Scott Morrison is attempting to reset the conversation on women.
Many will say it’s too late and the damage to his government is already done.
The Prime Minister knows just how bad the past five weeks have been for him politically and on Tuesday he wanted women to know he was listening.
When former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public with her allegation of rape on February 15, there was condemnation of the incident and the way Defence Minister Linda Reynolds handled the fallout.
But there was no special press conference called as there was on Tuesday morning following revelations in The Australian and on the Ten Network about Coalition staffers performing lewd sex acts, including in a parliamentary office of an MP.
It is only now, more than a month after Ms Higgins revealed her story, that Morrison really showed his outrage and emotion at what has gone on in Canberra’s corridors of power.
“We must get this House in order,” he declared.
“These events have triggered, right across this building and indeed right across the country, women who have put up with this rubbish and this cloud for their entire lives, as their mothers did, as their grandmothers did.”
Morrison understood many did not appreciate it when he said his wife Jenny helped him “clarify” how to respond to Ms Higgins’ allegation of being raped in a ministerial office by a former Liberal staffer.
And that people were angry when he said the March 4 Justice protests should be considered a “triumph of democracy” because “not far from here such marches even now are being met with bullets”.
Quotas are also now on the agenda for the Liberals, despite being rejected time and time again by the most senior men and women in the party.
Pressed on whether he’d lost control of his ministerial staff, Morrison went on the attack and attempted to turn the tables on the media.
He claimed there was a harassment complaint made against a female journalist of another woman journalist that had occurred in a bathroom.
“Let’s not all of us who sit in glass houses here start getting into that,” Morrison said.
Labor was unforgiving.
“Morrison urged women to come forward with complaints in one breathe (sic) then in same press conference reveals details of a complaint using it as a defensive strategy against his own failings,” Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher tweeted.
“No wonder women everywhere are angry. Enough is enough.”
Morrison urged women to come forward with complaints in one breathe then in same press conference reveals details of a complaint using it as a defensive strategy against his own failings.
— Katy Gallagher (@SenKatyG) March 23, 2021
No wonder women everywhere are😡😡 #EnoughIsEnough
Morrison is promising more action in the weeks ahead and knows he must continue to try and overcome a sorry and toxic chapter in federal parliament.
Some women may have already turned away, but many others will be watching closely to see if this year really is one of change.
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