Albanese ‘stupidly’ called ‘misogynist’ after calling Grace Tame ‘difficult’

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has had one of those weeks, you’ve got to say, that all politicians would rather avoid. If, as it seems, the intentional shifting of his attitude to repatriating the so-called ISIS brides, the original 11 and their 23 children, if that hasn’t been bad enough, he then had to be evacuated from his Canberra home, the Lodge, after the AFP alerted him and his staff of a potential bomb threat that seems to have been a hoax.
Then yesterday, his bad week went from terrible to horrible. And here’s a newsflash. I do have some sympathy for Anthony Albanese with this latest stumble from a Prime Minister who seemed, I thought, to have recovered his confidence after the appalling handling post the Bondi terror attack that took 15 lives and his inability to show leadership around anti-Semitism.
The Prime Minister was the headline speaker yesterday at an event called Future Victoria. It was staged by the newspaper that I write for, The Herald Sun. Now, as part of that event, he was interviewed by the paper’s editor, Sam Weir. Now, Sam likes to end these interviews with a series of rapid-fire questions where he asks for one-word responses from his interview guests.
Now, it’s clever and, as usual, gets the person in the hot seat into all sorts of trouble and the Prime Minister really made a meal of it. Let’s start, though, with the word he used, the PM used, to describe One Nation leader, Senator Pauline Hanson. Pauline Hanson. Divisive. Divisive. Now, it didn’t take long for Pauline to hit back.
She bobbed up on Sky News a couple of hours later and didn’t, as usual, miss with her response. Well, if you want to use divisive for me, I’d say he’s been the most divisive Prime Minister we have ever had in this country. There you go. With the voice, with the anti-Semitism, everything that’s happened, I just feel that he has divided this nation.
He’s pitied Australian against Australian. Pauline’s not wrong. Australia has never felt as divided, I don’t think, as it does right now. And it’s not Pauline’s fault. People feel let down by government, all sorts of governments. They blame Canberra for the surge in inflation and in Victoria in particular see an incompetent Labor government that won’t even admit they are overseeing generational alleged corruption by the rogue CFMEU and they refuse to hold a Royal Commission too afraid of what that
inquiry might find. Now the Prime Minister’s next stumble, and this is where I do have a sliver of sympathy, talking of division, professional agitator and former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame. Asked to use one word to describe Grace Tame, this was the Prime Minister. Grace Tame. Difficult. In case you missed it, the word was difficult.
In case you missed it, the word was difficult. Now, cue the outrage machine on social media, of course, with the Prime Minister being incorrectly accused of suggesting Grace Tame was called difficult because she is a woman. Now, how stupid is that response? I mean, seriously, Grace Tame herself shared a response from a survivor of sexual abuse who said, quote, difficult is the misogynist’s code for a woman who won’t comply.
End of quote. Now, I mean, seriously. Then the Greens leader, Larissa Waters, well, she had to chime in suggesting labelling women as difficult won’t, quote, silence us. It won’t stop us speaking truth to power, end of quote. Now, come on, Larissa, seriously? We’re talking about Anthony Albanese here.
I mean, you could try that stuff on as you did with your mates, with, say, Peter Dutton or even Scott Morrison, but this is Albo. I mean, you can’t be serious, surely. Of course, in the 24-hour news cycle, the Prime Minister was at an event this morning. He was confronted by this normal stuff, the difficult description of Grace Tame.
Now, this was the PM’s attempt to wriggle out of it. Grace Tame you certainly can’t describe in one word. She has had a difficult life, and that was what I was referring to and what Grace Tame has done is to turn that difficult experience that she had into being a strong advocate for others if there was any misinterpretation then I certainly apologize look as if he was as if he was talking about her difficult life I mean mean, come on.
Look, maybe, but look, I’m more likely to think, like 99.9% of Australians, that the Prime Minister really does think, and this is a mild criticism of her, using the word difficult. But when the person you are talking about, Grace Tame, sort of… screams this into a microphone at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in a city where 15 innocent people, predominantly Jewish, were slaughtered.
We have to continue to mobilise and we have to continue to globalise. Say it with me, from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the Intifada. One more time, from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the Intifada! Difficult? Hardly. There are many words you could use to describe Grace Tame, who we must concede, of course, had a horrific early life.
But for an Australian of the year to make those comments means she should be stripped of that title, a move that even the New South Wales Premier, Chris Minns, believes should be considered. Let’s, a move that even the New South Wales Premier, Chris Minns, believes should be considered. Let’s just plead for the outrage machine, the social media mob, to, as the Prime Minister himself says, turn down the temperature and stop being so difficult.