‘lacking any sense of irony’. Irony is the most unstable mode of communication in the entire orchestra and requires both the intent of the transmitter and the reception/interpretation skills of the receiver in order to come into existence at all. Presumably Funnell put that phrase in to second-guess Rudd or anyone else who might say ‘I/he was being ironic, you dope.’ But maybe he was. I look forward to his clarification, which I hope he makes in person and on camera, and in the meantime I think we should all make as much noise about it as possible.
#23 Legal Eagle: as a side and personal note, of the women I know who have PhDs, the overwhelming majority also already have (or are planning soon to have) children.
I’d suggest that as well as being sexist, the Prime Minister’s also statistically wrong—postgraduate humanities education, at least amongst my acquaintances, correlates very strongly with reproduction.
In this case I’d have to disagree. No man is entitled to an opinion about what women should do with their bodies. At all, much less when it entails perpetuating powerlessness.
I’m so happy everyone is being fair to Rudd.
If some of you happen to be fair to Abbott, I’ll recognise it because it won’t resemble anything ever written on here at any stage.
Many are so ready to believe the worst about Abbott and be reasonable in their assessments of Rudd, a man who may be the least principled, most objectionable on a personal level, and most ineffective leader we have had in some time.
Well, yes, that’s my opinion too, PC, but we’re not the thought police here: all we can do is disagree and educate – we can’t force him to think something else, and you can’t charge someone for thinking something (mostly).
sounds hard to believe
Didn’t you read the thread comments, Howard? Most seem more than happy to jump down Rudd’s throat over this anecdote.
Given that the number of women who reach the position of PhD level, is so few, in our community, it is more than a bit curious that Nina said Rudd’s reply included the word “all”(young women) use that excuse.
Paul Norton – There is another possibility to add to your list.
5. In your rush to relay a derogatory story about Mr. Rudd you did not wait a reasonable length of time to check whether or not the story appearing in the media was true or not.
el ose, I believe that possibility is covered by possibilities 1 through 3.
Oh, I am.* And once I’ve banned blokes’ blithering about what women can and cannot do with their reproductive systems, I’m going to pass a law saying that nobody is allowed to leave comments on blogs until they’ve read the bloody thread properly. Looking at you, Howard Cunningham.
*Irony
I second your motion, PC, and would like to discuss penalties.
Oh boo hoo Howard @31, call the WAAAAMBULANCE and dry your eyes.
I’ll give Abbott a fair go when he gives workers and women a fair go, and not a second before.
Rudd’s gaffe looks like either a sexist howler or an appallingly crass and unfunny attempt at ironic sexist humour. Which is worse, I’m hard-pressed to work out. My dad used to be in the habit of deliberately making ironic sexist remarks as jokes, which only he found funny – but my stepmother has since cured him of it. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Kevvie explains this one to Therese!
“No man is entitled to an opinion about what women should do with their bodies.”
Thank Christ that’s been cleared up. I guess they won’t be needing our help anymore with pro-abortion votes then.
Could I also suggest that I would be very cautious indeed about calling Nina Funnell’s integrity into question given that she has written powerfully about her personal expereince of sexual assault and is most unlikely to be making up something to make some kind of cheap shot about issues she clearly feels strongly and genuinely about.
Point missed, not for the first time.
Rudd receives some reasonableness.
Abbott receives no reasonableness.
Well, it’s in Fairfax, which has it in for anything left of Opus Dei.
However, Rudd comes from a DLP back ground and comes from Queensland.
And he is true Labor “right” when it comes to social attitudes, as became apparent during his attacks on Dr Scott Burchill and others defending what Rudd called the “collective” at the ABC a while back. Lets not forget his silly comments during the Henson farce or his support for the idiot Exclusive Brethren, either
Enough evidence for me, to confirm an impression of him as an old fashioned prig.
Nonetheless, this doesn’t seem to work right either, he’s smarter than that and more cosmopolitan than to be no better than Joh’s nephew or HoWARd’s son,surely.
Its smart politics for him to appear Hansonist/populist while they are trying to hold the illiterate mortgage mortgage belt seats they won over last election- the breeders.
So I don’t he will be upset by the reports and probable grin if it irritates some of his more feminist backbenchers.
@42 Howard, you’re making a false equivalency.
Rudd deserves some reasonableness.
Abbott deserves no reasonableness.
You are assuming Abbott and Rudd are equally deserving of reasonable treatment.
On what grounds? Abbott has long-established form and demonstrated repeatedly that he will use the bully pulpit to step on other people’s rights. He can get nicked, and so can your po-faced Hendersonesque false equivalent defense.
Abbott is indiscriminate in who he’ll trash on his way through to his Manifest Destiny. Be it the Republic movement, an ETS, or even Pauline Hanson (who’s announced she’s quitting Australia, BTW), he will stop at nothing and give no quarter. So he deserves no reasonableness that I can see. He certainly shows no mercy in dispatching opponents, left and right (sic). Live by the sword, and all that.
Moreover, you are using this false equivalency not to make a whole-hearted and sincere defence of Abbott per se, but rather as the 57th episode in you fascinating 500-part running serial entitled “Why LP are a bunch of intellectually duplicitous sneaks and Why Oh Why Can’t I Stop Posting Here?”
Rudd’s social conservatism is well known, but his anti-intellectualism as expressed in his jibe less so.
I like to read what people who don’t think like me actually think. It’s not opposition research. I’m not so arrogant to think for one second I have all the answers.
I’d like to think everyone deserves to be treated fairly. However you treat the least of my brothers and all that.
I’d also like to thank you, Mercurius, for making me sound incredibly more reasoned and calm than I am, which is plenty anyway.
If it weren’t for people like me, and to a lesser extent posters like Steve At The Pub, you wouldn’t get the other side. You probably only read various publications and websites expecting the worst. I don’t expect anything.
Then again, Steve at the Pub is a different shade of non-lefty than me. But we’re all the same to you, so you probably wouldn’t appreciate that. Capitalist = bad.
But, you’re a moderator on this site, so it’s your game, mate. I’ll keep looking for the different shades of grey that the real world operates in.
“Could I also suggest that I would be very cautious indeed” about calling Kevin Rudd’s integrity into question given that he is under constant attack from MSM.
you all seem so surprised that Rudd would say this??? I am surprised you are all so surprised. the man is a christian moralist. this is well documented. while howard was the worst thing to happen to australia since invasion day…rudd is the second worst. nina is good value from what i’ve read of hers, she wouldn’t make it up.
welcome to the real world everybody….sorry but…you are surprised????
I love, Howard, how the fact you think a lot of Abbot’s beliefs are A-okay never enters your high-minded arguments. Very neutral of you there.
I don’t see:
a) the equivalency of discouraging women to get phds vs their virginity’s precious gift, ironing etc.
b) Rudd make a string of comments – on record, as party leader, for over years like this.
c) any connotation that the majority of posters in this thread are “going easy” on Rudd. Reasonableness is based around a standard – the standard seems relatively consistent. He’s hardly getting a free ride.
For all your gnashing that each shade of right wing is a glorious and singular hue, you seem incapable of seeing the comments/commenters in this very thread as anything but a monotone, consistent mass.
But I don’t want to detract your missionary and pedagogical zeal in coming here to minister to us leftish heathens. Please do continue to enlighten us…
(In seriousness, I’m all for diversity of opinion/representation etc, but don’t act like you’re doing someone a service by commenting on a blog, dude. If that’s the biggest cross you can nail yourself to, you need to keep looking.)
Then perhaps you need to make your points more skilfully.
HC, don’t keep commenting. It will just increase your frustration levels. You will be angry that what you think is reasoned argument is having no influence on the regulars here and they will think you are misguided and stupid.
Commenters here have told me that this is not a blog for discussion of left and right but a place for different shades of left to argue finer points of left thinking.
Just read the comments and resist the urge to post. You still get to see what people think but your frustration is more likely to stay in check.
I’ll keep trying to get my point across, but I can’t hold my breath for much longer.
The grand majority of posters on here, whom are generally of one political persuasion (that would be best described as “I would never vote Liberal under any circumstance), are not all the same. On this thread, there is a wide range of views on Rudd.
But not on Abbott. While I would be more comfortable with the only true conviction politican in Australia leading the Liberal Party (Turnbull’s support of the ETS cost him his job), Turnbull could have worked the party better and seemed more consultative. It wasn’t the “RWDBs” that kicked Turnbull out, it was the centre of the Liberal Party. And it does exist, even if you don’t take my word for it.
On the issue of this thread, nothing Rudd said would surprise me. The only thing I am convinced I know about Rudd is that he’d step over his own dead father to become Prime Minister. Whether that is the finality of his ambitions I’m not sure. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it was just another rung.
Meanwhile, the Government has done good things (MySchool, avoiding a recession), but just effectively sacked a lot of high school kids by making it illegal for someone to work for fewer than three hours at once. So close, yet so far.
“Arguments were made about superannuation and the strain on healthcare. But there was a deeper message: young people (women in particular) are failing in their civic duty to reproduce. Apparently, gen Y is to blame for the inverted population pyramid.”
Sorry, but I don’t buy this.
The transcripts of all Rudd’s recent speeches featuring the theme of ageing population can be found here.
I can’t locate a single remark that in any way supports her assertion Rudd sought to convey the deeper message: “young people (women in particular) are failing in their civic duty to reproduce.”
In fact, the bulk of his comments contradict Nina’s analysis entirely. Greater productivity and participation are his solutions to the ageing crisis – not encouraging young women back into the home to reproduce, or attributing its cause in any way to their “failure” to do so.
Her comments, quoted above, explicitly set the column’s tone for her alleged personal encounter with Rudd afterwards. Yet, as far as I can fathom, they’re baseless.
What is going on here?
Maybe Rudd’s remarks coloured (and distorted) Funnell’s recollection of his speech?
If you’re talking about the vote where they all thought they’d teach him a lesson and never dreamed the result would be Abbott as leader, that was just a cock-up. They didn’t do it on purpose.
Patrickg already briefly covered this point in comment #48 item (b), as did Mercurius earlier, but let me reiterate since you seem to have missed it both times.
Your point is not being missed; your point is being critiqued, mainly on the grounds of false equivalence. Specifically: Abbott has a very long form sheet for sexist right-wing Catholic-inflected views on the correct uses of women (ironing, giving birth and so on). Rudd does not. Therefore most of what is being expressed here is surprise and dismay, and the reason people are doubting whether he said this and meant it is that it is unprecedented, not that we are trying to make excuses for him.
As the Voter who Cannot Love, I am disappointed (again), but not surprised.
If you think there wasn’t an “anyone but Turnbull” mood in that party room, then you are dreaming. At the final stage, the only one who wasn’t Turnbull was Abbott. Turnbull created this environment with how he treated his party on a personal level.
What I am surprised at is how many are still prepared to jump on a bandwagon that, at the bare minimum, has a flat tyre.
Also Howard, and at the risk of legitimising your argument – god help us all – but why would it surprise you that a blog full of self-declared Labor voters would be interested in parsing and analysing comments about the leader of the party they frequently vote for?
Surely, the depth and intensity of questioning demonstrates not a pathetic double standard, but a rigorous commitment to said standard because if Rudd doesn’t adhere to it, we don’t want to vote for him. Abbot – because of and additionally to the reasons outlined above – never had a chance at an LP vote I would confidently say, so why would we care so much what colour the excrement dribbling down his chin this week is?
Also pro-tip: everyone who votes thinks they (and the people agreeing with them) are the only non-biased and objective people in the room. You’re not a precious snowflake, or some kind of lion-hearted hero fighting a torrent of invective and bias – and if that’s all you get out of LP, it’s a) kind of sad and b) somewhat of mystery that you remain as long as you have.
Update: Nina Funnell on the radio.
Well, it’s different to the usual motherhood statements he comes out with.
Who cares? The band’s playing a catchy tune and the beer’s free.
Jesus people, take a moment to consider the fact that Rudd, if he even holds these views, hasn’t oriented his whole political identity around this bullshit; he isn’t about to make his party adopt social reaction as its manifesto; he isn’t about to impose kulturkampf onto the federal government he leads…
Yet Tony Abott is dedicated to doing all of the above.
And I think I would like for Nina Funnell to provide corroborating evidence. She’s a professional journalistic type, she should know it never happened unless she can provide several independent sources.
Everything else is WMDs.
I’m inclined to think it must have been a poorly executed effort at tongue in cheek humour, that at worst have revealed more than he would’ve liked about his real views.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Kevin had a proscriptive, conservative view on what “young women” should be doing with their time, but he certainly wouldn’t sincerely believe that “all young women are using PhDs as an excuse to avoid starting families”. That’s plainly untrue – only a small fraction of the population undertake doctorates at all.
So when Funnell writes “without any sense of irony” perhaps she just missed it, or Rudd did a poor job of inflecting his statement.
Nick @ 52, I agree that that’s an unusual interpretation of everything that I’ve recently heard from the government in relation to the ageing population. It did colour for me everything else Ms Funnell had to say.
me too wiful.
Would like to see the transcript of the keynote speech Kevin gave at the undated, unnamed function which Nina attended, cause the speeches online and news reports in respect speeches by Rudd on the intergenerational report, which I could find online, don’t anything in them “all about Gen Y not having babies & inverted pyramids”…rather all about productivity and working longer hours and so on… but Nina does say this was the “deeper message”.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/kevin-rudds-speech-in-full/story-e6freo8c-1225821744119
I’d also like to hear from corroborating witnesses cause frankly it’s very hard to imagine Rudd uttering the reported, without it being meant as a joke. I’ve heard a ton of Rudd for years now and he’s a total shocker when it comes to jokes and humour as we know. Almost as bad as his speechwriting – stilted, wrong intonation, terrible timing, and he often thinks being ‘clever’ equals being funny.
Well I am disappointed that Rudd made those comments to Nina Funnell at a public function where he, as the keynote speaker, addressed concerns about the ageing population and lower fertility rate of Australian women.
It’s all very well tellinf Australian women to get pregnant but no body tells men to father their sprog. Many a career woman would like to have children but hasn’t got the partner, family support, income to pay for childcare for preschool children or the stomach for surviving on a single parent pension.
If Rudd is serious about increasing the fertility rate of Australian women he needs to make it cheaper for single women on $50,000 to afford paid childcare.
And as Christy lately of a Garden Somewhere just pointed out: “Rudd, if you don’t want PhDs to be a bloody good reason for women not having babies then how about actually supporting PhD students who do?” Via Twitter.
I agree, it seems a very strange thing for a professional politician to say, and he doesn’t seem the sort of man who makes offensive remarks to people he’s just met, unless they’re hosties. Maybe he was trying to put on a Tony Abbott voice?
If Rudd’s serious, I think either his wife or deputy is about to take him apart, promptly followed by the electorate — it’s just like Heffer’s remarks about Julia Gillard a few years back, after all.
Elsewhere [by Mark]: In A Strange Land, Legal Eagle.
Liam @ 29 – yes – I’d agree, there’s a strong correlation between female PhD candidates and childbearing. Another woman who started her PhD before I did has had at least three kids (if not more) since starting. She’s nowhere near finished the PhD yet!
The good thing about PhDs is that you can do them while the children are asleep. Not many jobs let you work in your own time at your own pace. And I find that having children has made me disciplined – I have to use the spare time I get – as little faffing around as possible. The bad thing is that it can make you totally exhausted. Hence why I ended up with pneumonia at the end of last year!
There are always two people in a conversation. Both will have an agenda. Objective reporting by a third party does help, but is not always reliable. Assuming in this case there is no supposedly independent witness we have only one person’s account.
It seems to me the reason so many people here are outraged and disappointed by this story is that most of us thought we knew our PM. He’s verbose but brilliant, a diplomat and a clever politician, yes religious but with a feisty successful wife. He’s been doing a lot of speech making lately about the problems of our aging population, yet there’s been no suggestion he’s been dog whistling up an anti-delayed motherhood campaign.
Then we have the lively new journalist who reports that she was insulted by the PM with a comment that she was using her PH.D studies to avoid motherhood. I’ve tried reading her other columns to get a handle on her perspective. Not easy, since though readable, lively and attracting comments, I have no sense from them of where she stands politically. Re-reading her story several times I found the explanation which satisfies me of how she came to write this particular account of her distressing chat with the PM. When was it, by the way? And where? I quote her here:
“Arguments were made about superannuation and the strain on healthcare. But there was a deeper message: young people (women in particular) are failing in their civic duty to reproduce. Apparently, gen Y is to blame for the inverted population pyramid.
There were hundreds of people in the room but only a handful under 30. As one of the under 30-crowd, I shuffled nervously, hoping no one would recognise me – and my empty womb – as the deeply unpatriotic and traitorous felons that we are.”
So she was hearing a deeper message than that spoken and it seemed to her that her generation was to blame. This was her response to the PM’s speech even before she met him. Whatever he said during their personal contact she heard it through that filter. I also sensed from her description of herself in the audience that she was already conflicted about the issue of delayed motherhood. That’s not unusual or reprehensible. Judging from my own and others’ experience I wouldn’t mind betting there’s an emotional tug of war going on in her heart and head, even a relationship strained by the issue. She describes herself “shuffling nervously with her unpatriotic womb” well before she met Rudd.
Not surprising then that he said what he said and she heard what she heard, or thought she heard.
And you aren’t reading her through a filter of your own are you?
OMG!!!! You crack me up sometimes girl.
There seem to be two separate issues here. First, I don’t think it unreasonable that Rudd might have dropped the issue of fertility into a speech. If you look at his speeches in the run-up to the last election he often mentioned the three Ps – population, participation, productivity. Fertility falls into the first of these and that, in addition to his social beliefs, makes it possible for me to believe that he might have implied that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if Australia’s fertility rate increased. That said, I find it much harder to believe that he would have said, in a public speech, that the blame lay at the feet of Gen Y. His is generally too in control of his messaging to do that.
As for the “joke”, it isn’t so hard to believe he said that either. From personal experience, he is not always a very nice person when dealing with people that he has no obligation to impress, or when he thinks what he is saying will remain private.
Indeed, I expect this to be an increasing problem over time for him. There is tension between Kevin’s public self and his private self that he has been pretty good at hiding over the past few years. But he will ocassionally slip up and reveal more of his true self than he wants. Whe he does, I’m not sure the public will like what it sees.
@74 – LO, I suspect it’s an inept and stupid joke and/or a nasty misogynist comment, but you’re spot on about the dissonance between private Rudd and public Rudd, which very many people who’ve been involved in the ALP and in the public service in Queensland have known from direct experience for a long time. I think that also played into some of the anger evident in the media and the Liberals when ‘evidence’ of Rudd’s imperfections wasn’t taken as such by the public early in his term and in the election campaign.
He’s not a particularly pleasant kettle of fish at times. Whether or not that is an issue in terms of his public performance is, of course, another matter.
I’d also observe, in passing, that Julia Gillard was pushing increased female participation in the workforce and a more optimal utilisation of women’s skills and capacities in the workforce as contributing to productivity last week, in the context of the debate sparked off by the IGR.
In that case, since we are intuiting the woman’s motives through our own experiences, and cause. like, corroboration please, I can imagine what he really must have said and it went like this:
“Iced Vo Vo’s rule, Nina” he said, rollling his eyes.
And then cause of her filter and conflicts, the lack of corroboration and well he’s just too clever, he would never stuff up, her woman brain heard:
“the excuse” “young women use” to avoid starting families, he said, as he rolled his eyes.
Yeah. I can see how she would have got mixed up, all strained and pained, cause of that relationship I was having where he wanted babies and I wanted a career, he was jealous, I just wanted to breathe, turn my face to the wind, and run with a wild man running with a wild woman running with the wolves…..but nooooo, none of that.
Well stuff his biscuits. I’m finishing my Phd. Not that this is about me at all. It’s about her. But we are all the same. We all break just like a little girl right?
Does that work for everyone?
Look, even if he comes out with a statement tomorrow saying it was a joke, and she maintains it was not, there will be no corroboration. Her word, his word. A witness might say he was joking, another might not. It’s all interpretation.
And even if it was a joke: It was a sexist joke, with freudian crevices so wide you couldn’t jump them unless you were an olympic vaulter. Please. It still signifies what Norton says it does. Good work Norton.
Or, how about these explanations: (1) Nina Funnell is a cynic who thinks all politicians are the same, and is projecting Peter Cotello’s “have one [baby] for yourself, one for the country” ideas onto our Kev, as he obviously believes whatever Cozzer believes; (2) forget about point (1), she’s merely a political ratf@&%er for some group who wants people to believe Rudd is a misogynist. Both (1) and (2) comport with Patricia WA not being able to get a handle on where this writer stands politically.
There is no explanation for Rudd saying something this bad, the ‘he has a crap sense of humour’ excuse just doesn’t work for me, as that doesn’t explain why he’d use said crap humour on a complete stranger. Somebody has a very mistaken recollection, IMO.
go Casey, spot on…
You have to remember, Nickws, what I was saying about Rudd being socially inept. I agree it’s an appalling ‘joke’, but it’s one I can well imagine him making.
“There is no explanation for Rudd saying something this bad, the ‘he has a crap sense of humour’ excuse just doesn’t work for me, as that doesn’t explain why he’d use said crap humour on a complete stranger. Somebody has a very mistaken recollection, IMO”
Why are you so confident about this Nick?
Explanation (3): You know what lengths a writer has to go to to keep getting commissioned to write pieces for a major daily paper? Look at just how interesting Catherine Deveny keeps it, or the fact Tim Blair had to bundle his online gig with his Sunday Terrorgraph gig in order to stay on contract.
At least Casey understands the need for drama.
With all due respect, Mark, but do I?
Have heard the same from Qld ALP mates and from people who have had dealings with Rudd.
I was prepared to accept his imperfections at first was because HE WASN’T HOWARD. And he’s still the one I dislike the least. But still, it doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts about the man.
@81 – Nickws, well, it’s an Occam’s Razor thing. If it’s been observed by a large number of people in Queensland who’ve interacted with Rudd over many years that he’s capable of saying dumb things, and that he’s not good at small talk, and not good with people he perceives of as lesser status, then that’s probably the explanation rather than a whole heap of surmises about Nina Fussell’s motivations/politics/whatevs.
I have no trouble in believing that he said pretty much what’s been reported. And that’s the reason why he said it.
Well I guess my piece of satire is your drama. Filters. Why do you think Rudd would be incapable of stuffing up, bad joke or otherwise?
Wrong. (Yes yes, I know, Case, you were being ironic, and I am replying in kind.) I’ve got no kids but I’ve had a PhD for 30 years, and I thought it had been my choice (pfft — just like a woman), at least in terms of contraceptive carefulness, to have no children. Not because I didn’t want kids, but because I didn’t want to have them without getting all my ducks lined up in a row: right man, right time, job security, enough money, no betrayal of blokes’ trust. Teh ducks, they all samba’d about for decades, but they never lined up, and I spent a massive amount of time and money on contraceptive measures.
After I got an academic job, I spent a shitload more paying tax, something that does not appear to have been factored into what for want of a better word I’ll call Kevin’s equation.
It was then medically revealed in my late 40s that having children would anyway always already, for me, have been physically both difficult and dangerous.
Did this bother me? Not really; I thought it was funny, in a sick sort of way. Did I give a shit what Kevin Rudd or Tony Abbott thought?* Um, no. Did I break just like a little girl? No, because this rubbish about how you’re not a natural woman (feeling so uninspired when you look out on the morning rain) (the Dylan song is also about rain; is there a fertility connection here?) unless you have bubs is a total con job. Said con job used to be about keeping us all barefoot and pregnant, along ‘Kinder, Kirche, Kuchen’ lines**, but I will give K Rudd this: saying that we must do it to keep the tax base viable is, at least, a new argument. Grotesque, but new.
Also, I still think there’s a strong possibility that he was joking. But if he wasn’t, it tells you what he really thinks about his deputy.
I note that he himself has neither a uterus nor a PhD; could this be a particulary icky case of Uterus-Parchment Envy?
Finish your PhD, Case. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
*I have to say it: neither Hawke nor Keating would ever have said such a thing, in jest or otherwise. My guess is that they are both giggling, in an appalled sort of way, tonight.
**I plead immunity from Godwin’s Law on the grounds that I did not actually mention the Nasties.
I like to stick to insinuating about people (exception for Mad Monks).
Don’t want to claim my bitching has a serious empirical basis.
Casey, you’re not Catherine Deveny, are you?
Though thinking about it more I’m no longer convinced that Rudd couldn’t make a failed joke like this. Obviously a generational thing.
Perhaps I was thinking too much of the Rudd who handled the recent controversy of his nephew so well—surely that’s some kind of example of the private Rudd informing the behaviour of the public Rudd.
I also have a distaste for insider ‘personnel assesments’, as the political insiders I’ve known haven’t been the greatest judges of character, with one of ‘em almost ending up in gaol.
And you say I do drama.
Re 85:
Godwin doesn’t apply because it was actually either Kaiser Wilhelm III or Bismarck what said it (I forget which).
Oh, good.
Quite clearly Casey has a Sydney sense of humour and Deveny a Melbourne one. Even tone-deaf Brisbanian jokesters like Rudd would know the difference. I’d pay good money to see Casey and Deveney debate each other, tho’, on, let’s say, outer-suburban immigration-detention-centre architecture.
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON OUR SOULS
“I plead immunity from Godwin’s law…”
Immunity denied.
“Godwin doesn’t apply because…”
Invalid argument. It doesn’t matter any more who originally said it, because in common parlance at present, reasonable people understand the phrase to refer to its most vocal and notable proponents, to wit, the N-guys. Intent is proven by the original request for immunity.
Godwin is upheld; the argument is invalidated forthwith.
Now let’s all head round the corner for a sandwich shall we, and re-argue the thing from the beginning, but this time with our mouths full.
Everything points to this being a lame attempt at irony by Kevin, Man of the People, Steele Rudd.
If it isn’t then it is demonstrably wrong.
I think only about 30% of people ion their 30′s do tertiary education.
Bugger all do post grad and even less do do PHds.
Of those that do PHDs a percentage are men.
Approximately half of bugger all women do PHDs. Many of these women have kids.
Therefore 2/5ths of SFA women do a PhD to avoid having kids.
Kevs wrong and stupid whichever way you look at it.
I’m more than willing to believe that labor PMs will say this sort of shit (“two wongs don’t make a white”, etc) but I find it hard to believe in this case because
a) Rudd’s not so stupid as to let this slip
b) these kinds of hearsay are the kind of dubious crap that newspapers like the Herald thrive on
c) there’s not enough information in the article to corroborate anything
and in any case it doesn’t matter because, as others have observed, Rudd’s govt doesn’t enact these views in its legistlation. I also didn’t care one whit that John Brogden pinched a journalist’s arse at a private function, and the circumstances surrounding that little moment of infamy should be borne in mind by anyone who is thinking of pillorying Rudd over this.
If this is off-topic, the Mods can delete it, but I’m finding Howard’s attempts to draw moral equivalency between Rudd and Abbott appalling. If this comment by Rudd is factually reported, then they’re both horribly old-fashioned and Rudd has had a manners by-pass, but then, anyone who spent significant time in Qld knew that already (I used to live in his electorate). That, however, is by-the-by.
To my mind, Abbott cooked his goose with ‘Australians for Honest Politics’. That is, a slush fund designed to ensure that a particular political enemy was wiped off the map (the gaol time for Hanson was just an added bonus). That tops RU 486 and his latest bout of foot-in-mouth-itis.
A bit of law for y’all: what Abbott was doing is known at common law as ‘champerty’ or ‘barratry’, that is, funding a suit without having the balls to put one’s own name on the statement of claim. There is a reason why Australians for Honest Politics was set up in NSW: that state had abolished champerty. At the time, none of the other states had.
Those of you who are Christians, you’ll probably be aware which circle of Hell Dante sticks barrators in. It’s pretty low down, in there with people who sell church offices (‘simony’). Even when not actively illegal, it is extraordinarily poor form, indicative of quite gross moral turpitude.
I think I have to disagree with skepticlawyer there. The conservatives did exactly the right thing in dealing with Hanson, heading off a very real threat to the body politic. THe correct thing to do was to subvert her policies from the right without actually doing, and to destroy her credibility from within the position of government.
The alternative is what you now see in England – a steady rise of the far right, culminating in their eventual, continuing electoral success forcing the left wing parties to lurch far to the right (“British jobs for British workers”, anyone?) in order to retain their vote. It’s the responsibility of the “moderate” right to destroy the far right early and quickly, something they failed to do in the UK but did very effectively in Oz.
Given the pandora’s box Hanson would have unleashed with continued electoral success, I think Abbott’s actions in that torrid saga were actually very moral. Also we all know that her party was an undemocratic fraud – remember she ran every election just to keep funding her lifestyle.
Incidentally, I would be willing to bet that once she immigrates to England she gets herself into bed with the BNP or UKIP pretty fast. Maybe they’ve already been putting out feelers? She can tell a story about being driven out of Oz by the Asians… you read it here first, folks!
PC @ 85, that’s “Kinder, Kirche, Kuechen.” (My keyboard probably does umlauts, but I’ve got no idea.)
My pedantry isn’t meant to excuse Rudd’s appalling remark, btw.
@85 – Dr Cat, Kevin enrolled in a PhD at Griffith University in 1998, but didn’t finish it. Thus, he joins the 60 odd % of the very small number of people of whatever parental status who start a research doctorate but don’t finish one.
DI(nr): Here’s how it’s done. Hold down the option key while you hit the U key, then hit the letter you want. Küchen. But this may not show up in the comments box, which deforms a number of fancy keyboard manoeuvres.
ü
It works! Thank you, Dr Cat!
I’d have been inclined to think this was a case of mishearing, were it not that just last night I attended a comedy gig. One of the performers, who was in a wheelchair, recounted her experiencing speaking at an awards night for people with disabilities. If you believe her, not only did Rudd’s minders censor the hell out of her speech (no surprise there) but afterwards Rudd came within 2cm of PATTING HER ON THE HEAD. She had this wonderful description of the looks of utter horror on the minders faces as Rudd’s hand honed in. Just in time he seemed to realise and put his hand on her chair in a way she described as “well a bit better” (I may not have the words exact).
At the time I thought – “ohh she’s probably exaggerating a bit, its a comedy gig”, but the parallels between the two events look pretty strong to me. Both times Rudd gives a speech and walks off and patronizes the hell out of a young woman. Hard to believe they both got it wrong/overstated it, and if one is right its pretty credible the other is.
Of course none of this rules out a joke. But I think the border between a joke and a true conviction is a bit porous here. I’m not sure he looks a whole lot better if that’s the sort of joke he makes to people he’s just met.
I’m sorry but the linked article really starts from a defensive position that interprets Rudd’s speeches in a very unsavoury and unreasonable way. The implication that the under 30s felt they had to stick together is really dubious too. The first part of that article, were it to stand on its own, would be seen as a gratuitous and stupid attack on Rudd’s speech, completely out of whack with what we all know he is saying publicly.
Given that, why should we trust her reporting of what he said privately?
sg, not knowing her, hard to say. I’d suspect she heard the words accurately but perhaps may have missed the inflection (“but in the moment I just froze in shock”) of a poor attempt at humour. Of the possibilities suggested by Paul @ 25 I suspect the third:
No, I’m not surprised. Essentially I’d subscribe to what Mark says about him.
Eric Sykes @ 48, you have to fit Billy McMahon in there somewhere. I’d say Howard the worst, Billy second. Not sure where you go from there.
my point is Brian that the bit of her report where she talks about the words we know Rudd uttered publicly – his speech on intergenerational stuff – doesn’t fit very well with what we know he thinks and says on these things. Given her account of the public bit is quite off, why should we believe her account of the private bit?
It’s a hatchet job. From the herald?! Who could imagine!
The Inter Generational Report….., yes ,of course!
Thanks Jo, #66m for link.
The (other) real story, obscured beneath the smokescrean of a sideways inflection.
I was struck by his obdurateness in his treatment of his recently presented population growth theories; no sense of any consciousness of the disquiet and dismay that has greeted the “development at every cost” mentality that pervades politics in Australia at the moment.
Ah yes. There is real ideology at play behind all of this- so much more of what he actually thinks about issues parallels Abbot.
Secondly, much thanks to Pavlov’s Cat for “Kinder, Kuerch, Kuchen”.
I just feel so “Eugenics” at the moment.
The little round faced blonde Frauleins, with hands wrapped round their swollen tummies, Stepford smiles on their faces.
Just so like Peter Seller’s Dr Strangelove, I can hardly keep my right arm down just thinking about the Leader’s Theories, or bursting into a Marching Song.
Nick (of Mark): I like to stick to insinuating about people (exception for Mad Monks).
Don’t want to claim my bitching has a serious empirical basis.
There’s no serious empirical basis for “a woman said something and there were no witnesses, so she must be lying, or her weak ladybrain simply heard/saw the wrong thing”, although it’s all too familiar.
Thanks SL @ 95 for the backgrounder. I’ve started a new thread for the discussion about Abbott and the Hanson episode.
As for the Rudd/Abbott ‘false equivalence’ suggestion, that belongs in this thread.
Might I just add that false equivalence is the main way for RWDBs to blow smoke in a debate? It’s like the ‘balance’ meme in reporting other topics: we must give equal time to ‘both sides’ of every story, especially the sides that have little or no merit. We must balance sense with nonsense, hence we must give coverage to birthers, 9/11 truthers, moon landing hoaxers, CC deniers, etc.
Under the false equivalence doctrine, we must give equal benefit of the doubt to a politician with a long public history of making sexist comments, short-changing and denigrating women, and that of a politician whose rap sheet in the sexism department is relatively clean (until now, at any rate). Failure to give equal treatment to clearly unequal cases indicates how horribly, horribly “unbalanced” we are, and is to be Loudly Denounced.
That clear?
sg @ 104, there are only five sentences in her article that refer to what Rudd said in the speech. Given that she was understandably traumatised by what he said in private, I wouldn’t trust her report when she says this:
I come from a family of five that was partly pre-baby boomer and partly early boomer. I’m not expert in these things, but my impression is that five was about average for the time, but from the 60s with the pill etc. baby boomers started having smaller families and women became more likely not to reproduce at all.
It’s possible Rudd focussed on the current child-bearing population and let the boomers and Gen X off the hook, as it were. But it’s also possible Funnell in her distress misperceived what he said when she came to write the piece. Given we can’t find the speech, there is no way of knowing.
And we don’t know to what extent he was actually “blaming” women for not reproducing in his public speech, or just stating that current reproduction rates are low.
On those points I wouldn’t rely on her reporting. I tend to think she remembered accurately the private words that traumatised her. But given the attitudes behind Rudd’s private words, it’s also quite possible she was right about his public words.
This is slightly off-topic, but here’s a gobsmacking article from today’s Age. The head of Melbourne’s Sacred Heart Mission asked Abbott if he would continue the government’s policy to half homelessness by 2020. Abbott’s answer; well read on and experience your jaw dropping through the floor.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/bible-bashing-the-homeless-abbott-style-20100215-o2tj.html
Whenever I get angry/irritated/bored by Rudd, I just remember what a truly appalling human being Abbott is.
I was shocked by the article about Rudd. I can’t believe he wouls have been so stupid to say something that stupid to a post gradjournalism student, whom, he surely must have realised, would have published it in the MSM. But he clearly was. So, tut-tut, shocking, etc. But then, as a bit of a reality dose there’s that link to the Mad Monk’s callousness towards the homeless, based on his belief that a whole heap of us should stay at the bottom of the pile to preserve stability in society. Tones, the workers will rise up and eat you.
So lest we forget the lesson we learnt from John Winston Howard : There is a difference between Labor and the Liberals. A very big difference. Give me KRudd with all his faults, any day.
i am more interested in a critique of Rudd here than a comparison to the monk…the monk is insane and as a pm would be awful..anything would be better eh?..but that does not suddenly stop us having a critical eye, from a left and secular perspective on the current pm…
the idea that he hasn’t allowed his personal/private views to influence policy seems to me to be incorrect….internet filters anyone?? moralistic “protocols” for arts funding? not doing anything about howards school chaplains recruiting for hillsong and the like…. the secular left must strengthen their voices both in the ALP and in the mainstream of public discourse and revitalize…lets stop appeasing the god botherers.
Fine @ 109, Totally and utterly heartless.
“This is slightly off-topic, but here’s a gobsmacking article from today’s Age.”
Yep, off topic here, but surely deserves a post of it’s own.
You would like to think, also, that it gets widely circulated and Abbott asked to ‘please explain’ further so that we know, for sure, that he has not been misreported by one of those bleeding hearts. Probably, though, it will go nowhere as being unewsworthy.
sg@94:
So, if I’ve followed your logic:
a) NO politician ever says ignorant, crass or downright bigoted things when they think nobody else is paying attention. (Richard Nixon ring any bells?)
b) Nina Funnell put her name to a pack of lies for reasons that currently escape me. Or perhaps she’s one of these over-sensitive feminists who need to get a sense of humour I hear so much about?
c) Since we’ve written off Funnell as either a liar and/or a confused bearer of lady-bits, as long as Rudd refuses to comment the rest of us should just be quiet?
Perhaps the lesson from this, boys, is that if you’re going to be a patronising jerk to a woman make sure there’s no witnesses, then deny deny deny!
no Craig, I don’t think you’re following the logic at all. In response:
a) No, I clearly stated that politicians say stupid things, and I quoted one (and then gave the example of Brogden doing stupid things). However, Rudd doesn’t seem like one of those stupid politicians, which makes me suspicious
b) I didn’t say she’s lying, although her interpretation of Rudd’s speech was so mendaciously wrong as to make me think that she could be. But in fact I said that her somewhat unorthodox interpretation of his speech makes me doubt her interpretation of his private words.
c) I didn’t say anything about her lady bits – I actually confined myself to interpreting her veracity based on her own words (her reporting of the speech). This is quite different to calling her hysterical. Maybe Rudd’s refusing to comment because he’s sticking to his presidential style, much lauded on this blog?
The only hysteria I’m seeing here is by those commenters who haven’t noticed something just slightly fishy about the weird, paranoid and overly personal tone of the first half of the article.
Meanwhile, still nothing from Rudd denying or disputing Nina Funnell’s account of the conversation.
Definitely off-topic, but…
@DI(nr) – #97 – can we amend that to “Kinder, Kueche, Kirche”?
‘Kueche’ is ‘kitchen’, ‘kuechen’ is either ‘kitchens’ (plural) or an adjective e.g. ‘kuechentisch’ is ‘kitchen table’.
“weird, paranoid and overly personal”
what, you mean…like christians?
I’m a bit late on this, but i think that there is a possible Machiavellian reason for Rudd’s comment. I think that Abbott has realized that he cannot defeat this center right Labor party, so he is attempting to run against Wimmin, Socialists and Greenies. He hopes that as elements in the ALP react to his oldskool scares in concert with the ‘bitter and confused feminists’ of the leftwing media that the ALP will start to appear beholden to radical agendas showing that the ALP are socialist wolves in capitalist sheep’s clothing.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Rudd tried to blunt that message, as he has done by keeping the Greens at arms length throughout the CPRS process, by making some off colour remarks of his own and attracting the ire of pro-feminist commentators. I guess that it is no surprise to many commentators here that there is a strong undercurrent of misogyny within the ALP and it’s base, there will be a few nods and off colour cracks at one of my old watering holes this week as this gets discussed, even more so as the cricket is so gorram dull. Doesn’t make what he said right or any less reprehensible.
It is off topic, but what is it with these “Who are you really Casey?’ questions that i have seen a few times now. Anyone with a bit of sense knows who Casey really is.
My apologies, Herr Owlglass @ 117. You’re right, of course, but in my defence it’s over 40 years since I’ve spoken or written German.
OT, it’s currently pissing down seriously in Brisbane and I’m all wet.
did i say something wrong Paul?
dylwah, you got caught in the spaminator. Hopefully it’s fixed now.
I think he’s a bit off the mark. Women are delaying having and adding to their families to avoid being cut open by obstetricians. Over 30% of women are given cesareans these days, and Rudd has worsened the situation by the de facto outlawing of private homebirth.
thanx Paul
Paul, did Nina end up appearing on ABC Canberra radio yesterday? It hasn’t turned up at all in their broadcast archives.
I can’t find it either Nick.
Paul Norton@128 – Perhaps it’s another figment of the imagination along the lines of your post which set off this thread. By the way, your range of possilities did NOT cover the point I initially raised at the beginning of this assassination attempt as you claimed.
I think you’ll find she didn’t end up on ABC radio because she can’t defend her claim.
wandering around PC’s at #85, on the poet known as Dylan….
perhaps “rain” is linked to the ordinary fertility of plants, soil, forests, flowers and then more allusively to human fertility?
“break like a little girl” similarly may allude to the “breaking like a little boy” the poet himself experienced as a youngster; little boys and little girls learn to ride with the little bumps and pick themselves up
as adults they may recall the poignancy of the feelings at the time when they thought they were breaking
the poet is dense, elusive; the writer of “a hard rain” has many meanings of “rain”, at least a couple of which he brought into the language; he seems compassionate and complex
cheerio
On Mr Rudd: I still feel sympathy for the socially inept. How many of us have regretted an outstandingly foolish remark, 0.6 seconds after uttering it?
No-one? Oh ……..
Just to be a pedant for a moment (I had to look it up) the phrase is Kinder, Küche, Kirche, in that order. DI(nr), Küchen is not a word as such but is used in combo when you say kitchin table (Küchentisch). BTW Kuchen is a word and means cake.
Gummo, it was apparently originally attributed to Kaiser Wilhelm II, with a fourth K – Kleider (clothing). Bismarck is thought to have shortened it to the form taken up by the N-guys, so japerz @ 93 is no doubt right, Godwin’s law does apply, but since we make the rules here, PC can have an exemption if she wants :)
To the Labor tribalist thugs el oso and sg, this isn’t a stacked branch or Young Labor stackfest where you can slag people off to your heart’s content to the applause of a claque of factional daleks, knowing that it doesn’t matter how weak your argument is because the numbers are stitched up for you. This is a forum where you have to attempt to persuade by evidence and arguments rather than cheap attempts to impugn the integrity of a very courageous sexual assault survivor (check the link #41). You are making arses of yourselves in the eyes of the 99.73% of Australians who aren’t members of the Labor Party and the 90% of ALP members who understand that it’s that 99.73% that decides who wins and loses elections.
You are also both one snarky comment away from being sinbinned.
Paul Norton’s post, #133, immediately brought to mind the Peter Costello piece on Steve Conroy’s $250 mill freebee for the MSM. I never thought I would ever agree with anything that b- said, but this time spot on, altho of course not a mention of all the sleaze that went on under HoWARd.
The reason I’m mentioning it is, because once again we are forced to consider that unfortunate pathological mess that constitues the unreflexive, anti intellectual and malevolent mentality of the ALP rightist.
I liked a coment in the blog for the Funnell article in Fairfax, where somebody asked if Rudd thought all this breeding was so marvellous, why he hadn’t spent more time on the nest ensuring that Therese breed her share?
( Suggested in that post as a guideline, fifteen little new Australians per unit! ).
That’s a bit rich given the nature of the Nina Funnell article.
I fail to see what that has to do with anyone’s integrity.
Well, desipis, Nina Funnell has given her account of the conversation, none of the people who witnessed it have contradicted her, and we still have nothing but silence from Rudd about what he actually said and the spirit in which he said it.
I really think some commenters on this thread badly need to read Orlando Figes’ The Whisperers to understand the sorry fate to which loyalty to the party and its leader can lead well-meaning people.
Not making arses of themselves in front of the 99.999999973 percent of people who don’t read L.P.
I’d also like to make it known that one of my closest friends is a woman who drove the ALP Right at Griffith University apeshit in 1992, drove the ALP Left at the same university apeshit the following year, and is now a manager in the London office of Microsoft. :P
I certainly couldn’t be accused of ‘blind loyalty’ to the Labor party, but I think the following points need to be considered before rushing into judgement on what Rudd may or may not have said:
1. Of late the SMH has developed an anti-Rudd agenda, both in its opinion and ‘news’ items, so anything published within its pages should be viewed with considerable suspicion.
2. The details of the speech and venue etc were vague and clearly seen through the prism of strongly held views.
3. PN says that nobody has contradicted NF’s account, but by the same token, nobody has substantiated it either, to the best of my knowledge.
4. Regarding Rudd’s response, chances are he’s been advised that commenting on what he said would only further inflame the issue, and just provide further fuel to the media fire. These things need to be seen in the wider context of a hostile media, which incidentally is beginning to have an affect on Rudd’s performance.
5. And desipis is correct, the author’s history, however tragic, has no relevance to the issue of integrity and the veracity of her account of a conversation.
Wilful, 0.000000027 percent of Australia’s population comes to 0.00594 people who read LP.
Adrian, you make a number of good points, but in relation to point 4, if Rudd didn’t say what he is alleged to have said, surely a simple denial followed by a lack of corroboration of NF’s claims would kill the issue more thoroughly than a non-response.
You’re assuming this has risen to the level of “issue” for the PM or his staff.
Update: Mamamia has been contacted by Rudd’s office with a general statement that “The claims made about the Prime Minister’s views on these matters yesterday are not accurate and do not reflect his long held views.” The response doesn’t specifically address the issue of what was said in the conversation after the speech.
I’m inclined to believe Nina isn’t making this up just to support a claimed anti-Rudd editorial line (which appears to have been ignored by Peter Hartcher, the political editor, by the way). That’s pretty far-fetched.
I did notice that she only puts “excuse” and “all” in quotes, suggesting she did not recall (or hear) the exact quote. I have no idea what to make of that. Is it possible he laughed and said “that’s what they all say as an excuse!” or something like that? Intended not to demean but as a joke from seomone known for poor joke skills? He presumably wouldn’t have been aware that she felt personally threatened by a subtext she discerned from his speech.
BTW, on a political level there is no way Rudd should respond formally to this. Odds are he doesn’t recall the exact quote, has no idea if she has him on tape and is waiting for the denial, etc. And it’s hardly going to swing a vote in favour of Tony “God’s gift to women” Abbott.
Josh, I think your intuition about what may have happened is probably sound.
Also, it seems to have been overlooked that later in the article Nina Funnell defends Julia Gillard quite robustly against attacks from “the likes of George Brandis” in the Coalition. It seems to me perfectly natural that a young feminist with (as far as we know) no major party affiliations would be sensitive to, and critical of, backward attitudes amongst male politicians on both sides of politics.
Paul, I have no labor party affiliations and I’m not particularly fond of Rudd. I just think that the article linked to is a smelly piece of hearsay. I also haven’t been impugning the writer on the basis of her sex or anything else except the first part of the article, which indicates a stunning inability to comprehend what Rudd is saying publicly and an extremely defensive attitude towards any opinion which the writer construes as an attack on her personal childbirth decisions. In this context a joke is very easily misunderstood.
I really sincerely doubt that the 30-somethings in the audience (most of whom, incidentally, probably had children) were banding together to protect themselves against a hostile anti-30-somethings-with-no-children atmosphere. This is just fevered imaginings on her part. I also doubt anything Rudd said publicly in any speeches on the issue could be construed as blaming anyone. His whole political style is based on avoiding that. So how did she feel this so strongly? Given this flagrant misinterpretation of his public, verifiable statements, why on earth should I believe her interpretation of a private statement that clearly could have been a ham-fisted joke, of the sort which fits with Rudd’s awkward persona.
Also I should point out that this blog made a big deal during the election of Rudd’s presidential style, his unwillingness to rise to personal attacks, etc. I’m fairly confident that his refusal to comment on those strip-club allegations would not have been taken as a sign of horrific guilt, but as part of his presidential style. I don’t get the change now. In fact I bet if I search a bit I’ll find some of the commenters here saying back then that he shouldn’t have risen to the bait…
In short, not every attack on the credibility of a report like this is snark or dismissing a “courageous survivor”. Sometimes it’s just because the report in question is dubious.
Paul: in that case this does NOT “tend to confirm the suspicions that a number of us at LP have expressed over the past three years” (your original post), unless you meant by that comment that Rudd is easily misunderstood.
Just sayin’.
Fair enough, sg, and I retract the suggestion that you are a Labor tribalist thug or Labor tribalist anything else.
The only point I’d make (again) is that there is a difference between arguing that Nina Funnell may have misinterpreted or overreacted to a misfiring attempt at humour (which seems to be what you’re saying in your most recent comment, and which does not in itself impugn anyone’s integrity) and suggesting that she has concocted or imagined her account of the conversation (which is what some other commenters further up the thread seem to be saying).
well I don’t think I was trying to say that, even in my one line snark. Only a madman would make a false claim like that publicly. But she doesn’t seem a very accurate correspondent in this case.
Also, again, I don’t think this sort of stuff should be relevant to political discussion (much as it is interesting as an insight into the personalities of the people involved). Besides its hearsay content, the events surrounding John Brogden’s attempted suicide should point as a salutary lesson in the power of the press to destroy a person’s life on the basis of a private event, and the seedy things which can often be going on behind the scenes. In fact, wasn’t Abbott involved in that little shenanigan?
I think it’s wise to let these things pass, in the interests of everyone involved. Which hasn’t stopped me commenting on it repeatedly…
he he
yes indeed, sexism….it’s only to do with women..why not just “let it pass”?
“These things” in this case, Eric Sykes, refer to accusations about comments made privately. They may be sexist, homophobic, racist or just offensive, but they’re not made in a public forum and the result of rabble-rousing on the basis of them is never pretty. Witness John Brogden…
yes…well in this case your reference to JB (tragic as those events were) seems to me to be a monumental stretch in order to curtail a discussion that you don’t like about what a sexist conservative kevin rudd is. i would also argue with “rabble rousing” … Rudds conservative christian ethics are, i would argue, a key driver of his policy framework..he has said so many times…this incident as reported seems to me to point directly to his blatantly sexist attitudes…it was a “function” where he was “speaking”..that is certainly no wholy “private” event..it is an event where a PM is invited to speak no doubt..thus any questions or observations he makes in speaking with his audience afterwards seem to me to absolutely and completely fair game. like would he have been speaking is he wasn’t a PM, like was it a family picnic….i doubt it.
Paul @ 142 You note that the statement from the PM’s office to Mamamia doesn’t specifically address what was said in that conversation. Interestingly in commenting on this response from the PM’s office on the Mamamia site nor does Nina Funnell specifically address what was said in that conversation.
“I just read Rudd”s response. Interesting. He hasn’t denied in any way ANY of the claims I made about what he said. All he has done is go into damage control. He hasn’t in any way shape or form actually said that he didn’t say it or that (as has been alleged all over the net) I must have misinterpreted or fabricated his statements.”
Since this issue is of vital national importance we need answers! What was “it” that he said? As members of the public we have right to know! Where was this said? When was it was said? Exactly what was said? Journalistic integrity demands an answer! Academic rigor from a soon-to-be Ph.D requires it!
Otherwise this article is just a sloppy piece of sensationalism from an attention seeking hysterical deliberately barren young woman. Julia Gillard should be reviewing postgraduate living allowances if this is what the universities are producing with tax payers money! It would never have happened in my day!
Kinder, Kuche und Kirche! Mein Gott! Wo sind meine K-K-K-Kleider?
How do you know she is deliberately barren? What a horrible phrase that is, designed to put women firmly in their place, as if having babies is all they are good for.
Paul Norton@133. “tribalist thug” who “slag(s) off people” “impugn the integrity” – Threatening to sinbin people who have a different opinion from you is pretty thuggish in my opinion. Look back at the comments I have made and point out exactly where I have committed the evil deeds you so vitriolically denounce.
I have done exactly what blog sites are there for, and that is to make a comment or offer an opinion. If you want this site to be a place where unsupported statements with damaging intent are allowed to flourish then that should be made clear. I expect both a withdrawal of your insults and an apology. If you cannot bring yourself to look clearly at what has actually happened then sinbin me.
El oso, the gravamen of your three comments is that Nina Funnell has uttered a “derogatory” “figment of the imagination” with “damaging intent” which I have been in a “rush to relay” in an “assassination attempt”. In other words you have basically accused Nina Funnell of being a manufacturer of lies and me of being a retailer of lies. I reserve the right to respond robustly to that sort of thing, as I have done #133.
I was only being pedantic about the missing umlaut in PC’s original mention of the phrase, Brian @ 132. I can now quite clearly see my petard in the corner over there …
Further to Patricia WA $154, Nina Funnell is standing by her account not only at Mamamia but in the SMH blog on her column, and her article has now been posted at Online Opinion.
Patricia you demand to know what it was Rudd it he said. You demand that Nina spell it out: Well read the original article Patricia and you will see what he said.
But this:
Sorry, did you say attention seeking hysterical and deliberately barren? Who said that before? Deliberately barren. Who said that before about Julia Gillard? Bill Heffernan said that before about Julia Gillard. He was forced to apologise. You should apologise for your appalling comment forthwith. If you are going to continue to go on labeling every woman or migrant for that matter, who speaks up as hysterical, you could at least get some original lines to use. I didn’t know you were such a fan of Heffernan but at least credit him when you use his lines.
Other than that good to see LP back to its old self. Utterly appalling character assassination from everywhere here. She’s young, she’s a feminist and she’s successful. Rudd stuffed it up and he has not directly denied it as far as I can see.
I have emailed my local member, McKew for a direct response and I will email Nina Funnell myself. The PM’s office does not see fit to confirm or deny the exact wording (which is Paul’s link to her article Patricia). I see fit to pursue this until I get some confirmation or denial from Rudd on what he said. I do not see fit to slam someone on the basis of the reportage of a direct convo she had with the PM and then get ripped to shreds on australia’s premier lefty blog.
Do you realise that feminists do not come to this blog because of the rubbish that passes for commentary here where women’s issues are concerned? Go over to Hoydens and get a load of what the feminists are saying about this.
The use of hysterical in itself is pretty disappointing tbh, the barren remark only adds to that disappointment.
I can’t believe that people are attacking Nina over this.
Rudd needs to apologise.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if this is the thing that causes him to step down and make Ms Gillard PM. (I suspect this is the reason why some on the right aren’t going at Rudd hammer and tongs over this.)
Shoe on other foot time. If Howard or Abbott said something as stupid or as offensive we’d be crucifying him.
Hey I know that satire ‘aint what it used to be, but are we also losing the ability to recognise it when it stares us in the face?
Check out my website to see whar satirists are saying about this issue.
Casey! So, just like Nina Funnell you can’t tell a joke when you see one! Q.E.D!
By the way if I hadn’t guessed you lived in Melbourne I would have thought you were Nina Funnell yourself!
That post was meant for you, by the way! I thought you might like to see what this old “gal” could really be like if she was the me you clearly project as existing out there!
Ambigulous, I trust your judgement. Weren’t there enough clues before the punch line to indicate I was leg pulling?
Yes tssk but you won’t have any politicians left as they’ll all have resigned under your newly revised Westmister system of ministerial accountability.
Julia Gillard would be the first to go after Garrett under your system for reasons that I surely don’t have to explain.
With Patricia’s post I was clued into the satire from the ‘barren’ quote. I can see how others missed it.
I live in Sydney Patricia.
The joke was not very funny nor apparent, and in light of the “just like Nina” comment, you meaning is clear nonetheless.
Anyway, dumb jokes aside,
I just called the Prime Minister’s office. I could not get past “Helen” at the front desk. She spoke to the media team who told her apparently that the entire article is not true and the conversation Nina Funnell reported is not true. I asked if he would be releaing a media statement to that effect. She replied at this stage it was not known whether a media statement would be being released. I told her I would be putting up this conversation on a prominent blog site. Now I suppose I could be accused of hearsay, given only me and Helen were doing the talking but there you go. This is what the media team there advised her to tell me.
I told her I was someone who voted for Rudd at the last election and was concerned to know if he would confirm or deny the comments made by Ms Funnell as I am someone who is doing a Phd who is not having children. Could I please speak to a media adviser? Like pleas. Like no.
No more votes for you Rudd. And, as if. I am putting my request in writing to him so he will have to confirm or deny one way or another.
Just to make clear, I read out Nina’s exact wording regarding the PM’s comments and “Helen” advised me it was not true.
But I would like to see that in writing. In fact it has become my life’s ambition now.
And baiting me like that Patricia, is a form of trolling.
Casey, you’ve put it in writing, just as Nina Funnell did. Now you can do it again by joining the hue and cry at On Line Opinion. Further to that, if you write a controversial article with questionable assumptions does its re-print verbatim in their National Forum magically make it less questionable?
Thanks, Adrian, and tssk of course. I could have been more heavy handed as I started to, talking about it being a non-issue of national importance but a fertile ground for discussion. But I cut that out as I did a couple of things in the When? and Where? questions which demanded details of how often, and assurances that no meeting took place in the PM’s office, or across his desk. I also toyed with the idea of asking how much Fairfax had paid for Funnell’s story.
Casey doesn’t think it was very funny, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself writing it and even more reading some of the comments! Just as much I am sure as NF did with her more serious article. I hope tho’ my few paras did no harm to anyone’s reputation.
Patricia, thank you for making an excellent point. Your comment was obviously piss-taking, and anyone who has read your comments here before should know it, but still people missed the point. The thing about reviewing postgrad living allowances and the “hysterical barren” bit should have been hints too.
But people misinterpreted it. Got quite heated up about it, in fact. Comment 160 is a real pearler. Perhaps there’s a little tiny bit of a hint there as to what might have happened to at Rudd’s speech, people?
The problem with Nina’s article which sg has raised above a few times, were likewise for me. If we assume the overall aim of her piece was to discuss and illustrate the way population issues, demography and then women’s rights around reproduction get mixed together firstly and personalised secondly, then this piece in many ways replicates the same, obviously unintentionally.
Unfortunately, the author starts with what can only be described as ham-fisted satire. I ‘spose she was going for sarcastic self-deprecation using the language of teh patriarchy (with recent currency) to provide some background context, but for many readers – it was interpreted merely as ‘weird and paranoid’, or a ‘filter’ with which she viewed the event she was describing.
“I shuffled nervously, hoping no one would recognise me – and my empty womb – as the deeply unpatriotic and traitorous felons that we are”..
Okay hyperbole. It doesn’t however match with the publicised speeches given by Rudd on the Intergenerational Report, and as sg mentions this creative interpretation set off a number of alarm bells in terms of the author’s reporting skills.
Before we get to the joke or the ‘not joke’ – we should mention Nina recycling stereotypes like ‘empty womb’ in her piece. The whole ‘buns in oven/full/empty’ thing reinforces a v. old-fashioned and immature view of parenting while positing that motherhood equates to a full womb when of course an ‘empty womb’ – whatever that’s supposed to mean, is the normal default position for all women…who are shuffling around. Nine months does not equate to a life-time.
But who cares about reinforcing stereotypes when you need to paint yourself into the story as the next target of this uber-nanny & pappy-state which has um, already convicted you of the unpatriotic felony of not having a full womb!?…….. If you are going to use this stuff – you have to know what you are doing.
The joke. Or not.
From the get-go, I found it v. hard to believe that Rudd made a nasty & pointed remark to her as a first response to her introduction in this friendly setting etc. Bang. No shades of grey. No irony. This is what Nina reported occurred – a pointed, personal comment and in a terse voice.
An offensive quip – I’d buy. A guffawing misfire – I’d buy. But not the bald faced pointed nasty. That’s why I asked about corroboration – it wasn’t that the words weren’t uttered – it was the intent/tone.
The second half changes tack entirely and makes a number of valid & general points about women’s choices in terms of parenting and education and careers and how documented attacks on Julia Gillard are but recent examples of women being held to different standards to men vis careers and parenting etc. All good stuff.
A different reporter may have not seen the need to sex-up K Rudd’s comment, as there is more than enough to unpack as a joke to support the argument she is making. Apparently Nina Funnell is sticking to her version of events. Fine.
I’ll wait and see for now – if corroborated vis ‘not-a-joke’, then happy to revise my opinion of Rudd’s messaging/PR/people skills. The issue of the joke itself is another kettle of fish, likewise what KRudd may or may not hold as personal views etc.
As to calls on LP for solidarity with a young women, merely because she is a young women. Ah, no. You judge the report as it’s written, not by who wrote it.
And to the ‘LP anti-women’ meme that’s been raised before. Sure, there are some women who post & comment here that who feel this way and have commented at some length on this subject – all the while possibly not realising that other women who comment here don’t feel that way. The last time this issue was raised, there were a number of women who were busily commenting on other threads, who were not even considered in ‘teh headcount’ and I found that a v. interesting anomaly, as it seemed to privilege some regular women commentators as being more representative than others. It may be more accurate in the future to say that ‘some women’ feel that LP is unfriendly to women, as I’m going on the record that I don’t hold this view, whilst acknowledging that some peeps who comment do have views that could be considered misogynistic or uninformed or unthinking more often.
PatriciaWA’s comments were unfortunate, about as unfortunate the first part of Nina’s report.
Oh sweet, blogfight. Perhaps not as tasty as the old days when Catallaxy used to host people with brain stems, but y’take what y’get when you’re into that kind of thing.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve given up banal sarcasm for Lent, so readers may take what I’m about to say at face-value and in all sincerity: the problem with the threads here isn’t chauvinism (though it’s around) it’s the mistake of a broader politics of power for a narrower politics of spectacle (a mistake of which chauvinism is in this case a subset).
Can I believe that Rudd’s a basically sexist AWU bloke, even though the SMH says it? Hell yes. Adrian, joe2, I’m thinking in particular of you two: I’m the most partisan person I know, and you make me feel like I’m an on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand Michelle Grattan dupe.
Oh God yes. I’m already firing up google images and youtube in firefox tabs.
Hey, well said jo.
Patricia WA,
I thought you were leg-pulling and the final “where are my KKK-clothes?” would put it beyond doubt for those with schooldays German. But my opinion is neither here nor there.
I’m in a Dylan-lyrics reverie and happier there than here. Life is good.
No-one can doubt Tone’s car nearly got cleaned up by a semi. The TV footage is clear; neither journo nor troll can deny it. Cheerio.
OK, having thought the matter over whilst lying in bed at 3am trying to get back to sleep, I have realised that my response to el oso’s (and sg’s) comments was disproportionate, and that I could have made the points which needed to be made in a more measured way. I also have to admit that the tank in my soul where I store some 30 years of rage and grief about various other matters sprung a leak and the resultant seepage fuelled those responses. Apologies to sg and el oso for my excessive response.
Yes, a typically awesome comment from Jo – my thoughts exactly from start to finish, including also the part about not finding LP a hostile environment to comment in. There have been ups and downs, but overall I feel fine here in recent years because despite the fighting and injuring I think there is tolerance and reasonableness at the end of it. In Kleinian terms this blog is able to take the depressive position and engage in psychic reparation. It’s no great secret that I find other blogs which describe themselves as feminist quite the opposite in this respect.
Anyway, back to Kev. I’m on tenterhooks to hear what your approaches to the PM’s office turn up, Casey, because this really really needs clarifying. I *need* to hear the other side of the story. I feel very betrayed even by the possibility that Rudd thinks this, and that Nina Funnell was prepared to put it in writing and the SMH was prepared to publish seems to mean it’s likely to be true. And yet.
It wouldn’t surprise me all that much if our Prime Minister held opinions like that about women’s childbearing duty, but I just can’t picture in my head how the scene played out (as Jo said already.) So sad about this. So Casey, please keep us posted dear.
Jo #174, beneath all the sound and fury we all seem to be converging on the view that my possibility 3 at #25 is the most likely story. Nina Funnell’s response on Mamamia and the SMH blog, whilst maintaining her account of what was said in the conversation, also uses the term “gaffe” to describe Rudd’s remarks.
That said, I would be more reassured about Rudd’s underlying attitudes if he had the grace to admit that he stuffed up (albeit without malicious intent) rather than trying to brazen it out.
Paul: congrats. Humility is the hardest thing, esp. on blogs for some reason.
Sorry Liam,
things seem to have cooled down. Better luck next time.
Yes well, ‘mea culpas’ are needed from me too.
Casey I am truly sorry that I upset you so much. Yes, I was thinking of you when I wrote that spoof comment, but really I assumed you would get the joke and see how stupidly outraged some people can be, particularly when Julia Gillard’s name was juxtaposed to the ‘deliberately barren’ phrase. Of course I also wanted humorously to make my point, which I still hold that we don’t know exactly what was said etc. etc.
Is it too soon to hope that ‘pax’ can be restored? Or even an armed truce?
When will someone invent an irony font?
Apology accepted with thanks. Don’t entirely plug the leak in the tank of your soul which you speak about – sometimes it’s those leaks which bring us the greatest insight (speaking from experience!)
I don’t even think an apology is needed, Paul, I can defend myself from an accusation of labor tribalism without being offended. Compared to some American blogs the kind of “robust exchange” that goes on here is really very polite, so I’m not fussed.
This does thread does contain an example of that ever-present warning, though, of not rushing in when you hear rumour that doesn’t seem to fit with the perceived facts. And more broadly, letting peoples’ private statements be – if the media had refused to run with that John Brogden stuff he, at least, would be in a much better position now and I would argue NSW would be too.
For the record I’m not willing to believe Rudd is that conservative over womens’ roles, because of a) what his wife does and his relationship with her, b) his obvious respect for Gillard and c) everything he has (not) said and done up to now. Having said that, I don’t doubt that he is sexually and socially conservative in other ways, e.g. that stupid internet filter, and willing to tolerate social conservatism in his peers (e.g. Garrett). But if one is inclined to judge a leader on his personal views, Rudd still seems vastly superior to Abbott and I’m going to continue to believe that until I see clear evidence (not hearsay) to the contrary. Then of course, if this turns out to be true, I’ll think of him as I do Bob Hawke – says off things in private but doesn’t seem to enact them publicly.
Off topic but reading through this and some of my own less than stellar contributions of late reminded me of an article about web veteran Jaron Lanier and his worries about the web bring out the worst in people. Article was here at http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/why-the-web-has-gone-sour-20100214-nzo5.html
Part of the problem is that text is subjective, and a tiny mistake can render a totally different meaning. for example Let’s eat, Grandpa vs Let’s eat Grandpa.
Simple typo turns a dinner invitation into a canibalistic call to arms.
Worthy of a thread of it’s own I suspect.
Still, it’s good to see after a good night’s sleep everyone is back to normal, on other political forums this would have turned into a massive blaze.
Laura, I was so upset about this I contacted all the players involved yesterday. To that end, after direct conversations with the office of Rudd and the other parties involved in this, I have been asked not to comment further on what happened, so I won’t. All I will say is that I was not prepared to sit here and bag someone out without at least trying to find some stuff out for myself. Which I did. I’m a researcher. I picked up a phone. And on the basis of the stuff I now know I stand by my original comments. I do not resile from one word. But because I keep my word, I will not comment further on these matters.
Patricia, I was doing that in the middle of reading your comment. Apologies if I missed the obvious. I was a bit overwhelmed by the other conversations I was having about this. I want to say this to you though. While I am extremely forthright and I am satirical, while I play around a lot on this site, I do not take pleasure in taking the piss out of people like you and publicly offering it up for the enjoyment of others, as you so gleefully did with me yesterday. While you may not like the way I say things, I have always treated you with the integrity that you deserve in that I take your comments seriously and respond to them and engage with you as robustly as I can. The exchanges have been tense at times, but I have never taken pleasure in making you look like an idiot. I engaged with you because I thought you were worth engaging with. You have perspectives I find challenging but you are feisty and I have never shied away from tackling stuff with you. You could call that respect. That comment yesterday about what fun you had was, well, I guess it was not what I was expecting from you. SG, for you to suggest that my misunderstanding of Patricia’s comment can be applied that to Nina Funnell’s direct conversation with Rudd is just stupid.
So that is all I have to say.
Armed truce then?
And you can have the last word.
… and Patricia WA:
please don’t regard my judgement of irony and satire as being useful. I have misconstrued intended satire so often on LP it’s just not funny.
How embarrassment. Spoofy is in the eye of the beholder.
cheerio
Ambigulous. As is is beauty. Irony, not always humorous, is only one of many forms of satire, I guess, and sometimes easy to miss.
The spoof letter re Rudd I intended as a parody of the kind of comment an extremely conservative old lady might write. It was inspired by DI(nr) et al in their exchange about Kinder, Kuche und Kirche. When Brian added that final touch of the Kleider, an image of an extremist KKK hag clad in mask and white robes jumped into my head.
She literally possessed me! And Mindy I don’t think your ‘irony shield’ could have done much to deter her.
Mindy@184: “When will someone invent an irony font?”
Like this: ƃop lɐɹǝʇıl ǝɥʇ ɹǝʌo sdɯnɾ xoɟ uʍoɹq ɔıuoɹı ǝɥʇ ؟
No it’s not stupid casey. Nina Funnel clearly misunderstood everything Rudd said before she met him, why assume she didn’t misunderstand something that could have been a joke? You misunderstood a very obvious piece of piss-taking and you weren’t the only one. We don’t have any evidence that you routinely misunderstand things, but from the article we have some evidence that Nina was confused and angry and already completely off the ball. It’s a good condition for giving the benefit of the doubt to Rudd’s joke.
sg @ 199
“evidence that Nina was confused and angry and already completely off the ball”
evidence? you have evidence? phew that’s a relief cause up until now i thought all you had was sexist crowing.
I wonder whether Helen Garner will be moved to write a book exonerating Kevin Rudd and splitting Nina Funnell into seven different characters?
well i mean @ 193, but it seems to me sg’s got his blinkers on so i doubt his attitudes will change by 199…;-)
Brilliant Danny. Really.
Danny @ 192 How did you do that? My grandsons had fun working it out, but I’d enjoy having you confirm the answer for them.
Thanks for getting me to look again at Mindy’s comment which I had misread as irony “front” (senior moment and all that!) I had started to ponder how one could do a front, or shield against irony. Did she mean something like Conroy’s clean feed?
The idea of an LP debate on the filtering out of humour from serious commentary has real potential.
Eric, reading the first few paragraphs of Nina’s passage and concluding that she has gravely misinterpreted Rudd’s speech is not “sexist crowing”, unless every critique of every woman’s work is sexist crowing. You should ditch the knee-jerk response and try to actually engage with what I’m saying, which I’ve at least tried to do with Nina.
you think its “knee jerk “…apols if I have given you the impression that I am not thinking about what you say when I call you an obvious (to me) sexist pig.
however i simply strongly disagree with your entire reading of nina’s article..nothing of what you have said makes any sense to me at all..unless you are bringing your sexist (and ageist probably) filter into play..i can honestly think of no other reason why a seemingly intelligent person would come to the spurious and irrational conclusions you have drawn.
oh….and if you want engagement try reading 153.
Blogfight! If you woz relying on me Liam, it would be a pretty piss poor affair.
Thanks Laura, that’s interesting re: Klein, have to look it up.
sg, I have to leave (run from) you in light of your extended commentary including ascribing *totally unsupported* characteristics to Nina Funnell and also in regards to continued baiting of Casey who has made her feelings and views known..so withdrawing even that simple comparison I made earlier. And good luck with this argument with Eric – like watching a billycart go down a very steep slope with no brakes and both of you fighting over the rope.
I hope Nina btw. goes from strength to strength and if she reads any of this thread – that she takes on board the fewer bits of constructive criticism here of her report.
I was thinking of the same re: First Stone, Paul.
so Eric can you point to the body of Rudd’s work on integenerational challenges where he says it’s all the 30-somethings’ fault, and suggests measures based on keeping womens’ wombs “full” (the opposite of Nina’s “empty”)? Because unless you can, Nina’s interpretation of his speech is wrong. If you can confirm the nuance of her understanding of his public comments, then we can start to believe her understanding of his subsequent private ones.
And do you really believe that the 30-somethings were gathered together for protection against the hostile atmosphere? Most of the 30-somethings there would have had children, for starters, so wouldn’t find the atmosphere hostile as Nina did; and it’s unlikely that the atmosphere could have been that strident to start with. This feeling is, I rather suspect, confined only to Nina. Whatever antagonism she thinks she received from Rudd, she carried into that conversation.
pWA@198:
z ʎ x ʍ ʌ n ʇ s ɹ b d o u ɯ l ʞ ɾ ı ɥ ƃ ɟ ǝ p ɔ q ɐ
http://newmatilda.com/2009/06/02/our-christian-prime-minister
i’d give this article a try…altho for me it doesn’t go far enough…but from where it does go it seems to me not a stretch at all to expect that the ruddster will have views, informed by his conservative christianity, about the place of women and the function of the their bodies. as i have stated previously there is plenty of evidence that points to rudds christianity being the basis of his whole social policy platform. his conservative christianity is by no means a private matter.
and with “Most of the 30-somethings there would have had children, for starters, so wouldn’t find the atmosphere hostile as Nina did”..like you were actually there were you? oh no..it was Nina who was there, sorry got confused for a moment.
no Eric, I wasn’t there, but I’m reasonably confident that most of the 30-somethings in the audience would have had children because most do.
As I said above, I don’t dispute that Rudd has christian views which may be conservative on some things. But I think given his wife’s career and his policy perspectives, it’s difficult to believe that he thinks women’s “place” is in the home, or that women are exclusively meant to breed. And that article you linked to is a complete crock. It points out that Rudd may have laid claim to being a “christian socialist” and then goes on to suggest that means he believes the policies in some catholic communique on labour rights.
since jo has run away I doubt she’ll be able to tell me what “unsupported characteristics” I have ascribed to Nina, but I can hardly imagine that whatever they were they would be a bigger stretch than the kind of guff in that New Matilda article.
So no, as yet, no evidence that Nina’s interpretation of Rudd’s public comments or position is close to correct, so no basis for any confidence in her interpretation of his private, off-the-cuff comment.
And how is it that my inferences about Nina’s article are ascribing “unsupported characteristics” to her, but accusing Patricia of “continued baiting” of Casey is not doing exactly the same, given her mea culpa at 183?
I suppose I should sign off here, but that New Matilda article does give me further cause to think that a lot of left-wingers are really desperate to ascribe a strong form of conservatism to Rudd that he may not actually be showing in public. This thread is an example of it, as are Nina’s misinterpretations of his public statements. I know a lot of people are disappointed in his work so far but I really think it would be better if some of the critics here and elsewhere took a chill pill, and tried to restrict their disappointment to what he has said, and the policy areas where he has actually failed, without inventing hysterical roman catholic links or false notions about empty-wombed 30-somethings.
“It is certainly not a conservative or fundamentalist version of Christianity — the sort to which we have become drearily accustomed in terms of the “religious right”.”
You may have missed that line in the New Matilda article, Eric.
Rather than being “not a stretch” away from your own “expectations”, the article you linked to point-blank disagrees with you.
“most of the 30-somethings in the audience would have had children because most do”
most christian PMs in Australia are moralistic regulators because most are.
and nick yes, as i say, the article does not go far enough, but it does unpack a few aspects about the dominence of chistian debate, ethics and sheer fantasy in what i reckon could be a secular system…god forbid anyone on left these days should be allowed NOT to go to church on sunday…if sg, you reckon ninas a crackpot from her text..i reckon rudd is, from the same text.
enough.
Did nobody see (or hear) Insiders this week? Barrie Cassidy asked Rudd about this incident, and he denied having said it or holding those views. Ok, he left the usual wriggle-room by denying having any memory of having said it, but it came across as a pretty strong denial, though he did pause at first; he didn’t seem to be expecting the question. Still, he did seem to allow for the possibility that Funnell had misinterpreted an ironic joke.
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2010/s2832260.htm
Just like the trip to the strip bar in New York – “I have no recollection ” – lets give him the benefit of the doubt and hey who knows maybe he was already drunk again.
Thanks,Brett,I almost forgot to raise that myself, it had become such a non-issue. The PM was so into Mea Culpas yesterday surely he would have included that had it been on his conscience. It will be interesting to see if there is a response from Ms Funnell
Mind you, the Milky Bar kid, is full of surprises. He looked at his most innocent yesterday I thought. But then I remembered he is a student of Chinese language and culture. It would be very surprising if his chosen sport at Uni weren’t something like a Chinese self defence sport or even a Japanese version like Judo.
Judo which seems to have derived much from Chinese traditions is imbued with a philosphy of non-attack. There are no attack moves, nor resistance to attacks. There is a yielding. Much more than a yielding to them. They are helped along with sleights and twists that cause attackers to fall or put out a shoulder, to fracture an arm, or in extreme cases even to break their necks!
I listened to the puzzled chattering of Fran Kelly this morning with an equally confused Michelle Grattan. Both shaking their heads. Both mentioned some of the things Rudd could have taken credit for, but didn’t! All very strange, they thought.
Is it?
Ah, but they are mentioning it, which is even better. Wouldn’t do for people like Kelly et al, who didn’t used to be part of the anti-Labor pack, but had some semblance of balance, to be blamed by history for Rudd’s downfall, would it?
“It will be interesting to see if there is a response from Ms Funnell”
As if she could help herself, given she will certainly and serially be approached for comment.
Remember Chk Chk Boom’s name? Me neither.
Danny, was it Funnell – I did’t bother to check back! But if I’m wrong I’m sure it’s because somewhere in the backblocks of this old brain there’s a pome lurking about a spider and a web of deceit. Yes it is Funnell, Nina Funnell – let’s see what new silken threads develop!