VICTIM IS NO HERO
JULIA Banks hasn’t yet given us evidence that she’s been bullied. But she has shown me she’s weak. What a bad example she set for women by last week quitting as a Liberal MP, saying the sacking of prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was “the last straw” after enduring so much “bullying and intimidation”.
And how pathetic for so many politicians and journalists to immediately hail her as a saint who’d exposed the “misogyny” of the Liberal Party.
In fact, Banks exposed only the crippling stereotype of the female victim — one of the hero victims admired not for their talents but their wounds.
Until last week, few voters would ever have heard of Banks, but now she is lauded by anyone with a bone to pick with the conservatives who have taken back control of the failed Turnbull party.
She has given all those critics ammunition through her angry resignation letter, in which she declared: “I will always call out bad behaviour and will not tolerate any form of bullying or intimidation.” But what bullying was she talking about? She named not one bully. Nor did she say how she’d been bullied or even when.
Was she bullied last year or two weeks ago, when conservatives were trying to get enough MPs to sign a petition demanded by Turnbull before he’d call a meeting to decide his leadership?
And what was this bullying?
A threat of violence? A raised voice? A de-friending on Facebook?
Was it horrible, or no more than an MP should expect when a torn party is deciding the fate of a prime minister?
Banks never said, yet set off a media pack-attack on Liberal men who became the victims of real bullying.
Journalists publicly named and shamed the villains they suspected: Victorian party president Michael Kroger, conservative powerbroker Michael Sukkar and libertarian senator James Paterson, a young politician known for his courtesy.
All three had to defend themselves from allegations based on the word of someone who’d never even mentioned them or said what had been done or when.
How mad is that?
Banks simply had to claim to be a victim, and she was believed.
Even new Prime Minister Scott Morrison was forced to defend himself, vowing to “stand up to bullies”. But which ones? Where?
Naturally, this witchhunt-without-witches was exploited by people who had their own scores to settle or points to push.
Labor leader Bill Shorten insisted there was indeed too much bullying in politics, and “if the Liberals can’t hold women like (Banks) in their ranks, they have a problem”.
Er, let me ask again: how was Banks bullied? Until she tells us, no one can assume the Liberals have a problem.
Meanwhile, if Shorten is so horrified by bullying, why does Labor keep accepting donations and instructions from the giant CFMMEU union, which bullies companies with illegal bans, and has had officials filmed abusing and threatening workplace inspectors?
The Turnbull faction was just as eager to smear the conservatives who’d toppled their leader.
Craig Laundy, who quit as a minister in protest at Turnbull’s dumping, said he’d talked to three female MPs who’d been “stood over” by conservative
MPs demanding they back a leadership vote. All had actually refused, so how heavy was this “standing over” really?
But here is the most curious thing about this bullying story.
We’re told by academics and even former Victorian Liberal premier Ted Baillieu that what happened to Banks — which no one can describe — proves that the Liberals have a “woman problem” or even a “hostility” to female members of parliament.
Let’s assume, just for the argument, that Banks came under pressure to vote against Turnbull.
Is anyone seriously arguing that male MPs didn’t face exactly that same pressure?
In fact, didn’t Liberal MPs also come under pressure from the Turnbull side, with Turnbull publicly demanding the names of the “insurgents” so they could be made “accountable”?
So this is why I say Banks let down women. Of all those MPs, Banks is the only one who has so far announced she’s resigning, citing bullying, and adding: “Women have suffered in silence for too long.”
So there was Banks: the Great Sufferer. The eternal female victim whose idea of fighting was to quit and complain, not stand and fight like a Margaret Thatcher.
In her farewell statement, Banks had a message to “young women and men”: “If I’ve inspired any one of you to have leadership courage — that will sustain me.”
But how does being a victim inspire any woman?