WOMEN’S RESPONSE TO TONY ABBOTT

It has not been necessary for me to comment on the startling news that Health Minister Tony Abbott’s long-lost son has been revealed not to be “his”. Everyone else is having their two-bobs worth so I have just been watching from the sidelines. Two things are worth commenting on about the response. First, has been the vilification of Kathy Donnolly, Abbott’s former girlfriend and mother of the young man who is not Tony’s. Talkback radio, representing the raw face of the worst of this country, has deemed her a scarlet woman, a slut and a lot worse. All because she had a one-night stand 28 years ago, where the contraceptives failed, and as a result had a baby. While the child was deemed to be Abbott’s she was seen as victim, a relinquishing mother forced to give up her baby by a “callow” man who would not marry her. Suddenly, because of a burst condom (presumably) the same woman is being slagged off at. Why? What has changed?
Second interesting fact has been the sex differenced in reactions. This has been especially evident in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, the newspaper you will remember first published the revalations about Abbott being reunited with his long-lost son. This time around there has not been a peep out of Piers Ackermann, the man who wrote the initial story and put the positive pro-Abbott spin on it that proved so helpful to the Health Minister as he dealt with the resultant media frenzy. Instead, there has been a plaintive column from the paper’s chief political correspondent Malcolm Farr wondering why women have been so hostile to Tony Abbott. In order to find out, you had only to read Anita Quigley, also on the paper’s opinion page. Quigley got it in one. Well worth the read.