Miranda Devine: Don’t be fooled, Zali Steggall is no martyr
It’s hard not to feel sorry for everyone involved in Zali Stegall’s public family drama, but after speaking with the Warringah candidate’s ex-husband, it’s clear there’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye, writes Miranda Devine.
David Cameron is uncomfortable about inviting a journalist into the inner-west home he shares with wife Bridie Nolan and their three small daughters, two dogs and, at other times, four older children from their former marriages.
But invite me in they did.
The ex-husband of Warringah independent candidate Zali Steggall and his wife are engulfed in a soap opera of their own making after attacking the would-be Tony Abbott slayer on Twitter last month. Cameron, 45, called his ex-wife an “idiot”.
Nolan, 44, wrote: “You cannot bear to be out of the limelight, can you … Did you really think you deserve special treatment because you ski? … Withdraw now before you embarrass your family further.”
My colleague Jack Houghton laid out the story comprehensively in this newspaper last week and the couple copped so much flak on Twitter they deleted their accounts, probably a month too late.
Then, out of the blue on Easter Sunday, came an invitation from the couple to learn “the other half of the ‘two faces to Zali Steggall’s story. The backstory is no fairytale … [Bridie] has done nothing to deserve the trashing she is getting this week”.
So, the next morning I arrived at the door of their vast converted sewing factory, complete with heated swimming pool.
It is a busy, happy home, filled with the sounds of two big dogs and three cute blonde girls, Ava, 5, and three-year-old twins, Marlowe and Olivia.
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Almost every wall is covered with stunning photos of their photogenic extended family.
I sit at the spotless kitchen bench as Cameron, tall and athletic like the champion rower he once was, makes a mean coffee and Nolan, beautiful with no makeup and scraped back hair, talks non-stop, trying to explain why she and David inserted themselves into the Warringah campaign.
Marriage breakups are never easy and when there are children involved they are best left unreported.
Suffice to say that there is no love lost between the couple and Steggall.
The saga begins last month, after the Christchurch massacre, when Steggall posted a tweet claiming the shooting was a reminder of “where extreme ideology hate and divisive speech leads” and injudiciously added the hashtag “Warringah votes”. Whether she meant to or not, the meaning conveyed was that Abbott, who Steggall portrays as a divisive extremist, was somehow implicated.
Cameron, whose four-year marriage to the Olympic skier ended 12 years ago after producing two sons, was embarrassed.
“What sort of opportunistic person puts a promotional hashtag in a tweet intended for the condolences of a grieving nation? Idiot,” he tweeted back.
Nolan, a fan of Abbott and self-described “devastatingly experienced barrister” who married Cameron seven years ago, also piled on.
“I accept it reflects poorly on us,” she says in her kitchen, chastened by the criticism. “But my motto is the standard you walk past is the standard you accept … It was never done because she is running for federal election”.
She says Steggall’s “modus operandi is playing the victim and looking for sympathy … You see it in the campaign [when she is] calling out Tony Abbott to denounce her sexualisation [allegedly by Captain GetUp, the Colombian actor employed by Abbott allies to roam around Warringah in a costume highlighting the activities of the left wing activist group].”
Sensibly, Nolan takes the dogs out for a walk while her husband continues.
He says his ex-wife has “always been a Greens voter [and] she’s always had a thing against Tony Abbott”. But he regrets calling her an “idiot”.
“I’m not proud of it. I shouldn’t have used that word … but I never asked to be in the limelight. She is the one seeking public office. She should be able to cop a bit of criticism.
“I’d love to be able to say I support you even though I don’t agree with you politically. But she didn’t give me the chance. If she had the courtesy to tell me she was running I would have said ‘Go for your life. Just keep the boys out of it’.”
Since the story broke of the Twitter stoush, life has been “stressful”, he says, “But the good thing is it’s pulled Bridie and I closer together. She knows she has my 100 per cent support.”
The couple don’t want to be portrayed as villains, but have been bruised by their encounter with the most high-stakes campaign of the election.
Abbott is on the nose in Warringah, once one of the safest of Liberal electorates. He is “in the fight of my life” and is treating the seat as marginal.
A poll by GetUp in February showed Steggall beating him 54-46. But, as the federal election tightens, Abbott’s prospects improve. He was overheard telling the Prime Minister on Friday that things were “better”.
RELATED: Leading female Liberals fly in to Warringah to boost Tony Abbott
Yesterday Abbott declined to comment, understandably enough.
But, while he is staying a million miles away from this story, the man who knows his rival better than most has some campaign advice for the former PM.
“If I were advising him, I’d say don’t be reactive, run your own campaign,” says Cameron.
“The Liberal government are the best solution for Australia — toe the party line rather than being about Tony and Zali.
“Any attack she will use it as portraying that she’s the victim [and] to engender the sympathy vote.”
The truth is it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for everyone in this story, especially Steggall, who has maintained a dignified silence throughout.
“Zali hasn’t commented on anything with regards to them so far,” her campaign spokesman said yesterday.
Wise move. Warringah is no place for well-meaning amateurs.
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