With the Australian economy in China rebound, Covid-19 largely suppressed and vaccinations underway, the government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison should live up to. Instead, their ratings are the lowest in more than a year, amid criticism of their failure to address violence and sexual inequality.
The prime minister, who has drawn an image as a kind suburban father, is facing a growing backlash from voters enraged by his handling of allegations of rape in parliament. As new allegations of sexual misconduct arose on Tuesday, he risks losing control of the political narrative if he fails to meet his demands for action.
Although Australia is not expected to go to the in polls until the first half of 2022, Morrison cannot afford to let the problems persist, especially if he wants to keep the focus on economic reconstruction. The national rallies of tens of thousands of women who have ravaged the nation point to a potentially powerful voice in the upcoming elections demanding greater female representation in parliament and tough action against violence and sex discrimination.
“The next election should have been an easy journey towards government victory because of its handling of the pandemic, but now it’s not because of Morrison’s mismanagement of women’s issues,” she said. Paul Williams, a political analyst at Griffith University in Brisbane who said The issue does not threaten the immediate viability of the government.
Slippery popularity
A Newspoll newspaper published last week showed his coalition falling 4 points behind the main Labor opposition, from 48% to 52%. The betting markets that predicted a comfortable victory for the government in the next election are tightening.
On Tuesday, Morrison said a staff member involved in “disgusting and disgusting” behavior in parliament has been fired, most recently in his Conservative government that has already been assaulted by allegations of rape.
Scott Morrison in Parliament in Canberra, Australia, on 23 March.
Photographer: Sam Mooy / Getty Images
Read more: The protests indicate a calculation in the Australian fight against sexism
The announcement came after the Ten Network aired allegations that a group of male government officials had shared images and videos of obscure acts. A photo showed a man masturbating on the desk of a female legislator.
Although the Morrison government has long been accused of addressing women’s issues adequately, including taking steps to raise the proportion of women legislators in the coalition by 23 percent, the allegations of Sexual assaults now threaten to undermine the credentials and political agenda of their government.
They it began in mid-February, when a former defense ministry media adviser Brittany Higgins claimed she was raped two years ago by a member of Parliament staff and was discouraged from alerting police.
At the time, Attorney General Christian Porter was the subject of allegations that he raped a member of the school’s debate team in the 1980s, which he strongly denies. Morrison has refused to investigate the allegations and Porter remains Australia’s chief justice officer.
“It’s been a month since those reports,” Morrison said Tuesday as he seemed to drown tears. “It’s been shocking, it’s been embarrassing,” he said, adding “we have to fix it.”
“So much anger”
For Kate Ahmad, a Sydney-based neurologist who helped organize the March 4 protests in Australia last week, Morrison’s words sound empty.
“To me, it seemed insincere because, once again, it offered no solution,” Ahmad said. “There was nothing practical about this press conference that would make a difference in women’s lives.”
Ahmad said the campaign is now a nationally unified movement after rallies in more than 40 cities and towns last week.
He On March 4, lawsuits include an independent investigation into Porter’s allegations, improved funding to support victims of domestic violence, the implementation of recommendations for a report on sexual harassment at the site of work and the introduction of a quota system within the Liberal-National coalition to ensure more women enter parliament.
Although Morrison said Tuesday he was “open” to his Liberal Party’s gender quotas, he left most of the other issues unaddressed.
Issues seem to have blinded Morrison, 52, who has a reputation as a smart political operator who won the “unthinkable” election in 2019 aided by his intrinsic understanding of the media. But now he is stumbling in his dealings with the press.
During Tuesday’s press conference, he told a News Corp reporter that he had to “be careful” to criticize government records and pointed out the media company was investigating a complaint of harassment of a woman in a female toilet. News Corp. rejected the claim as “simply false” and Morrison issued one apologies at night for her “insensitive response,” adding “I was wrong to raise it, the excitement of the moment is no excuse.”
Morrison was criticized for his treatment of Higgins’ accusations, especially after saying his wife Jenny helped him realize his seriousness after convincing him to consider the problem as the father of two girls.
Women’s activists also criticized her statement in parliament that the March 4 rallies were a “triumph of democracy” as in other countries these marches “were hit by bullets”.
“I’ve never seen so much anger among women who aren’t usually political,” Ahmad said. “And while women are half the population, there are a lot of men who also have disgust.”
(Updates with Morrison’s apology to News Corp.)