Lesson all politicians should learn from viral ‘legs-gate’ spat

Our politicians implore society to stop bullying – yet this week we saw both sides do just that, one online and one in real life.

Sometimes it’s best to just close your mouth.

That’s the lesson for both LNP Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates and Labor Health Minister Shannon Fentiman after this week’s legs-gate.

The Opposition had been pushing the government on patchy maternity services across regional Queensland, which had forced mothers in those areas to travel to hospitals further away to give birth.

While Ms Fentiman was giving her response, MPs on the Opposition benches were heard muttering before Ms Bates’ voice cut through saying, according to the official transcription of parliament, “cross your legs”.

But to many, including Ms Fentiman, who appeared shocked when she heard, it sounded like ‘close your legs’.

Regardless of the exact wording, Ms Bates was warned by The Speaker.

Yet a few hours later, Ms Fentiman posted a clip to social media captioned with ‘close your legs’ and not much other context.

And all hell broke loose.

Shannon Fentiman Instagram post about Ros Bates Close your legs comment.

Shannon Fentiman appeared shocked. Picture: X

Some government MPs started promoting an online petition calling for Ms Bates to be sacked, and the Mudgeeraba MP copped a barrage of abuse online, before defending herself:

“With Labor suggesting women could just bypass their local hospital to go to another hospital to give birth, I could not believe Labor was telling mothers to ‘cross your legs’ while in labour,” said Ms Bates.

“This is the comment I made.”

The viral video was quickly taken down and Ms Bates said she would write to Speaker Curtis Pitt, alleging Ms Fentiman had misled parliament.

But all of this could have been avoided if our elected representatives would just focus on just doing the job, rather than trying to score cheap political points.

And that applies to both sides of parliament in this case.

Ms Bates’ outburst, whether it was to ‘close’ or ‘cross’ your legs, was crass. The fact that it was blurted in a rare moment of silence robbed it of all context and therefore meaning.

Instead of debating the issue at hand, access to maternity services, it turned into a she said/she said farce.

The Member for Mudgeeraba Ros Bates MP during Question Time at Queensland Parliament. Picture: NewsWire/ Glenn Campbell

And for Ms Fentiman to then post this on social media was inviting a non-political pile-on.

Now, I can understand how she would be outraged if she legitimately thought Ms Bates was yelling ‘close your legs’ at her personally, but why would she think that?

Watching that viral video before Ms Bates’ response, I knew there must be more to the story. Why would any woman, the Shadow Minister for Women at that, yell such a slur apropos nothing?

If you’re going to post such an inflammatory video online, you really want to check your facts and the context before publishing.

The crazy thing is these politicians are the same people imploring society, from young students to faceless social media trolls, to stop bullying. Yet here they are doing just that, one in person and one online.

But the Westminster system’s tradition of heckling invites just this kind of behaviour, which is why it surely must be past its use-by date.

Queensland Parliament House. Picture: Zak Simmonds

In fact, moves to tone down the tone-deaf shouting, jeering and heckling in parliament are occurring around the world.

In the UK, a survey showed this behaviour is “alienating” the public and the majority want the coarse behaviour to stop.

While last year, Canada’s House Speaker made an impassioned speech against heckling … and was heckled.

It boggles the mind that every year classrooms of students are brought to our state and national parliaments, warned by teachers to behave themselves and mind their manners, then watch grown adults – elected representatives, no less – behave worse than a class of kindergarteners who just downed a glass of straight red cordial.

To see two women, both in charge of their respective party’s portfolio for women, sink to jabs at each other is truly disappointing.

Perhaps one is more wrong than the other, but there are really no winners here.

Except for anyone who had the courage to close their mouth.