Yesterday was an interesting day of political drama, wasn’t it?
It all began with a conservative MP from Sydney’s north. After rumoured internal rumblings, MP Alex Hawke finally broke ranks, arguing that the Coalition should drop it’s policy on paid parental leave. Actually, the drama probably began well before then. It started with a well-financed, and now pretty influential thinktank, the IPA, putting pressure on conservative politicians to come out against their leader. But, yesterday the story really hit its peak, and after Hawke broke ranks, so did others.
Following this Opposition Leader Tony Abbott (and Opposition Tresaurer Tony Abbott) was forced to come out to defend the scheme. And then, this. In this press conference Abbott says:
“We do not educate women to higher degree level to deny them a career. If we want women of that calibre to have families, and we should, well we have to give them a fair dinkum chance to do so. That is what this scheme of paid parental leave is all about.”
And of course, the reaction.
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek was quick to respond to Abbott’s comments, saying:
“Who exactly does Mr Abbott think are women of calibre? What does he think about women who are child care workers, nurses and community sector workers? Are they of lower calibre than women who are law firm partners?”
Anne Summers was one of many who took to Twitter, saying:
Aussie sheilas of calibre let’s #destroythejoint and stop these silly boys saying these stupid things about us FFS
I don’t call this a political drama to play down the impact of yesterday’s events, in particular Abbott’s comments. Although I am a man and therefore really can’t understand the impact of sexism, I get that these sort of comments hurt, and as I’ve said in the past, they have an real impact. But I think, a day after this whole thing played out, that there is a next part of the story – the one where we deal with the real threat that came from yesterday’s events.
Let’s get the formalities out of the way before I start. Firstly, Abbott’s statement was clearly clumsy at best, and extremely classist/sexist at worst. It was stupid, and potentially a real indication of his attitudes. Second, Abbott clearly still has issues with women. Many rightly think that on a whole, an Abbott Government, would be bad for women.
But, in saying all of this, I actually think we may have missed something in the way many attacked him yesterday. Because whilst Abbott has major problems when it comes to women’s policy, and class, this isn’t the case when it comes to paid parental leave (PPL). Abbott’s PPL scheme is excellent – it makes it a workplace right, and not a welfare system that needs to be applied for. This brings it in line with other rights, such as long service leave or annual leave. And instead of hitting the poor to pay for it, it actually hits where it needs to – the businesses who should be paying for this already. Compared to so many other policies, in this one instance, Tony Abbott has brought the Coalition significantly in the right direction.
And what yesterday’s events showed is that this is under threat. Right-wing forces in the Coalition are mounting not just to change the Coalition’s current PPL policy, but to potentially get rid of it in its entirety. To take Australia back to the dodgy position of joining the US as the only country in the Western World that doesn’t have a PPL scheme.
This was the real threat posed yesterday. And unfortunately, instead of genuinely talking about it, what we all focused on was Abbott’s stupid comments.
And this is something about identity politics today. We are outraged (myself included). And we are obsessed with outrage at things people say. We get angry at Alan Jones, Jim Wallace, and Black Caviar being named sportswoman in the year. And of course this makes sense. But instead of raging about their role in structuralised racism, homophobia and sexism – we seem to focus only on their stupid comments. It misses the point that bigotry is structural – it is about structural homophobia, sexism and racism in our society.
And paid parental leave is one way to deal with these structural issues. It is a key way to do it. And Abbott is on board. In fact, Abbott’s scheme is further on board than the ALP’s.
So whilst we were shaming Abbott for a stupid comment yesterday, the real attack we should have been making was against Alex Hawke, the IPA and other conservatives who want to take down a major social reform. We should be attacking these people and defending paid parental leave to ensure it stays enshrined in not just the next term of Government, but forever.
And I know that people are keen to have a go at Abbott, and given his conservative positions, that is worthwhile. But that is another area where we missed an opportunity. Because if we needed to attack Abbott yesterday, there was a good line of attack we could have made . There are some simple questions that could be asked; why, if Abbott thinks PPL is so important, does he still have such awful positions on other women’s issues? Why is he still opposed to a woman’s right to choose? Why did he vote to cut Newstart payments? What other sorts of welfare payments is he planning to cut? If he believes people deserve the best in paid parental leave, why not in welfare?
This is the next part of the story we should be telling. It is the story of how, despite the attacks from conservatives, we managed to enshrine paid parental leave, and make it better. It is the story about how we managed to tackle one element of structural sexism and put it to bed. But to tell that story, we need to turn our anger away from a stupid comment, and on to the conservative forces brewing.
*Correction: I have been informed that Abbott’s scheme would only allow men to take two weeks off and forces women to take the rest. It is therefore really problematic to call it ‘paid parental leave’, when it really is ‘paid maternity leave’. This is a major problem with the scheme.