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David Leyonhjelm

Senator Leyonhjelm’s Slurs Are A Reminder That Politics Is The Safest Workplace For Sexism

While we are finally progressing to a place where someone like Barry Hall can be fired for revolting misogyny, the same rules don’t apply for people in Parliament. Literally.

Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has bravely called out Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm for making extremely sexist comments to and about her both in parliament and on air with Sky News.

Hanson-Young explained initially on Twitter and then in an article for The Guardian, that during a vote on whether women should be allowed to be armed to protect themselves (from men!), Leyonhjelm yelled to her, “You’ll have to stop shagging men now, Sarah!”

“As if now I’m at risk without pepper spray or a taser,” she explained.

When she confronted him he confirmed and repeated his comment, then told her to “f**k off” for calling him a creep. When Senate president Scott Ryan asked Leyonhjelm to apologise, he refused, saying if the Greens senator took offence, it was an issue for her.

“I am prepared to rephrase my comments. I strongly urge Senator Hanson-Young to continue shagging men as she pleases,” Senator Leyonhjelm said.

Leyonhjelm was promptly invited by hosts Rowan Dean and Ross Cameron onto Sky News’ controversial right-wing Sunday morning show, Outsiders, where he made more sexist slurs about Senator Hanson-Young.

Those comments were highlighted in on-screen strap and after being called out, Sky News apologised and announced that a producer has been suspended. Dean and Cameron issued an apology in their next program.

 

It’s a weak attempt to make amends from Sky News that still fails to properly hold accountable the two on-air hosts who were both encouraging and complicit in the situation. But it’s more than we are likely to get out of David Leyonhjelm.

The lack of consequences that Leyonhjelm is facing is particularly stark in comparison to the immediate firing of Barry Hall from Triple M over the weekend for making an explicit, sexist and genuinely appalling comment on air.

You can officially get away with more public sexism in government than in the privatised working world.

“In any other workplace, anywhere in the country, telling a woman to “stop shagging men” would land you in hot water,” Senator Hanson-Young wrote for The Guardian. “Here in parliament, it lands you an exclusive with Sky News”

The extent of the repercussions Leyonhjelm is facing within government so far is that Federal cabinet minister Simon Birmingham has called on him to publicly apologise for his “appalling” comments.

“I would expect that apologies would be the appropriate order of the day. Frankly, people ought to be a little bigger and better than that,” Senator Birmingham told Sky on Monday.

“It’s certainly not the way I conduct my politics. I don’t believe that type of commentary has any place in decent fair public policy.”

Besides the fact that it’s extremely unlikely that Leyonhjelm will ever comply, an apology is the bare minimum that he should be hit with. But politicians regularly get away with sexist behaviour that bullies women out of the workplace.

As Senator Hanson-Young emphasised in her article, this is far from an isolated event in parliament.

“For years I have winced and tried not to flinch at innuendos about my dress, my face (being told by older men that I don’t smile at them enough) and my apparent sex life,” she wrote.

“What started as mutterings while I would be on my feet speaking, or during a debate, slowly over the years has become slurs that are now shouted across the chamber floor.”

This behaviour is brushed off as if being elected is an excuse to behave in any way you please. No one relies on the ‘free speech’ defence as heavily as conservative politicians, but implying a female colleague is kinda slutty is not a valid political view.

The consequences for elected representatives’ bad behaviour are supposed to happen at the ballot box, and rightly so – but at the same time, misogynistic comments that would get you fired from a private company can’t have zero consequences for someone who is paid from tax dollars. That’s unacceptable.

Parliamentary privilege (for the less procedural-nerdery-inclined among us, that is a legal immunity enjoyed by legislators for actions done or statements made during legislative duties) does not excuse workplace harassment, and people have the right to be protected.

https://twitter.com/patrickkeneally/status/1013691579003858944

Senator Hanson-Young has now said in a statement that she is seeking legal advice in relation to comments made by the NSW senator David Leyonhjelm during appearances on the Sky News program Outsiders and 3AW’s Weekend Breakfast broadcast.

She also said that she thinks that Leyonhjelm should resign, because “he has proven himself incapable of showing respect and is unfit to represent not only women, but all decent Australians, in our nation’s Parliament.”

And he absolutely should resign. But, unfortunately, politics is rife with sexism disguised as political disagreement and men very rarely face any real consequences.

Everyone loves a good parliamentary zinger, but there’s supposed to be a sense of honour, wit and good faith in the back-and-forth. There’s a reason Julia Gillard’s famous, furious Misogyny Speech was a retort by a low, personal blow from Tony Abbott after she’d already endured months of it in and out of the chamber.

We need leaders to come down harder (or at all) on politicians for verbal harassment and insults that are nastily personal rather than policy-based – and if they can’t be ‘fired’, we need to make sure that people like David Leyonhjelm do not continue to get elected.

These old, white, conservative, and usually male politicians are constantly complaining that ‘political correctness gone mad’ has left them voiceless, unable to express their (bigoted) opinions without consequence. But really, politics is their safe space – and if neither the leaders or the media those men actually respect will hold them to account when they cross a line, voters are the only ones who can.

A Safe Space for Conservative Snowflakes

Hannah Reilly creates a safe space to provide a voice for the voiceless – prominent conservative commentators. ABC COMEDY

Posted by Hannah and Eliza Reilly on Wednesday, 27 June 2018