Sarah Hanson-Young slams David Leyonhjelm’s ‘slut-shaming’ remarks as defamation case looms
SARAH Hanson-Young has blasted several male MPs calling them “cowards” while revealing how women are bullied in Parliament as David Leyonhjelm refused to apologise for his ‘slut-shaming’.
SARAH Hanson-Young has blasted several male MPs calling them “cowards” while revealing shocking details of the intimidation and bullying tactics against women in Parliament.
In an impassioned speech in Adelaide today, the Greens senator claimed one male senator had sat next to her in the Senate during a late night debate where he sang nursery rhymes and made sexist comments while she was speaking.
She claimed the man was drunk at the time.
“Some people in that place, when they cannot win an argument, when they cannot be bothered mounting an argument, they use intimidation and bullying,” Senator Hanson-Young told students at an Adelaide university.
“Consistently, this is gendered. It’s sexist and it involves sexual slurs.
“Over the years I’ve tried to ignore the mutterings, the rumour mill - ‘Did you hear she slept with such and such?’ ... ‘You look tired today.’ ‘What are you wearing that for’.
“There’s one particular senator who says to me every time I’m in an argument, every time I am stripping his argument to pieces, ‘Why don’t you smile at me, Sarah?”
In a damning assessment of Australian politics today, Senator Hanson-Young said over the years “mutterings” had turned into slurs now shouted across the Senate chamber.
“I want to make this very clear - most members of the parliament are decent people, most men in the parliament are decent men, but there are some who are absolute cowards,” she said.
“These men over the years have turned mutterings into now slurs that are shouted across the chamber.
“They yell out men’s names at me while I’m on my feet.”
Her most shocking example was about a late night debate on immigration and Australia’s offshore detention centres.
“While I was on my feet making arguments for amendments, safeguards, time limits, saying we shouldn’t have children in these places, I had a fellow senator, drunk - he’d been out drinking in his office or in someone else’s office, walk into the chamber, I
was on my feet and he came and sat next to me and he said pretty sexist things and then he started singing nursery rhymes while I was speaking,” she said.
TURNBULL CALLS FOR AN APOLOGY
Malcolm Turnbull has called on David Leyonhjelm to apologise for his offensive comments about Sarah Hanson-Young as she prepares to sue the senator for defamation.
The Prime Minister weighed into the dispute between today as Senator Hanson-Young accused Senator Leyonhjelm of “slut-shaming” her and attacking her character.
“David Leyonhjelm’s offensive remarks should have been withdrawn the moment they were uttered and he should have apologised,” Mr Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.
“It’s not too late for him to withdraw and apologise.
“That type of language has no place in Parliament and it shouldn’t have a place in any workplace.
“We have to treat other with respect ... and respect for women in particular is one of the highest priorities we should be focused on.”
Mr Turnbull repeated his message that not all disrespect for women ends in violence against women but “that’s where all violence against women begins”.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten also condemned the comments and said he believed such remarks made people less likely to want to enter politics.
“Women shouldn’t have to put up with this form of treatment, it’s seriously offensive,” he said.
“Frankly I’m amazed that he hasn’t already apologised and I think most people are.”
Senator Leyonhjelm refused again last night to apologise for his remarks about Senator Hanson-Young, which she has described as “reprehensible”, “sexist”, “offensive” and “inflammatory”.
“David Leyonhjelm is suggesting — because he can’t win an argument, he wants to intimidate, he wants to bully — that I am sexually promiscuous,” she told ABC radio this morning.
“He’s slut-shaming me, that’s what he is doing.
“And women right around this country know it. Men, decent men, know it. And I’m not prepared to sit here and be intimidated and bullied.
“It’s offensive. It’s inflammatory. And he has shown over and over again that he is unfit to be in the Parliament.”
HOW HE’LL APOLOGISE
Senator Leyonhjelm told News Corp he would apologise if these conditions are met:
If Ms Hanson-Young announces publicly:
1. She no longer believes men are collectively responsible for the actions of those men who commit violence.
2. She accepts we are each individuals, responsible for our own actions, and cannot blame others.
3. She accepts that women should have a right to carry the means of protecting themselves against violent people (men or women), such as pepper spray and mace.
Mr Leyonhjelm will announce publicly:
1. I have misjudged her.
2. I will forgive her for her previous comments.
3. I will apologise for my previous comments.
It was Ms Hanson-Young’s rejection of his original proposal in the Senate to allow the carrying of mace and pepper spray, started their clash.
LEYONHJELM DEFENDS HIS COMMENTS
Senator Leyonhjelm last night described his initial comment to Senator Hanson-Young to “stop shagging men” during a heated Parliamentary debate last week as “legitimate” and “valid”.
Appearing on ABC’s 7.30 program, he said: “I am opposed to misandry, just as I am to misogyny and I am also entitled to call out double standards.”
“So arguing on the one hand that all men are evil, the enemy, they’re rapists and sexual predators. And on the other hand having normal relationships with men, obviously is contradictory and I can call it out.”
The Senator said he could not recall her exact statement but claimed she had interjected with a comment along the lines of ‘all men are rapists’ during a debate on whether pepper spray should be legalised following a string of violent attacks on women.
Labor, the Greens and the Coalition had argued against the motion, by crossbench Senator Fraser Anning, on the grounds it was trivialising the issue.
Senator Hanson-Young is threatening legal action over further comments by Senator Leyonhjelm on Sky News and radio station 3AW on Sunday.
She said this morning he had implied she was promiscuous.
“He’s now gone out and done media interview after media interview, doubled down, and he’s continuing to spread offensive, inflammatory and frankly hurtful comments,” she said.
“And it goes right to the heart of who I am and what I do as a politician
“It is an attack on my character.”
The Senator said all politicians were prepared to fight for what they believed in during “robust” debates in Parliament.
“But there’s a line and David Leyonhjelm has well and truly crossed this line,” she said.
“You don’t, because you’re losing a political argument, reduce the discussion or the debate down to sexist slurs and sexual innuendo.”
Senator Hanson-Young has hired solicitor Rebekah Giles, who The Daily Telegraph reports was yesterday drafting legal letters to Senator Leyonhjelm, Sky News and 3AW.