Alan Tudge and Tim Paine punished by puritans

The outcry over former education minister Alan Tudge and former Australian test captain Tim Paine reveals the rise of a new puritanical age.

In some parts of the world they still kill adulterers.

Those guilty of sex outside of marriage are subjected to horrific punishments including being stoned to death.

Of course we in the enlightened West have long ago left behind such primitive ways.

Nowadays, we just destroy an individual’s career and reputation for moral failings rather than flog them in the street or bury them waist deep in a hole and hurl stones at them.

Just ask former Australian test captain Tim Paine or former education minister Alan Tudge about the rise of the new puritans who demand righteousness in every facet of life.

Alan Tudge’s former media adviser Rachelle Miller has spoken out about their affair. Picture: Martin Ollman

No longer do you have to be guilty of criminal behaviour or even predatory antics to be punished, even a consensual exchange or relationship between two willing adults can see you sacked if there is an aggrieved party.

And most breakups have at least one aggrieved party.

On Thursday the Prime Minister asked Tudge to stand aside as federal education minister while an investigation is completed into allegations by a former lover that their consensual affair was emotionally abusive and “defined by a significant power imbalance.”

Rachelle Miller, a former media adviser to Tudge, spoke out about the affair a year ago admitting it was consensual but now says “it’s more complicated than that”.

There has been a taxpayer-funded investigation into Alan Tudge and Rachelle Miller’s extramarital fling. Picture: ABC/Four Corners

There has already been a taxpayer-funded investigation, costing $40,000, into the extramarital fling and Ms Miller’s treatment which found no evidence of wrongdoing.

On Thursday Tudge again rejected Ms Miller’s accusations.

“Both of us have acknowledged publicly that we had a consensual affair in 2017. This is something that I regret deeply. We were both married at the time and it was wrong. It contributed to the end of my marriage that year,” he said.

One key question is whether a power imbalance in a sexual relationship constitutes wrongdoing on the part of the more powerful individual.

Tim Paine has withdrawn from the upcoming Ashes series. Picture: Getty

It’s one thing for a high-powered executive to be bedding interns but claims of a power imbalance are hard to swallow when you have an elected representative and an accomplished woman performing a senior role.

As it stands one of the government’s best performing ministers has been forced to stand aside over an unprovable claim that is not in any way unlawful.

It’s hard not to conclude that just like Paine, who has withdrawn entirely from the Ashes series, Tudge is being punished for committing adultery.

Meanwhile, Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has taken a temporary break from race-baiting to indulge in a little casual misogyny, yelling “at least I keep my legs shut” to Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes, who perceived it as a slur against her autistic son, an allegation Thorpe has denied.

Hughes has graciously accepted Thorpe’s apology for the utterly vile remarks.

Modern “progressivism” is seeing the rise of a new puritanical age where those who have sinned must be punished, even if no laws have been broken. There’s almost a religious fervour about the phenomenon, rather strange given the increasing godlessness in the West.