Peta Credlin’s fury over sisterhood’s silence on sexist attack

PETA Credlin says a main motivation for setting up a women’s group was the silence from the “sisterhood” after Clive Palmer’s sexist attack.

PM Tony Abbott's chief of Staff Peta Credlin at the start of Question Time in the House of Representatives chamber in Parliament, Canberra.

TONY Abbott’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, says one of her motivations for setting up a women’s group was the silence from the “sisterhood” when Clive Palmer launched a sexist attack against her.

The Fairfax MP had claimed, incorrectly, that Mr Abbott had designed his paid parental leave scheme “just so the Prime Minister’s chief-of-staff can receive a massive benefit when she gets pregnant”.

“There’s no way Clive didn’t know that I can’t have children. The paid parental leave came out in a book in 2009 when Tony Abbott was not even leader of the opposition,” Ms Credlin said. “This solidarity that women are supposed to have just wasn’t there.”

In the aftermath of the con­troversy, Ms Credlin wondered whether she should form a women’s network for Coalition staffers as quite obviously conservative women were fair game. While there were many events for women in law, media and finance, none existed for women in conservative politics.

Tentatively, she raised the idea with Coalition staffers, uncertain whether they would consider the concept worthwhile.

“For many years I had wondered why we never had something for female staff because there’s networking opportunities for women in other areas but there’s nothing in politics,’’ she said.

Ms Credlin was mindful of not marginalising women by putting their issues into a silo but said it could be used as an empowering, confidence-building exercise.

Within hours, Ms Credlin had received 200 emails from women expressing their support for the idea.

“The response was phenomenal,” she said. “Some women will use the events as a catch-up, some want mentoring and some want to stay in politics and run for a seat in the future. It’s also not designed to be female exclusive.”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was also very supportive.

Mr Abbott launched the first networking event on Wednesday last week and 300 women attended to hear speeches by Ms Credlin and the first guest-speaker, The Australian Women’s Weekly editor-in-chief Helen McCabe, who, like Ms Credlin, has achieved success in a male-dominated industry. In her speech to staff, Ms Credlin revealed the experiences of sexism she had dealt with at times during her working career.

“In my remarks I made the point there’s been occasions overseas where men won’t shake my hand because they assume at the start of a meeting I mustn’t be that important because of my gender,’’ she said. “After the meeting, they’re happy to shake my hand. But when I walk in the door, they ­assume I am not part of the official party. People have asked me to move because the seat is for Mr Peter Credlin. That has happened twice.”

Ms Credlin told the group of women one of the biggest issues women had was the confidence to step up to senior roles.

It was a sentiment echoed by McCabe, who revealed when great jobs were offered to her, her first reaction was to question whether she was able to do it.

“McCabe is smart and has had a terrific career and is inspirational. It was really instructive for women to hear about that self-doubt,’’ Ms Credlin said.

Ms Credlin also revealed that the toughest articles written about her were authored by other women. “I agree with Julie Bishop that there’s a special place in hell reserved for women who don’t support other women,’’ she said.

While Mr Abbott has been widely criticised for having only one woman in cabinet, Ms Credlin said she thought it was the first time in history that 50 per cent of the ministerial chiefs of staff were women.