The disgraceful Murdoch rag, Brisbane’s Courier Mail has done an attempted character assassination of Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk by printing a story about state Liberal National Party Deb Frecklington’s attack on the premier. Frecklington undertook an interview with Brisbane’s Sunday Mail, and seemed miffed that she had been mistaken for Palaszczuk in public. She maintained that they are “such different people…she has deliberately changed her image – the whole ‘Princess Palaszczuk’ is pretty obvious – but I haven’t changed mine. Frecklington, in a snide swipe at Palaszczuk’s childlessness, said she had to remain grounded, because of [husband] Jason and the girls. I can have a tough day but then I’ll get a call from one of my kids and you’ve got to deal with whatever’s going on in their lives. She, on the other hand, has had a complete makeover – all the makeup, the designer labels, it’s too much, when there are bigger issues to focus on.”2. To understand how despicable this attack is, you need to know that Frecklington has three daughters between the ages of 17 and 21, while Palaszczuk has spoken openly about having had a miscarriage, several unsuccessful attempts at in-vitro fertilisation and a painful history of endometriosis which often affects fertility3. While this attack from Frecklington reeks of political desperation, as the Queensland election is approaching, it is true to form for the conservative side of politics. It is also true to form for the Murdoch media. They will do and print anything to support the side of politics they own. They have lied for Frecklington before4.
A similar type of attempted character assassination was perpetrated on Julia Gillard by a monumentally stupid coalition senator, Bill Heffernan, who stated that she, then deputy Labor Party leader, was unfit for leadership because she was “deliberately barren”5. His statement won him the 15th Annual Ernie award for the most appalling thing to be said about a woman publicly in 20076. It was richly deserved.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian is single, and has no children7, but, to my knowledge, she has never been attacked by the Labor opposition in the way that other ‘childless’ women have been attacked by the Coalition. That may say something about the ethos of the Coalition; or their desperation.
Sources
- McElroy, N., 2019. Qld oppn leader calls premier a princess. Courier Mail, December 29.
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/29/women-queensland-lnp-leader-under-fire-princess-palaszczuk-comments
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/29/women-queensland-lnp-leader-under-fire-princess-palaszczuk-comments
- http://www.blotreport.com/2018/09/12/how-murdoch-ruperters-operate-7/
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/julia-gillard-childless-woman
- https://www.smh.com.au/national/heffernans-deliberately-barren-the-most-sexist-remark-of-2007-20071113-gdrl0m.html
- https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/gladys-berejiklian-why-not-having-children-may-work-to-her-advantage-20170124-gtxjhw.html
Only to be expected from this clan of Lib/Nat Brainless Morons, along with Morrison’s latest selection as to which firefighters that are to receive government payouts.
Gordon,
Astonishing, isn’t it. I can only presume that, as he is a narcissist, it makes him feel powerful to have people coming to him and asking him for his munificence.
Three word’s describe Frecklington’s comments – disgraceful, garbage, desperate. I’d add bewildering but as most know it’s standard fare for a particular cohort of conservative politicians. The only surprising thing about them is that just when you think they’ve hit rock bottom they can always find a way to stoop to new levels of mindlessness and depravity.
Jon,
Yep. There is no depths to which they will not go.
Any decent person agrees that it’s lower than a worm’s belly to use physical-personal appearance in remarks trying to discredit or mock, even in a business as muck-sodden as politics. It’s infantile. Thus Turd-och minions put it in their rag. I didn’t know of Palaszuk’s child-bearing incapacity, which must have been hard to live under. Another woman besmirching her whilst almost certainly knowing the Premier’s reason for lacking a child, is vile. However, what I see and hear of this premier, as premier, I haven’t liked. The glee with which she was ready to do almost any deal with the crooked charlatan Adani, repulsed me. She was just too willing, like a Liberal leader, to sacrifice thousands of acres of fertile land and millions of gigalitres of precious water to a coal billionaire of dubious origins. Her green credentials are seriously deficient, although nowhere as abysmal as in those other whacky parties that infest Quld; a state where the malodorous ghost of a cunning carpetbagger from Kingaroy (capital of “nuts”, eh?) still stutteringly stalks, I suggest.
Russell,
Palaszczuk’s inability to have children was something I didn’t know either, until I started reading up on this story. To my mind, that makes Frecklington’s ‘attack’ all the more inexplicable, not only for it’s appalling nature, but for her inability to understand what the reception would be. It was astonishing. I agree that being cosy with the spiv Adani, is almost inexplicable until you realise that all political parties are shit-scared of being wedged, just as Labor was in Queensland in the federal election. Not only that, but they are all dependent on corporate donations, no matter how shifty the corporation. That is what we need to stop.