Rita Panahi: Daniel Andrews disdain for women who challenge him is concerning
It can make for uncomfortable viewing as the Premier switches from the jovial, matey tone he reserves for male journalists to the barely concealed disdain he appears to have for the contingent of women who’ve challenged him, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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Dan Andrews appears to have a problem with strong women who have the courage to stand up to him.
We have seen the Premier be a mixture of condescending, dismissive and openly hostile to the female members of the media who have dared pose tough questions at his daily press conference.
It can make for uncomfortable viewing as the Premier switches from the jovial, matey tone he reserves for the likes of Lundy, Noely and Raffy to the barely concealed disdain he appears to have for many of the women who’ve challenged him, including Peta Credlin, Rachel Baxendale and Gabriella Power.
That behaviour has emboldened the Dan cult to be ever more misogynistic in their attacks against any woman seen to challenge Dear Leader, even if that “challenge” is wearing a certain T-shirt or feeling sympathy for a small-business owner.
Last week Sam Armytage was in the crosshairs of the dementedly dimwitted #istandwithDan mob who are also regularly trending the #DanforPM hashtag.
Armytage’s great offence was to express support for struggling shop owner Harry Hutchinson who was fined $10,000 for opening his Berwick store, Harry’s Clothing, during lockdown. That was enough for an almighty pile-on, with gutless keyboard warriors attacking the Sunrise host en masse.
The freebie, click-bait news sites (and I use the term “news” loosely) were in overdrive fanning the hysteria further with reports approvingly regurgitating some of the abuse from Twitter trolls.
Much of the ugly abuse is not fit for publication but it saw Armytage trend for most of the day on the social media site. It’s incredible just how sexist and intolerant people who claim to be feminists, both male and female, can be when a woman expresses an opinion perceived as critical of their man, Dan.
On Monday it was Jaggad owner Bec Judd who was trending on Twitter thanks to a mass meltdown from the Dan disciples. What had she done, you may ask?
Did she deliberately break restrictions, launch a blistering attack against “Dictator Dan” or make a provocative political statement? No, the mother of four wore a T-shirt raising money for Beyond Blue saying “Free Melbourne” while she did her hair in an “Instagram story” (brief videos or images that disappear within 24 hours of being posted). That’s it.
That was enough to have her trending on Twitter because apparently anything other than blind devotion to not only Dan but also the world’s longest lockdown is tantamount to heresy. Again, much of the abuse Judd copped was sexist, vicious and borne of jealousy.
The phenomenon of mass trolling anyone who isn’t seen to be sufficiently supportive of Dan has even led to prominent leftist women being targeted, including the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas and former Age writer Jill Stark.
But the harshest online attacks have been reserved for women in the media, both journalists and commentators, who call out the litany of lies and errors that have characterised Victoria’s COVID-19 response.
While Dan’s media mates serve up Dorothy Dixers and run interference for the Premier at the pressers, a number of fierce females have strived to keep Andrews accountable for his many mistakes, mistruths and daily sessions in spin and obfuscation.
No journalist has done as much as Credlin in applying pressure on Andrews and the Coate inquiry to expose the truth. And for that, she has copped the worst of the invective. It’s one thing to have nameless, faceless trolls undermining Credlin but there’s no shortage of envious media operatives who are also questioning whether she has a right to be at the press conference.
The Age’s Chip Le Grand wrote Credlin “is not a journalist, she is a partisan, political operative. Mr Andrews is within his rights to tell her to bugger off”. Perhaps if more journalists did their job, Credlin wouldn’t have to attend.
The Age also ran a pathetic hit-job by a left-wing academic who called Credlin “part of the shrill chorus of right-wing pundits who appear after dark on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News pay television channel”, which he laughably claimed is “devoted to promoting extreme, anti-scientific and often offensive views that reflect a reactionary ideology”.
It’s adorable that a far-left, taxpayer-funded hack believes he is fair, impartial and in tune with the mainstream.
Sky News, far from being extreme, was the only TV network sufficiently in touch with the Australian public to recognise the backlash against Labor’s radical policies at last year’s federal election. Meanwhile, staff at that billion-dollar tax drain, the ABC, continue to be among Dan’s biggest supporters, just as they were with Bill Shorten. Remember him?
IN SHORT
Andrews’ confected outrage over 17 New Zealanders entering the state via Sydney was absurd. He raged about the federal government and border force, seemingly forgetting his own bureaucracy had agreed to allow Kiwis to enter. After all, it’s people leaving Victoria who are required to quarantine, not those coming in.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist