The storm in a tea cup of yesterday has spilled over into the saucer today. Even after Bill Heffernan recanted the Labor hounds are predictably baying for blood.
Calls are mounting for Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan to be sacked over his comments about deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard.
Last night Senator Heffernan said sorry to Ms Gillard for saying she was “deliberately barren” and unfit for leadership.
“I apologise to all the people that’s offended, so there you go,” he said.
Referring to himself as Australia’s most disgraced senator, Senator Heffernan apologised after a torrent of condemnation.
Labor MP Annette Ellis says his apology is not good enough.
“I don’t believe that he understands or accepts the severity of what he’s done,” she said.
She says he no longer deserves to have a career in public office.
“He has not only insulted and attacked in the way he has Julia Gillard, but he has attacked all women, all women whether they’ve had children or not,” she said.
“It’s just an affront from this person in this responsible position in public life.”
Labor frontbencher Peter Garrett agrees, and says Senator Heffernan’s apology comes too late.
“Senator Heffernan’s ruled himself out of the game altogether by the way he’s behaved in the last couple of days,” he said.
Labor MPs want Prime Minister John Howard to sack Senator Heffernan, and there is also considerable anger within the Liberal Party.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan is not happy about what Senator Heffernan said.
“It’s probably better had the comment not been made,” she said.(source)
In a comment to my previous post on this little affair I opined that Heffernan’s position is quite defensible and I gave my reasons based on my own life experience. It is undeniable that having and nurturing children does change the way that you think and the way that you prioritise things in your life and I suspect that it was a potential lack of what the Italians call simpatico that Heffernan was alluding to with his rather crudely put comment.
But it is not just Gillard’s lack of children that has prompted this but her of repeated disavowal of ever having them that has made this an issue . As has been pointed out by my leftist commentators there are women in the coalition ranks, who like Gillard are childless, But none of them have made public statements saying that they WANT to be childless as Gillard has. So like most of the male politicians in our parliament the families that they have are a private matter.
Gillard has deliberately gone the women’s weekly route to political stardom and she has made the personal political. It should therefore be no surprise then that what she has made political should be open to question.
In my piece yesterday I made the point that Rudd’s call for Heffernan to be sanctioned for his comments was an example of totalitarian political correctness. Now that Heffernan has made a public apology (for political reasons rather than as a an example of a change of his opinion) we have the fine example of the PC storm troopers exemplified in the quote from the ABC above. Oh they are all for freedom of speech as long as that speech is is within the acceptable flavour lexicon. Heffernan may have used a little too much chilli in the snack he offered but calls to kill the cook here are a gross over reaction.
Filed under: Australian Politics, Federal Election, Gender Issues, Media Matters, Men and Women, Political Correctness | Tagged: in the news
Gosh – so having be found a hypocrite by defending Hefferenan with your ‘only parents are qualified to understand parenting’ double standard, you try the old side shuffle and pretend the criticism on Heffernan is PC correctness gone mad.
I don’t see anyone else, particularly in poltics sticking up for him with this argument – I guess this is something you’ve invented again.
Sorry, your arguments as wrong as your previous double-standard argument was disingenious.
Even better, Iain thinks that a Liberal calling for a leftie to be sacked for the crime of having no kids is perfectly reasonable – even though Iain committed a blatant double standard in order to defend it.
But people in return calling for the Liberals sacking for such outrageous comments are obviously suffering from political correctness gone mad!
So Iain’s new PC defense is just as big a double standard as his original and now abandoned one!
My PKD you are sounding rather rabid here; Heffernan was not saying that Gillard should be sacked at all he was saying that he thought that Gillard is unqualified for the job of deputy PM. Has no one told you that you can’t be sacked from a job that you don’t yet have?
Some fancy dancing from Iain on this one……
With a bit more practice he could do the Macarena!
Like Heff you could try ’sorry I was wrong’ Iain and gain some respect….I’m not holding my breath….
My Iain,
YOu are rather defensive when caught out making double standards! Of course Herffernan didnt directly call for her to be sacked, but since he’s saying she was unfit for leadership he was implying that Labour needed to replace her with someone who was fit for leadership.
In any case, Craigy is right. Heffernan was man enough to apologise for his stupid comments – any chance you will do the same for the double standards you trotted out in defending his stupidity?
Face it Iain, your position is categorically not defensible and is actually rather offensive. I applaud Gillard’s decision to not have kids, either now or in the future, and it does not in any way render her less capable of any political position than otherwise.
Old Heff on the other hand, has proved himself as incapable of reason as you in this issue. PKD is right; you’re becoming ensnared by your own tangling webs of double-standards. Best to cut your losses and admit you’re wrong.
Oh come on trying to hang some one for a vague implication? are you serious?
Oh but I suppose that you are, it is consistent with your usual style. In any case I see no reason that I should apologise or recant here. The rabid reaction in today’s paper actually proves my point about totalitarian political correctness as do the comments from both you and Craigy here.
Why do you aplaud Gillards decission not to have kids?
And Why Is my position so offensive Jangari?
Time to expalin yourself here rather than just making a blanket statements as if they are self evident.
1. Population is the biggest threat to the environment. While I’d never berate anyone for having kids I support anyone in their decision to either adopt or not have kids altogether. Adoption would be best.
2. As deputy opposition leader, her position does not require her to have an intimate understanding of motherhood anymore than I, in my role, have to understand… the economics of the restaurant industry.
Jangari
Thank you for telling me why you applaud Gillard’s decision. I understand your argument even though I disagree with your reasoning, mainly because I believe that we should actually be encouraging our best and brightest to have children because the future of this nation has to based on the idea of a smart populace rather that just a big population.
Now can you please explain why you think my comments are offensive?
They are offensive because they indirectly threaten a woman’s right to choose to have children or not. Before you say ‘bollocks’, consider that, under your view, Gillard would have to have children, against her wishes, if she wanted to be deputy PM or possibly even PM.
What is the difference between that and someone forcing their view on someone else, for instance, the Islamic world forcing women to wear particular clothing if it is against their wishes? Or conversely, islamophobes in Australia demanding, against their wishes, that Muslim women remove their hijabs or burqas or whatever.
I am not personally offended of course, since no such comments were aimed towards me, but I can empathise that the comments would be offensive to women who do not think having children is their civil duty.
It’s funny how leftists will never accept that a woman who has no children can never be incapable of understanding life from a parent’s point of view.
Yet if a man were to offer a critical opinion on a woman’s right to abort her baby, he’s just dismissed, what would he know unless off course he’s all for tossing the baby out with the garbage.
The whining by the leftists over this matter torpedoes their claims that John Howard is out of touch and arrogant and living in the days of black & white and doesn’t know how tough life for working families is.
Besides I believe these comments were made a while back, so it would appear the leftists are desperate to deflect attention away from the fallout over their stupid IR policy released in the last week or so.
Jangari
In our society we do have a right to choose and we also have a right to free speech. I support both.
However when some one makes a free choice that does not mean that we are forbidden from expressing an opinion about both the choice and the implications of that choice.
Heffernan has no power, other than that of persuasion to force his will upon Gillard and neither do I. Like wise I have do desire to impose my will on her in any way at all. The point I was trying to make a bout perceptions of “simpatico” from the public seem to have totally eluded you. It is essentially the same sort of argument that indigenous advocates tend to make about how “whites ” can’t understand what it is like to be indigenous.
The uncomfortable fact here is that Gillard like any politician has to live her life in the public eye and that means that any and every one has a right to comment on what she says and does for time that she plays the game of politics. Unlike many other female pollies she has made a big thing of stating that she will not have children. Such a statement by any one aspiring to public office makes her decision open to debate .and the fact of the matter is that it may be seen as a badge of honour amongst those who are members of the inner urban left, for ordinary Aussies it is a decision that has to be justified.
A good point about the left, men and abortion MK, and it is one that I had not thought about in this context.
Like wise the Labor IR policy is starting to look like a dogs breakfast and I say that as some one who is not enamoured with work choices either. That the ALP have let loose the attack dogs here is as you suggest rather telling.
Iain,
From your pervious article you quoted this of Heffernan.
repeating his judgment that her “deliberately barren” state makes her unfit for leadership.
Pretty straight forward to conclude that he is implying that Labour should replace her with someone who IS fit for leadership in his baseless atack.
The point is, you firstly tried to justify Hefferanans position with a blatant double standard. This has been compltely proven – especially as you are so keen to try and move the issue to one of political correctness and ignore the fact you tried to make this defense.
Secondly this ridiculous PC defense is a double standard in itself – it’s ok for Hefferanan to imply that Gillard should be replaced by someone fit for leadership, but not ok for anyone to make likewise attacks on Heffernan for such a ridiculous claim as having no kids makes you unfit for leadership!
Again you have not shown to us anyone else trying to play the PC card in his defense, so this is just your fantasising.
What a shame to see you floundering on your own web of deceptions, especially with the first double standard, but committing two on one subject is pretty poor even by your standards.
A real man would do like Heffernan has already done and apologise after being found out with such a crude attack.
Can you?
‘It’s funny how leftists will never accept that a woman who has no children can never be incapable of understanding life from a parent’s point of view.’
It’s funny how rightards cannot follow basic logic. By this standard, we must need mute Estonian midgests in parliament, as they are the only ones capable of ‘understanding’ such people in the electorate.
Incidentally, many parents have little understanding of anything at all. Speak to anyone who has worked in child welfare – there are plenty of folks with kids who wouldn’t know their own backsides from a hole in the ground. Yet you still claim that breeding magically grants the breeder ‘understanding’?
As an aside, most pollies from both major parties (but especially Liberals) have emerged from a background of privilege that is utterly removed from the ‘perspective’ and experiences of most Australians. In fact, the lives of Howard and Abbott, for instance, have almost nothing in common with most Australians, yet, rightly or wrongly, people vote for them. Many pollies with kids would be sending them to elite schools, and providing them with private babysitting and the like – if you think this is the experience of most Australian parents, you may need to get out more.
I think you’ve been completely left behind on this issue, and are engaging in laughable mental contortions to escape the corner into which you’ve painted yourself.
PKD
As I said before reading implications into Heffernan’s statement is not really valid. Especially as he was talking about how the electorate will consider that Gillard’s decision puts her at least one step more removed from their own suburban experience much more than her actual decision.
Can you honestly say that your own priorities and thought processes have not changed since you became a father?
I have deceived no one here at all I have just taken a particular line of argument on and ran with it on this issue. and I see no reason to apologise to you Gillard or anyone else.
Now apart from your evangelical zeal that I should recant my heresy what exactly is it that you claim that I should be apologising for here?
Hap do you have any kids?
I think you should stick to the substance of my argument rather than trying to personalise the issue. Proceeding by logic and facts is better than the ad hominem.
what exactly is it that you claim that I should be apologising for here?
Umm, claiming that you need to be a parent to opine on parenting / be fit for leadership when you stated previously that…
…only teachers may opine about teaching, only engineers may opine about engineering, only “climate scientists” may opine about “global warming”. Is any one out there beginning to see the same problem that I do with this line of argument?
Iain Hall – Feb 27
It seems in your opinion that you can opine about any subject without direct experience, unless it happens to be parenting!!! (Which in any case would doubtless annoy many who have to deal with hoon kids becuase their parents dont take responsiblity for them…but I digress).
That’s the blatant double standard of which you are guilty!
Hap,
As the substance of my argument is that having children changes your outlook on life my question to you is entirely valid. but I will take your prevarication as a negative then.
the substance of your argument is that there are lots of dead beat parents out there and that Pollies are from a privileged class and they have no understanding of the common people any way. Is that a fair summary?
I have meet my share of dead beat parents but even they are different from the people they were before they had their kids, some may be better and some may in fact be worse but they will always be different.
Genius or idiot rich or poor becoming a parent changes you.
And believe it or not that is the case for the privileged as well even if they can afford domestic help. Because instead of a new convertible the priority changes to thoughts of giving your child a good education and a good start in life. It may surprise you but when comes to connecting with continents that shared experience of having a family is a great leveller.
Yet if a man were to offer a critical opinion on a woman’s right to abort her baby, he’s just dismissed.
That is unfortunately sometimes the case, but the same as this argument, it need not, or should not be. If anyone, woman or man, criticised a woman’s right to abort her baby then chances are they will be dismissed because the anti-abortion view is only defensible on religious grounds. They are not dismissed because they are a man, or shouldn’t be, rather. Perhaps it is the case that some idiot will reject their argument using the easiest possible ad hominem, ‘you’re just a man, what would you know?’, but I maintain that that is just as bad as old Heff’s argument, ‘how would she know community values, she’s childless’.
However when some one makes a free choice that does not mean that we are forbidden from expressing an opinion about both the choice and the implications of that choice.
I agree completely. Iain I similarly support the right to free speech, quite fervently in fact. I never said Heffernan has no right to say what he said, on the contrary I’m doing just as you prescribe; I’m openly debating the ramifications of his opinion.
It does seem curious to me though, that Heff is afforded his freedom of speech, yet someone like, oh, I don’t know, Sheik Hilali for instance, is inundated with calls to leave the country whenever he says anything controversial. Freedom of speech goes for all, mate.
Hap do you have any kids?
You are right Hap – this is is just Iain trying to shift the issue. He’ll probably try and say you don’t understand parenting issues if you have no kids yourself….
I have meet my share of dead beat parents but even they are different from the people they were before they had their kids, some may be better and some may in fact be worse but they will always be different.
What’s the value in restricting deputy leadership to someone with children then, if you don’t think people are better when they have kids?
Alternatively, democratic government should represent all views in the community, right? Including the views of that portion of the community who are childless by choice?
Wow, the comments have usurped your mammoth sidebar!
Where exactly do you claim that I said this? Because that has not been the substance of my argument at all
If there is one thing that is for all intents and purposes a universal experience it is having children PKD it is part of what it means to be alive to do so. That anyone should decide not to do it is aberrant behaviour that goes against the most basic biological imperatives Those people who choose childlessness be they men or women are rightly viewed with suspicion. Some do it for shortsighted selfish reasons; some like Gillard dress it up with a mixture of ambition and altruism I don’t think it makes them any less capable in their chosen profession but it will definitely be some thing that are likely to regret in their old age.
Predictably, instead of a rebuttal, you offer personal attacks. This is precisely why I do not proffer personal details on the net.
Even if being a parent changes one, SFW? So does clipping one’s toenails. Neither makes one more qualified to be a pollie, or more ‘in touch’ with the community.
My argument was that politicians were hardly representative of the community, yet that does not, in and of itself, prevent them from ‘understanding’ the community. I’m referring to competent politicians, here.
Plenty of influential people never had kids, as far as we accurately know – think Jesus, Socrates, Buddha, etc. It is absurd to defend Heff’s idiocy on the basis that breeding magically makes one competent, and you are yet to refute this proposition, despite your attempts at magical thinking.
Heffernan’s comments have been denounced by all and sundry. In fact, all but the most recalcitrant nuff-nuffs have considered his comments offensive. Your extravagant claims of PC ‘totalitarianism’ belie your own ignorance of the nature of what totalitarianism means.
Wow, the comments have usurped your mammoth sidebar!
Damn I’ll have too add some more things to the side bar!!!
“That anyone should decide not to do it is aberrant behaviour that goes against the most basic biological imperatives”
Iain Hall, the new Jesus.
“Those people who choose childlessness be they men or women are rightly viewed with suspicion.”
They are? Only by paranoid rightists.
Iain, do you have any disabled children?
Are any of your children black?
Are you a woman?
I guess you should delete most of your posts from the last 12 months then…..
BTW, did anyone pick up the double negative in MK’s dribble?
“It’s funny how leftists will never accept that a woman who has no children can never be incapable of understanding life from a parent’s point of view.”
“can never be incapable”……
I think he means the opposite. Hard to tell with MK’s confused view of the world.
Political debate is designed to further our commonwealth, not to serve the egos of little fish in small and unimportant ponds. You know what they say about fish not knowing they’re in water…
Hap
You have a very strange definition of a personal attack
My last post paraphrased your comment and offered you a reasonable response. And instead of being a “sfw” matter the way that being a parent changes you it is the crux of the debate here.
And I do understand more about totalitarianism than you do my rouge-favouring friend. because only a fool would support any type of Marxism in this day and age I have lived long enough to remember the regimes that drew the iron curtain across Europe And the totalitarian tendency is certainly there in the ALP .
Jangari
Of course the point of this particular post is to denounce the rabid attempts to deny Heffernan’s right to express his opinion.
Well you wont find that I have said Hilali can’t say what he pleases but I have said that what he says is crap.
This is getting rather tedious.
For the third time, the notion that breeding makes an individual more qualified to hold a political position is clearly not one that you have in any way demonstrated. It appears to be magical thinking.
Heffernan has hardly been ’silenced’ by a murderous clique of dictatorial ideologues. He has merely apologised for making yet another imbecilic comment. So much for ‘totalitarianism’.
I would have thought a supposed conservative such as yourself would have applauded somebody like Gillard, who exercises some personal responsibility, and who opts not to have children simply for the sake of it. Your supposed biological ‘instincts’ and ‘imperatives’ are little more than group-think catchphrases, given a pseudo-scientific veneer. Believe it or not, many Australian women these days consider themselves to be more than mere baby-incubators.
You insist that being a parent changes people, and therefore, in the case of politicians, promotes ‘understanding’. Heffernan has clearly failed to ‘understand’ that many women in Australia, 2007, appreciate being able to choose whether or not they wish to have children. Many women would find that attacks on their professionalism on the basis of this choice are little more than offensive smears.
Overall, I think many (though not all) Australians would find Heffernan to be a little more than a throwback to less enlightened times, who is simply doing a bit of dog-whistling, namely, saying the things that Howard thinks, but isn’t stupid enough to publicly say. As you can see, child-rearing has done nothing to improve Heff’s credibility, and, as regards this matter, the lack of child-rearing has done nothing to harm Gillard’s.
The magical thinking is evident in thinking that this was my argument in the first place
Demands that he be sacked for saying what he did have more than a touch of the jack boot about it though.
Hap mate
My life experience informs my opinion here and I know far too many women who have privileged their career over having children and lived to regret that decision. And I know very well that it is so easy to take up the feminist lie when one is twenty but as you approach forty (if you are a woman) and your time is up. There is nothing sadder. Now I suspect that you are a very young chap who is totally self-focused and all of the women that you know are of a similar vintage, and in all likely hood from the same middle class background as you. Look at a wider demographic and you will find very few women who will disavow having children as Gillard has.
Choosing not to have children is really like choosing death; for the only way that any of us have any immortality is through the children that we make.
You will get no argument from me that Heffernan is not a cultured man but I suspect that he still connects to his constituents better than many in the Labor party do. And that after all was the point he was making about Gillard.
Choosing not to have children is really like choosing death; for the only way that any of us have any immortality is through the children that we make.
I am literally weeping with laughter.
Iain, perhaps you’ll agree with Vladimir Zhironovsky
then?
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/11-01-2006/9488-condoleezza-0
John
How sad that you only quote part of my little sentence you will find that I have edited your comment to add the bit that you missed because context is everything. And I don’t wish to be misconstrued OK?
That is an interesting piece Cooper
I think that if there is anyone in the Bush administration who is absolutely competent and professional it is Condeleezza Rice. But I note two things about the Russians that they are generally not the sort of society which supports feminist ideas and as such a woman in Rice’s position is some thing that they clearly fear.
And secondly the piece attacks Rice because she is both single and childless. So a comparison with Gillard fails at least on the first point.
I note to that last night Gillard ,when ‘door stopped “ on this issue clearly said that she was happy to accept Heffernan’s apology , and as the “offended party” she should have the last say in the matter, however the attack dogs are still baying for blood which certainly supports my contention here that this is an example of totalitarian Political correctness gone mad.
Hi Iain. Long time lurker, first time commenter. Just had to mention that I think your quote that John S. “weeps with laughter” at is just as misguided (and funny) even after you add the extra section.
Just as an addition to my earlier comment Iain, i heard this morning on the radio about Liberal MP Sophie Panopoulos, apparently she stood for election in some seat against a labor fellow in 03 (could have been 02) and he said that because she was childless and unmarried, she was unfit.
At the time this fellow was endorsed by Gillard (even after the comment) and none of the whiners whining over this now stepped in to sack the fellow or say anything back then.
“totalitarian Political correctness gone mad.”
Oh that would be like Iain editing other peoples posts?????!!!!!
WTF Iain, changing other peoples posts because you don’t like them???
So far I have Iain the new Jesus and now Iain the new Stalin…..
I would love to source the quote on that MK
Welcome to my blog Vlad, and I am glad that you find some of what I write amusing. Now that You have droped oput of lurk mode I hope that you will be willing to comment more often.
Cheers
Iain
I can’t believe you edited my post. Looking forward to your lawsuit, BTW.
I can’t believe you edited my post. Looking forward to your lawsuit, BTW.
‘Tis all a clear sign of Iain’s desperation I’m afriad John – he’s been well and truly caught out defending Haffernan’s views with double standards and the like.
Still, maybe he’ll be less inclined to do it in future knowing he hasn’t got away with it….
Which part of John’s comment was added? I’d like to know for no particular reason other than curiosity.
Jangari
I addeed the rest of the sentence not in bold. It will not suprise you that I actually resent being missrepresented by selective quoting.
I can’t believe you edited my post. Looking forward to your lawsuit, BTW.
Provide an address for service then.
That doesn’t surprise me at all.
But John’s omission didn’t change any of the propositional content, nor did putting it back in. That makes the whole discussion rather moot.
I remember seeing on Mediawatch a while back that an interview with some Muslim youths in western sydney was edited such that they were completely misrepresented. One of them said (paraphrase) Australian culture involves many things that we, as Muslims, cannot subscribe to, such as drinking and violent sports. In that respect we will never integrate completely; we will always be partially outsiders, which was edited to We will never integrate.
Yeah selective quoting can completely subvert what is actually meant. And in this case I felt that without my qualifying clause John’s quote made me sound rather bad, which was his intention. He is after all playing the Troll here rather than engaging in anything meaningful.