The Sketch: So can a gender caveat be hypocrisy?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and wife Jenny.

If Jenny Morrison could offer some thoughts on Aussies stranded overseas, the future of JobKeeper, climate change or how to close the gender pay gap … we could really get this country moving!

Scott Morrison issued an apology to the young woman who was allegedly raped inside Parliament House, but only after a helpful chat with his wife. “Jenny and I spoke last night, and she said to me, ‘You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?’ Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has,” the Prime Minister said on Tuesday.

Imagine if he only had one son, like Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese! Would he not have apologised?

When probed about the Liberal Party’s problem with men, Morrison leaned into his gender caveat.

Q: “You said this conversation really hit home when you had it with Jenny and thought about it as a husband and a father. Shouldn’t you have thought about it as a human being? And what happens if men don’t have a wife and children? Would you … do they reach the same compassionate conclusion?”

PM: “In my own experience, being a husband and a father is central to me, my human being. So I just can’t follow the question you’re putting.”

Q: “Well, didn’t you think yesterday, as a leader of this country, that it was abhorrent? It had to take being a father?”

PM: “I did. And I said so yesterday.”

But not with same, sudden ire as when he found out the former Australia Post CEO was handing out Cartier watches. While we’re talking about workplace culture, isn’t it a problem that no one is passing such a serious piece of information on to the PM?

It didn’t take long for the hypocrisy to hit home. “As the father of a daughter, the son of a women and with a sister and many female friends, I think the iron ore price will remain strong for the next few months,” economist Stephen Koukoulas tweeted. Scott Phillips chimed in: “I spoke to my wife last night, who said I should think of the iron ore price as if it was my daughter. I don’t have one, so I’m completely unable to form a reasonable view.”

The most powerful sentence uttered in Parliament House this week came from scientist Caitlin Delaney, who is in a race against time with stage-four ovarian cancer: “Decisions in this building can change the course of history.”

Perhaps we’re naive to hope for the better.