You can trace the genesis of Nicolle Flint’s fraught decision to walk away from politics to an opinion piece she wrote for The Spectator magazine last year.
It began: “Welcome to modern Australia, where encouraging the strangulation of women, calling them crazy, dimwitted, halfwits and ‘Miss Piggy’ is not just acceptable, but rewarded with our nation’s highest honour.”
Flint was reflecting on the miserable standard of modern discourse and her own experience as a woman who has endured a mountain of abuse as a Liberal conservative.
She was referring to a tweet written about her by sacked Fairfax columnist and Order of Australia recipient Mike Carlton when she appeared on a 2019 episode of the ABC’s Q&A, during which Carlton tweeted: “Never have I admired Jimmy Barnes so much as tonight. How does he not leap from his seat and strangle the Liberal shill on his right?”
When Julia Gillard was prime minister Alan Jones was (rightly) denounced when he said she should be stuffed in a chaff bag and thrown into the sea. As of yesterday, Carlton’s tweet was still on Twitter and had been liked 1098 times.
Flint wrote about her dismay at the fact that Carlton would not only say such a thing but that people would cheer him on for it, and in the case of some in her party, tell her to brush it off.
“I am surprised by the attitude of some in my government that this is simply a matter of freedom of speech,” she wrote. “Is it any wonder we lack women in our ranks?”
As of today, the Liberal Party is set to lack one more. Flint’s departure sends depressing signals about the manner in which politics is increasingly conducted in this country, especially when it comes to women.
There should be no difference between a right-wing bully like Jones advocating violence against a left-wing woman or a left-wing bully like Carlton advocating violence against a right-wing woman. Today, abuse is no longer regarded as universally unacceptable but contingent on whether you think the recipient deserves it.
It’s a phenomenon that occurs not just between political parties but within them, as evidenced by the fact that SA Liberal moderates who cannot stand Flint casually refer to her conservative grouping as “The Taliban” and were unmoved when she documented her treatment by GetUp in the Boothby campaign in 2019.
Beyond that though — and I write this as the husband of a former Labor politician, the ex-member for Adelaide Kate Ellis — Flint’s departure underscores the sexualised abuse and scrutiny female MPs are forced to endure.
John Howard and Kevin Rudd copped plenty of abuse in their time. They never returned to their electoral offices to find the words “skank” or “slut” on the front window, nor were they ever accused of trying to sleep their way to the top, or subjected to leering remarks about their appearance.
At a time when parliament is dominated by rape allegations, Flint’s exit will be seen by many women that you would need the hide of a rhino, rocks in your head, or both, to go into politics.
The saddest thing — and it confirms Flint’s opening point — is that when news breaks of her departure Twitter will erupt in joy.
People used to get voted out of office. In 2021, with the baying mobs on social media, they can get hounded out.
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