Emma Husar still doesn’t get it

INSTEAD of apologising and becoming a better person, Emma Husar thinks she can escape the consequences by playing the victim card. But she’s wrong, writes Miranda Devine.

EMMA Husar has to be kidding.

The former Labor backbencher is now claiming she’s a victim of so-called “slut-shaming” and that is what forced her to give up her western Sydney seat of Lindsay at the next election.

Talking to the ABC’s 7.30 program last night Husar claimed her career in politics was destroyed, not by allegations she bullied her staff but because she was “slut-shamed so viciously, with no ability to come back and stand up for myself.”

She claims it’s a common tactic used to bring down women in politics.

“It’s almost used as a method of torture,” she said.

Emma Husar told 7.30 that she has been the victim of “slut shaming”. (Pic: AAP/ABC)

One of the accusations from staff was that she had crossed her legs provocatively while wearing no underwear in a Sharon Stone move from the movie Basic Instinct, while her colleague Jason Clare was playing with his daughter on the floor in front of her.

Both she and Clare deny the event occurred and we’ll take their word for it.

But, while that salacious story grabbed headlines, it is not the reason her career is over.

She was the subject of serious complaints of bullying and intimidation against her — which she strongly denies — by 22 former staff who said she was horrible to them even while she made them do domestic chores, nanny her children, walk her dog and clean up its excrement.

Clearly something was wrong in her office, since backbenchers are entitled to four electorate staff and she had burned through 22 in two years.

But, no, everyone else is to blame.

And while Julia Gillard used the “misogyny card”, the modern day equivalent is “slut-shaming”, a favourite of another female politician who likes to use the gender card, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

Instead of apologising, learning from the criticism and becoming a better person, Husar thinks she can escape the consequences by playing the victim.

It won’t work. Go away.