by chief political correspondent Simon Cullen

 

Video: Maxine McKew talks to Fran Kelly (ABC News)

Kevin Rudd says those involved in dumping him as prime minister need to be honest about what happened, amid new claims that Julia Gillard was actively trying to destabilise him in the days before the leadership coup.

In a new book written by former Labor MP Maxine McKew, the former ABC television journalist accuses Ms Gillard of being a "disloyal deputy" to Mr Rudd.

She says Ms Gillard showed a senior caucus colleague internal party polling critical of Mr Rudd, in what the un-named MP believed was part of a "conspiracy" against the then-PM.

Ms Gillard has previously said she only decided to launch a challenge against Mr Rudd on the day she asked for a leadership ballot in June 2010.

Mr Rudd this morning described the events as "traumatic" for the party and the country, and said it was time for those involved to fully explain what happened.

"It's important that everybody associated with those events is just honest about what happened so that the party and the Government can move on to the big policy challenges of the future," Mr Rudd told Channel Nine.

Mr Rudd told McKew that he felt let down and "betrayed" by Ms Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan, because neither of them had warned him there would be a challenge unless he made specific policy changes.

Asked whether he stood by what he told McKew, Mr Rudd replied: "I don't make statements lightly".

In February this year, Ms Gillard told the ABC's Four Corners program that she did not have "specific recall" of the party polling at the time.

Ms Gillard today declined to respond to the latest claims, saying: "I've dealt with these issues extensively in the past, and you can put the question 900 different ways and you're going to get the same response, it's just simply not my focus."

McKew says there is "no doubt" internal party polling was being shown around in an attempt to move votes away from Mr Rudd, and she remains adamant Ms Gillard was involved.

"There are no innocents in politics - there had to be someone who was willing to be the successor," she said.

"I am saying that I think Julia Gillard was impatient for the leadership and she allowed a sense of crisis to be created around Rudd's leadership, and a principal tool in that sense of crisis was this private party polling," McKew told ABC Radio National.

"I wasn't shown it at the time - everyone knew I was a Rudd loyalist so I was left alone.

"But this was shown around a range of ministers and MPs."

Labor MPs have today tried to hose down any sense of internal conflict created by McKew's book, saying it is time to move on from the events of 2010.

"It's just not something that interests me, to be honest," Labor MP Rob Mitchell said.

"That's her version of events, but I certainly won't be buying the book."

But the Coalition has used the latest revelations to attack Ms Gillard's character and describe the modern Labor party as a "soap opera".

"What it proves to the public is that we know we have a Prime Minister without any conviction, without any principle, without any policy," Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne said.

"We have a Prime Minister who was panic struck by the polls in 2010, and seized her opportunity to create mayhem in the Labor caucus.

"When Kevin Rudd was the weak wildebeest in the pack, she pounced and tore him to pieces," he said.

Rudd wants truth over McKew book claims - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen

Photo: Ms McKew claims Julia Gillard was part of a conspiracy against Kevin Rudd. (Alan Porritt, file photo: AAP)

Related Story: Shorten dismisses claims in new political memoir

Labor's leadership wounds have been reopened amid claims by former MP Maxine McKew that Julia Gillard was a "disloyal deputy" to former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

In a new book, Ms McKew has described Ms Gillard as being part of a conspiracy against Mr Rudd, saying she showed a colleague internal party polling that was critical of the then Labor leader in the days before launching a challenge.

Ms Gillard refused to respond to the claims on Friday, saying: "I've actually dealt with all of these issues before on the public record, and I'd just refer you to that."

"I haven't got anything to add."

In February, the ABC's Four Corners program revealed that Labor Party polling circulating in the week before the 2010 leadership challenge showed Ms Gillard was more popular with voters than Mr Rudd.

Ms Gillard told the program she did not have "specific recall of pages of party polling at the time".

Ms McKew's book, Tales from the Political Trenches, is due to be released on Monday and will refocus political attention on the events that led to the dramatic dumping of Mr Rudd.

Its release coincides with the return of Parliament for the penultimate sitting week of the year.

In the book, Ms McKew, who is also a former ABC television presenter, says senior Labor figure Anthony Albanese had warned Mr Rudd six weeks before the coup to watch his back because Ms Gillard was going for the leadership.

She also says one of Ms Gillard's key supporters, Brendan O'Connor, had shown the internal party polling to fellow frontbencher Robert McClelland - something Mr O'Connor flatly denies.

"Maxine has written a book, she's a very experienced journalist, you would think if she was going to make an assertion about my conduct, she'd give me the opportunity to respond to confirm or otherwise that assertion," he told ABC News 24 on Thursday.

"She did not."

But Mr McClelland, who was dumped from the frontbench by Ms Gillard, is standing by Ms McKew's version of events.

"I had a conversation with Brendan, and I recall he showed me that material," he told ABC radio on Friday.

"Obviously I don't know who else he spoke to, but certainly I can recall him showing me material of that nature.

"I have spoken to other people... who were shown similar material, yes."

Ms McKew, who is a strong supporter of Mr Rudd, has used her book to criticise the way Treasurer Wayne Swan handled the mining super profits tax, which was subsequently abandoned under Ms Gillard's leadership.

It was instead replaced by a new version of the tax that did not raise any revenue in its first three months of operation.

Old Labor wounds reopened in McKew memoir - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 Lizzy Davies The Guardian, Wednesday 17 October 2012 20.46 BST

Australian prime minister's impassioned attack on opposition leader's views of women provokes debate over word's meaning

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard accuses the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, of misogyny

When Australian prime minister Julia Gillard launched a ferocious attack on the leader of the opposition for his repeated use of sexist language, she was feted by feminists the world over. But critics in Australia rounded on her for supposedly misusing the word misogyny and falsely accusing Tony Abbott of hating women.

Now, however, Gillard's critics no longer have semantics on their side. In the wake of the row, the most authoritative dictionary in Australia has decided to update its definition of the word, ruling that a modern understanding of misogyny would indeed imply "entrenched prejudice against women" as well as, or instead of, pathological hatred of them. Sue Butler, editor of the Macquarie Dictionary, said that, on this occasion, it had failed to keep pace with linguistic evolution.

"Since the 1980s, misogyny has come to be used as a synonym for sexism, a synonym with bite, but nevertheless with the meaning of entrenched prejudice against women rather than pathological hatred," she said in a statement.

While the Oxford English Dictionary reworded its definition a decade ago, staff at the Macquarie had been alerted to the issue only in the aftermath of Gillard's extraordinary speech in parliament. "Perhaps as dictionary editors we should have noticed this before it was so rudely thrust in front of us as something that we'd overlooked," Butler told the Associated Press.

Gillard – Australia's first female leader – accused Abbott, head of the centre-right Liberal party, of repeated instances of sexism and misogyny, including his description of abortion as "the easy way out", his apparent characterisation of Australian women as housewives doing the ironing, and appearances at political rallies in front of posters urging voters to "ditch the witch".

She told MPs: "The leader of the opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the leader of the opposition has got a piece of paper and he's writing out his resignation because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives; he needs a mirror."

Abbott had sparked the Labor prime minister's fury by calling for the speaker of parliament, Peter Slipper, to be sacked over a series of sexist and vulgar texts he had sent to a former member of staff. Slipper has since resigned as speaker.

Seized with indignation and pointing her finger across the despatch box, she retorted: "I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever."

In an attempt to defend himself, Abbott has claimed the attack was part of a government smear campaign. His supporters have also accused Gillard of hyperbole, citing the Macquarie Dictionary as proof that, when she claimed Abbott was a misogynist, she was saying he had a visceral hatred of the opposite sex.

Those figures have not welcomed the dictionary's decision to expand its definition, and Butler said she had received letters accusing it of a political move. "It would seem more logical for the prime minister to refine her vocabulary than for the Macquarie Dictionary to keep changing its definitions every time a politician mangles the English language," Fiona Nash, a senator in Abbott's coalition, said.

Speaking to the Australian newspaper, the manager of opposition business, Christopher Pyne, also criticised the decision. "If Macquarie changes its definition of misogyny to something other than what it is, it undermines Macquarie Dictionary in its entirety," he said. "The prime minister knew when she used the term misogyny that she was calling Tony Abbott a women hater and she should bear the burden of that vicious personal smear."

Gillard's impassioned speech endeared her to feminists throughout the world, with media in Britain, the US and elsewhere praising her for arguably the most outspoken attack on sexism in political life in history. In France, her attack was lauded as an impressive and "implacable tirade", while the New Yorker said that, while her motivation may have been political, Gillard had started a discussion about "something much more important" in the process.

In Australia, however, her performance received rather more mixed reviews, with many concerned about what they saw as her attempt to defend Slipper. Much of the mainstream media wrote off Gillard's speech as a disaster, with one commentator claiming she would "rue yet another bad call" and another decrying her "flawed" judgment, which, they said, had lost her credibility.

Julia Gillard speech prompts dictionary to change 'misogyny' definition | World news | The Guardian

Alison Rourke in Sydney

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 October 2012 04.33 BST

Tony Abbott, Australia's opposition leader, says Gillard government's policies reflect lack of experience raising children

Tony Abbott, the Australian opposition leader, said Julia Gillard's government had a lack of experience with raising babies. Gillard has no children. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Tony Abbott, the Australian politician damned as a misogynist by the prime minister Julia Gillard in a speech that reverberated around the world, has plunged himself into a new row over his attitude towards women by declaring that the government has a lack of experience in raising children.

Julia Gillard. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/Reuters

Gillard has no children, and in what has been interpreted by some as a thinly veiled reference to this, Abbott criticised the government's plans to reduce the "baby bonus", a payment made to Australian parents of newborns. The A$5,000 handout will be cut back for second and subsequent children.

The government reasoned that parents bought most of their baby equipment such as cots and prams for the first child and didn't need so much money to buy new items for each subsequent baby. But Abbott responded: "Often one child is still in the cot when the second one comes along, one child is still in the pram when the second one comes along.

"I think if the government was a bit more experienced in this area they wouldn't come out with glib lines like that."

When asked in an ABC radio interview about Abbott's comments, Gillard said: "Mr Abbott can explain what he meant by that line." Other senior Labor government figures called for clarification.
The trade minister, Craig Emerson, told Sky News: "If he's talking about the treasurer [Wayne Swan], well he's got several children. I've got several children.
"So what's he [Abbott] really on about to suggest that this government isn't experienced at having children and therefore with the costs of children?"

Abbott later told Fairfax radio he was talking about his own experience – not the prime minister's – when he made the comment, having needed a double pram for two of his daughters born about 15 months apart.

"If she [Gillard] wants to take offence of course I'm sorry about that. And if she would like me to say sorry, I'm sorry," he said.

"Mate, I think a lot of people are very ready to read far too much into entirely innocent comments," he continued. "This was as innocent as a comment can be."
Abbott's office denied his comments were aimed at Gillard, instead saying he was criticising the government's general approach to families. "Plainly what he meant was that this government and the senior ministers in it have absolutely no understanding of the pressures on ordinary families," the shadow attorney general, George Brandis, told Sky News.
This is not the first time Gillard has been in the national spotlight over children. In 2007 the conservative senator, Bill Heffernan, accused the prime minister, then in opposition, of being unfit for leadership because she was "deliberately barren".

Gillard has a long-term partner, Tim Mathieson.
Abbott's comments come after two weeks of intense political debate over misogyny and sexism, following the prime minister's speech to parliament in which she told him if he wanted to know what a misogynist in modern Australia looked like he should look in a mirror.

On Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio on Tuesday, Gillard said she stood by "every word of that speech".
"I pointed to some very clear statements by Mr Abbott which I think indicated his attitudes to Australians and to Australian women in particular," she said.

Amongst other things, Gillard's "sexism" speech cited Abbott's past description of abortion as "the easy way out" and his characterisation of Australian women as housewives who did the ironing. The video has been watched more than 2m times on YouTube.
On Monday the first major survey of public opinion since the speech showed her approval ratings had risen significantly, including amongst men, though her minority Labor government would still narrowly lose an election if it were held straight away.

Julia Gillard's 'misogynist' rival in new sexism row over baby remark | World news | guardian.co.uk

By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen

Photo: Julia Gillard has opened a 10-point lead over Tony Abbott in the latest Age-Nielsen poll. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

Julia Gillard has extended her lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister in the first major opinion poll since she accused her opponent of sexism and misogyny, although Labor would still lose an election if it was held now.

Her blistering parliamentary attack on the Opposition Leader appears to have resonated with a significant number of voters, with 42 per cent of people saying they believe Mr Abbott is sexist compared with just 17 per cent of respondents who think the same could be said about Ms Gillard.

The Nielsen poll published in Fairfax newspapers shows Ms Gillard now has a 10-point lead over Mr Abbott on the question of who voters would prefer as prime minister, taking her to 50 per cent compared with the Opposition Leader on 40 per cent.

It is Ms Gillard's largest lead over Mr Abbott in a Nielsen poll this year.

Overall, the results show the Coalition still has an election-winning lead after preferences, but the margin has been narrowing over the past few months and now sits at 52 - 48 in the Opposition's favour.

In June, just before the carbon tax took effect, the margin between the two parties after preferences was 16 points in the Coalition's favour.

"It's a trend that's been evidenced since the 1st of July where upon on that day the sky did not fall in (and) Whyalla's still there," Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson told ABC Radio National.

"The carbon scare campaign has fallen to the ground."

But Liberal backbencher Paul Fletcher has rejected that idea that the Coalition's campaign against the carbon tax has failed.

"I don't think you can draw any of those kinds of conclusions from the inherent variabilities in the polls," Mr Fletcher told Sky News.

Over the past few months, there has also been a gradual improvement in the Prime Minister's satisfaction ratings.

In June, 60 per cent of voters disapproved of Ms Gillard's performance, while only 35 per cent approved. In the latest poll, 48 per cent of voters disapprove while 47 per cent approve.

Conversely, there has been a deterioration in Mr Abbott's satisfaction rating. Today's poll shows 60 per cent of voters disapprove of his performance, while just 37 per cent approve.

Labor's primary vote remained unchanged at 34 per cent, but the Coalition dropped two points to 43 per cent.

The Greens have been largely consistent over the past few months around the 11 per cent mark. The result is in contrast to the weekend election results in the ACT where the minor party suffered a 4.6 per cent swing against them.

Gillard gets boost but Labor still trails in Nielsen poll - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Posted Fri Oct 19, 2012 9:02pm AEDT

 

Photo: Chris Bowen says the Government needs to specify how long asylum seekers will wait on Nauru. (ABC News: Rod Henshaw)

Related Story: 525 asylum seekers arrive amid protests

Map: Nauru

The Prime Minister has defended the Government's approach to the no-advantage test for asylum seekers after a Coalition attack on the issue.

Opposition immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison says the Government has failed to clearly explain how the principle will impact on the length of time asylum seekers will spend in offshore centres.

Ms Gillard says the Government is following the Houston expert panel's advice regarding how long asylum seekers will wait in offshore centres.

The panel recommended the no-advantage principle to ensure asylum seekers arriving by boat would get the same treatment as those waiting under regional processing arrangements.

"We are determined to implement the full recommendations of the Houston review," Ms Gillard said.

"It said it should be done in discussions with the UNHCR.

"The aim here is to define what is the period of time someone would have waited if they had not moved but had stayed where they were for processing by the UNHCR."

Mr Morrison says the Government needs to stop being "mealy-mouthed" and specify how long asylum seekers will have to wait.

"There needs to be a simple blunt message that goes out to the region otherwise it is unintelligible," he said.

Mr Morrison says asylum seekers would wait about five years on Nauru if the Coalition was in government.

However, Nauru's foreign minister Kieren Keke says his country would undertake the processing "in the period of time that it requires".

Mr Keke says the processing centre on the Pacific island will soon be able to process women and children asylum seekers.

The Naruan government has been reluctant for women and children to be sent to the offshore processing centre until the facilities were improved.

Mr Keke says those issues are being addressed and women and children will be able to be processed within two months.

"As I understand it, I think that we should have some of the permanent facilities up within, I guess you couldn't say weeks, maybe within the next month or two," he said.

Refugee groups have raised concerns about legal representation for asylum seekers at the processing centre.

A Refugee Status Review Tribunal will be set up in Nauru for asylum seekers to appeal to if their applications for protection visas are denied.

Asylum seekers who are knocked back by the tribunal, can take their claims to the Australian courts.

Mr Keke says foreign lawyers are expected to fly to the island to help asylum seekers.

"The expectation is that they would be primarily from Australia, but it wouldn't necessarily be limited to Australian lawyers," he said.

"They would work with Nauru-based counsel or pleaders to provide full-time on-island representation during their absence."

Manus threats

Meanwhile, landowners on Manus Island are threatening to disrupt the operation of the Government's second asylum seeker processing centre

The processing centre is now ready to accommodate 150 asylum seekers, with the first group expected to arrive from Christmas Island by the end of the month.

Australian Defence Force engineers have cut back the jungle that had taken over the site and refurbished the rundown buildings.

Local landowners are concerned by the rapid pace of work and have demanded to be involved in the building and servicing of the the centre.

One local, Chawi Konabe, says landowners will consider disrupting road and airport access if they are not involved.

"If worse comes to worse we may stop these services," he said.

In the past few days the service providers appointed by the Australian Government have arrived, like multinational security company G4S.

The Government is trying to assure people the current site is temporary and locals will be involved in establishing a permanent processing centre.

It plans to eventually accommodate 600 asylum seekers at the processing centre.

Gillard defends asylum no-advantage test - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By court reporter Loukas Founten

Photo: Tammy Franks said she was disorganised but never dishonest

MP Tammy Franks has apologised for failing to lodge tax returns for a decade.

The Greens Legislative Councillor is facing a fine and costs totalling about $50,000 for 10 charges of failing to lodge tax returns between 2001 and 2010.

Adelaide Magistrates Court previously heard she also had not lodged returns for seven earlier years but was not facing any additional charges.

Franks' lawyer Michael Heggarty told the court Franks was a person of integrity.

"We accept that this is not a trivial offence. At the time of the offending she was going through a very difficult Family Court matter," he said.

"She knows she had done wrong and she is a person of honesty and integrity. She made a mistake. She believed she had a defence. In retrospect, after hearing the evidence, she accepts her liability.

"This has not been an easy situation for my client ... it has been somewhat compounded by the very public nature of what has gone on."

Yes I was disorganised but I was never dishonest

Tammy Franks

Prosecutor Tim Griffin said Franks could be fined up to $41,800 for the offences and asked that she be ordered to pay prosecution costs of close to $10,000.

He said the court had the power to impose a much-lower penalty, but he asked it be higher than the administrative penalty the tax office would have imposed had Franks not elected to be prosecuted. He said that figure was between $5,000 and $5,500.

Mr Griffin said Ms Franks was of good character and had a history of doing good things in the community, but should have been aware of the need to demonstrate behaviour fitting of her public profile.

Outside the hearing, Franks apologised for her actions but said she remained committed to serving in the South Australian Parliament.

"I would hope that the recognition today that I was never dishonest, yes I was disorganised but I was never dishonest, will see me be able to ride that out and do a good job in the Parliament and the community as I have done," she said.

"It was probably one of the worst periods of my life and I'm sorry for the embarrassment I've caused to my party and to those who've supported me and my political career."

The court will impose a penalty next week.

Tax offender MP sorry for being 'disorganised' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Photo: It seems the PM's distaste for sexist remarks stopped at the door of her own Speaker. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

Related Story: Slipper's departure sparks slanging match over sexism

Related Story: Gillard v Abbott on the Slipper affair

Video: Watch Peter Slipper's resignation speech to the House of Representatives (ABC News)

As the Peter Slipper drama unfolded in Federal Parliament this week there was much mention of principle, but precious little use, writes Annabel Crabb.

Julia Gillard enjoys watching Midsomer Murders with her knitting. Tony Abbott, as we now know from his wife Margie, prefers Downton Abbey.

But what was on show yesterday, in the Parliament of Australia, resembled nothing quite so much as The Slap. That is to say, it was a bleak Australian drama involving a tangled cast of characters, among whom barely a redeeming figure could be found.

A drama in which just about everyone involved wept or yelled or fulminated in an agony of self-righteousness. A drama in which, of "principle", much mention was made, but precious little use.

Let's consider the cast of characters.

There's Peter Slipper himself, a man with whom no delicately-minded diner would now share a marinara.

He joins the disconsolate ranks of male politicians who have immortalised, in text messages, sentiments that ought never to have seen the light of day. (He also joins the - mercifully - sparser ranks of political gents who have boutique ideas about ladies' downstairs equipment. Like the Republican representative Todd Akin, who famously claimed that the female reproductive system shuts down when it detects "legitimate rape".)

Mr Slipper returned briefly to the Speaker's chair last night in order to relinquish it forever, on the grounds that he could not allow his own personal interests to imperil the dignity and honour of the parliament.

Principle! Well, yes - sort of. Until you consider the fact that Mr Slipper had just been informed, by a delegation of cross-benchers, that they would do him in themselves if he didn't shuffle off under his own steam. Mr Slipper was much applauded last night for his judgment and discretion, but it should never be forgotten that he employed that judgment and discretion only when the last shred of an alternative evaporated.

Then there's Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, for whom it seems neither flocks of daughters nor countless flight-hours watching period dramas can dispel the Government's steely conviction that he is an inveterate and sexist pig.

Yesterday, he took it upon himself to seek vengeance, on behalf of the ladies of Australia, against Mr Slipper, who had described their intimate parts in terms so salty they would make Lady Grantham faint clean away. Mr Slipper, thundered the Leader of the Opposition, was not fit to be Speaker.

(Mr Abbott was also avenging his colleague Sophie Mirabella, who was described in another Slipper text message as an "ignorant botch", thus becoming the first woman in Parliament to be formally insulted by Spellcheck.)

Principle! Well yes - sort of. Until you consider the fact that Mr Slipper today is essentially the same person he has been for countless years, during which familiarity with his personal attitudes and rococo approach to parliamentary expenses did not preclude his ritual re-endorsement by the Coalition.

"This is not about Mr Slipper," announced Labor MP Daryl Melham yesterday, as the Labor Party rallied its queasy troops to vote in defence of Mr Mussels.

"This is about principles."

The principle to which Mr Melham referred here is not the "zero tolerance for people saying icky things about women" principle, to which the Prime Minister spent much of Question Time so passionately pursuing with exclusive respect to Mr Abbott.

Mr Melham was referring here to the "no interference with matters currently undergoing judicial attention of any kind" principle.

This is a principle the Government likes to apply flexibly. In the case of Craig Thomson, it was applied right up to the point at which Ms Gillard decided to abandon it. In the Slipper case, it's a principle the Government has applied rigorously to the defendant (Mr Slipper), but ignored with respect to the plaintiff, James Ashby, whom the Attorney General herself has deemed to be a vexatious litigant.

Which brings us to the Prime Minister herself.

There is no doubt that our first female PM has been tried extensively by references, attacks and criticism that would never have been made of her male predecessors. Much of it has gained public ventilation thanks to a communications revolution that now allows front-bar remarks to achieve a national audience.

In a coruscating speech that went around the world, Ms Gillard finally let rip with her frustration about all this, and left no doubt about whom she considers to be responsible.

"The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office," said the Prime Minister, with the cold fluency she reserves for moments of genuine anger.

"Well, I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation."

Principle! Well, yes, sort of. Until you consider that the PM's distaste for sexist remarks stopped at the door of her own Speaker. Yesterday afternoon, she decided to speak with the voice of principle but vote with clay feet. Subsequent events show she needn't have; the Government now finds itself defending the ghost of the Speaker with the shreds of its principle.

Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer. View her full profile here.

Dramas of misogyny and slippery political principles - The Drum - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen

 Video: Sophie Mirabella says she could not respect Peter Slipper if he were returned to the speaker's chair. (ABC News)

Related Story: Slipper implicated in Ashby's psychiatric report

Related Story: Slipper breaks down over harassment case

Related Story: Slipper representing himself in Ashby case

 

Senior Coalition MPs have launched a coordinated attack on Peter Slipper, saying his position as parliamentary Speaker is now "untenable" and Labor should dump him.

Copies of text messages sent by Mr Slipper to his stood-aside staffer James Ashby have been tendered to the Federal Court as part of a sexual harassment case.

They show Mr Slipper used lurid language to describe female genitalia.

Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop has seized on the revelations, demanding Labor take action against Mr Slipper given its swift condemnation of sexist remarks directed at the Prime Minister.

"I believe Mr Slipper's position as Speaker is untenable," Ms Bishop told ABC Radio National.

"He has made deeply offensive remarks about women, including women in the Parliament.

"If the Government is genuinely concerned about what it terms sexist and misogynist behaviour, then there is a serious test ahead for the Prime Minister.

"The Prime Minister must state whether she continues to support a person in the position of Speaker who makes disgusting and offensive remarks about women."

Labor has regularly suggested Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has a problem with women, and has sought to blame him for a culture of aggressive attacks directed towards Julia Gillard.

The Coalition says Labor now has no choice but to dump Mr Slipper from the Speaker's role.

A string of senior Coalition MPs, including Mr Abbott, have fronted the media this morning to describe Mr Slipper's position as "untenable".

"We're increasingly aware of his attitude towards women, and obviously we're aware of some of the absolutely gross descriptions and the foul language that this particular individual seems habituated to," Mr Abbott told reporters.

"I think the Speaker's position has become absolutely untenable."

Muted response

Ms Gillard this morning attended a Breakfast with Powerful Women event in Canberra and has not yet commented on the text messages.

Labor's response has been muted because it argues that it would be inappropriate to comment on a matter before the court.

Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury has described the text messages as "comments that I would not consider acceptable".

"As to whether they have actually been made, that will be a matter for the courts," he said.

"Mr Slipper's position remains as it is until such time as those matters are determined before the courts - that has not yet occurred."

Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella, who was the subject of another of Mr Slipper's text messages, says she was "shocked" by the language used by the stood-aside Speaker.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has described the issues surrounding Mr Slipper as a "high farce" that needs to be fixed.

"Either Peter Slipper needs to have the good sense to resign the Speakership and sit on the cross-bench until all criminal and civil allegations against him have been dealt with, or the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader need to put aside their political differences and have the Parliament elect a new Speaker."

Fellow independent MP Tony Windsor says he plans to speak with Mr Slipper this week about the veracity of the text messages.

He says if they are true, it would raise questions about his capacity to return to the Speaker's position.

Meanwhile, papers released by the Federal Court suggest Mr Slipper's former staffer James Ashby has symptoms of anxiety and depression caused by his former boss.

Coalition says texts make Slipper's position untenable - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)