Kate Ellis: How sexual rumours are used as a weapon in Canberra
Former minister Kate Ellis and other senior female politicians reveal the sleazy gossip spread about them while working in federal politics.
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I had only been a politician for a few weeks when I was approached in a Canberra bar and told, ‘The only thing anyone really wants to know about you, Kate, is how many blokes you had to f--k to get into parliament.”
This statement was made to me by a then Liberal staffer who went on to be a senior MP, who interrupted a conversation I was having at the pub during one of my first sitting weeks.
I had won a marginal seat from a popular, long-term incumbent Liberal MP in an election when my party was largely annihilated.
But, sure, if that’s how he thinks elections work. I had never spoken to him before and subsequently tried to limit our interactions over the next decade.
It was the kind of run-of-the-mill sleaze and innuendo which is so common it is almost unremarkable in the culture of federal politics.
In parliament, sexual rumours are often weaponised to destabilise a politician.
When this happens it is often the culmination of months or years of sexual gossip that has explicitly been circulated through parliament.
It’s not exclusively aimed at women, but the cases that I heard about men seemed to often involve allegations of secret same-sex encounters.
It is only when men reach the very top job that they seem to become common targets of gossip, and in the case of Tony Abbott I suspect that was driven by an attempt to undermine the authority and influence of his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, more than being aimed at him.
In the majority of cases sexual gossip is saved for use on women, I suspect because that’s who it inflicts the most damage upon.
Soon after my arrival in parliament, a rumour started that Labor Member for Watson Tony Burke and I were sleeping together.
It was a rumour that would become widespread and persist on and off for most of the next decade.
Years later when my husband told one of his mates that we were dating, his mate responded, “Is she still having sex with Tony Burke though?”
For what it’s worth, we never were.
Rumours would follow about my alleged sexual liaisons with other MPs, ministers, countless staff members, sporting administrators when I was sports minister (the allegations seemed to peak in the years when I was a minister) and who knows who else.
When I was heavily pregnant with my first child I hired a new and amazing press secretary, Joanne Cleary; she only recently told me that when she took the job she was warned by others that I was quite the “party girl” and she’d need to work hard to keep my sex life out of the papers.
People apparently believed I was really, really busy.
Not that it matters, or is actually any of your business, but I had two long-term monogamous relationships that lasted my entire parliamentary career.
Beyond that, I wasn’t sleeping with half of Australia’s politicians or Australia’s political staff members or Australia’s men – in fact, none of them at all.
But none of this is really about facts.
Liberal Minister Karen Andrews mused, “I think women can be quite vulnerable to the shaming and rumours about who were they sleeping with.
“They can just be seen having a cup of coffee with someone and then all of a sudden, a rumour starts.”
Youth seems to be an obvious factor in determining the likelihood you’ll be on the receiving end of these rumours.
I was 27 when I became an MP. Natasha Stott Despoja, who was 26 when she entered parliament, told me, “No one else’s marriage or relationships or partnerships were anyone else’s business … I just found that there was a salacious interest in my personal life.”
Marital status is another factor. As an unmarried woman, Julia Gillard said that “because your personal life wasn’t seen as settled, it was easy for rumours to fill that space”.
But the former prime minister also pointed out that it is not as simple as just our relationship status. “I’m not 100 per cent sure if married/unmarried is the line.
“Because I can think of women who came into parliament when I did who are very attractive women. And even though they were married or partnered, that didn’t stop a series of what in high school would be the sort of ‘pretty girl’ rumours. You know, ‘She uses her looks to get along’, ‘She uses sex appeal to get along’. So there’s certainly that.”
Sarah Hanson-Young entered the parliament as a married woman but became single after two years in the job.
“There was a very quick change from the moment people discovered I wasn’t married anymore,” she told me.
And it wasn’t long before she saw the result of this new interest in her personal life.
“Bob Brown was still leader at the time … Bob is my political mentor. And he’s much older – I don’t know, 60-something, close to 70 at this point. And he calls me into his office because someone … was going to print a story about me being busted having sex in the prayer room.
“They had gone to Bob for comment. And of course I’d never even put foot in that prayer room. I don’t even f--king know where it is.”
This specific claim wasn’t one that Sarah was unique in facing.
Apparently I have also been known to use the prayer room for impromptu sexual liaisons.
For the record, I, too, have never been to the prayer room.
It does seem to be one of the first go-to rumours that gets spread about you though.
Being caught having sex with a Comcar driver is another popular one.
Having your sex life – or rumours about your sex life – used against you serves a few different purposes.
Labor MP for Kingston Amanda Rishworth told me, “I think that it is something that is used as a weapon. I had one experience where it was yelled across the House of Representatives chamber, ‘We all know that you effed such and such.’
“It was deliberately done to make me feel uncomfortable and to undermine me in front of my colleagues.”
Sarah Hanson-Young agreed. “Yeah, I think it’s designed to play with your head. Peta Credlin said (to me), ‘It’s like mind warfare.’ It is, isn’t it? It’s meant to get in your head and f--k with you.”
It’s a tactic to which even (Labor Senator) Penny Wong was not immune.
“I think once (Liberal Senator Eric) Abetz made a comment about Jay (former South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill). I went nuts, like, ‘how dare you’. And I think they were all a bit freaked out and it didn’t happen again.”
I wish I had sent a few people to Penny so she could have gone nuts on my behalf.
The rumours weren’t always sexual in nature, but almost always undermined my worth.
One of my colleagues backgrounded the media that I was known as “The Pot Plant”.
The suggestion was that I looked nice but didn’t add any value.
When (Labor MP) Tanya Plibersek and I were discussing some of the various rumours that had been spread about us, she brought a new one to my attention.
“You had that whole vajazzling thing to deal with.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. Absolutely none.
She went on to explain that there had been a little piece in one of the papers about how one female minister had taken preparations for the annual Midwinter Ball so seriously, that she had been seen earlier that day checking in to a local beauty clinic to be vajazzled.
For the uninitiated – and the unvajazzled – the practice of vajazzling apparently involves having pretty gemstones and sparkly rhinestones adorned to your pubic mound, to jazz yourself up downstairs.
“The whole parliament was talking about how it was you!” Tanya informed me.
Um, no, that would be drastically overstating my commitment to personal grooming.
But I’m sure the rumour did little to boost my credibility or gravitas.
It’s tempting to see this sexual weaponisation as just another manifestation of inter-party politics: the same-old Liberal versus Labor but with a sexual twist.
That’s part of the story, but it’s not the whole picture.
If it were, surely we’d hear a lot more about men’s dodgy sexual encounters.
The reality is that there are also plenty of examples of the weaponisation coming from inside your own party.
I was just 30 when Kevin Rudd appointed me as the Minister for Youth and Sport, and I became Australia’s youngest ever federal minister.
My elevation to the ministry was not supported by even my own state faction after we had agreed on another candidate but had been overruled by the Prime Minister.
We had just had a huge win in the 2007 election.
We had a backbench brimming with talented and ambitious caucus members.
Many would have seen themselves as much more suitable and deserving potential ministers than me.
Proving that I was frivolous, unprofessional, stupid or lacking commitment would go a long way towards delivering a vacancy in the ministry for those who felt more deserving of it. Outlandish sexual rumours would be a great way to start.
One of my former colleagues who was promoted to a senior position told me of a conversation two of our male colleagues had regarding her promotion.
When one asked why she got the position, the other replied that it was “because she gives good blow jobs”.
As she pointed out to me, “That’s a lot of blow jobs!”
“I find it completely unsurprising,” she continued somewhat wearily.
“I think it’s a really easy way of belittling women. It’s very easy to dismiss someone as lightweight or, you know, using her feminine wiles.
“If a bloke is good company, if a bloke knows how to mix it with the fellows, then he’s a good bloke. If you want to put down a woman who’s doing that, then it very quickly turns to a sexual putdown.”
Clearly, not every bloke in the parliament is an arsehole out to undermine women.
There are incredibly good, decent and supportive men on all sides of politics.
But we need to be aware of what women may face.
Like many industries, networking and building personal relationships play a vital role in getting ahead in politics, and the power of the boys’ club is in what happens away from the workplace.
But being seen out and about also hugely increases the amount of gossip spread about you.
I have no doubt that the rumours about me and Tony Burke started because we were friends and would often be seen talking or having a meal or a drink.
Julia Gillard also noted, “You know what federal parliament is like. You work hard, but people go out and have a few drinks and stuff, too, particularly on Wednesday night, letting off steam.
“People misconstrue a nice night out with a group of people having a few drinks and a few laughs as having another agenda.”
Boys’ clubs are far from exclusive to the parliament.
Women in many industries still note the informal work and networking done by their colleagues on the golf course, at the pub or in a strip club.
I do think this is improving in the broader business community.
In politics, however, the exclusive nature of the boys’ club is increased due to the possibility that if a woman does venture out into networking territory, she opens herself up to a new range of slurs.
And it is certainly not always men spreading this gossip.
Former federal Labor MP Emma Husar has her views on this.
“What I’ve learnt about slut shaming is that it actually starts with women and then men weaponise it. Women talk about it. Gossip about it.
“Then it’s the men who actually weaponise it in an employment setting and use it to prevent women from getting promotions, women from climbing any further than where the men get. Keeping them constrained.”
Weaponising sexual gossip can be much more dangerous than just rumours.
It can end women’s careers.
This is an edited extract from Sex, Lies and Question Time by Kate Ellis, Hardie Grant Books, $40. Kate Ellis was the Federal Member for Adelaide for Labor from 2004 until 2019.
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