Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Don Farrell, who is known within Labor Party ranks as the Godfather, summonsed Prime Minister Gillard to meet with him and at this meeting he told her that the faceless men themselves had decided the order of the South Australian Senate ticket and that this would change. And what does Ms Gillard do? Not a lot, because she can't; she has to accept the decision of the faceless men.

Prime Minister Gillard should clean up her own backyard when it comes to sexism before attacking Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party. Australians have been witness to a Prime Minister who gave a contrived and confected speech in the parliament about her intolerance for sexism and misogyny, yet who had defended in the very same sitting, on the same day, her now ex-Speaker of the House, who had been caught out describing his disdain of women via filthy and repugnant text messages and who is now before the court's facing serious sexual harassment charges;    a Prime Minister who spends months vehemently defending a member of her caucus who has been accused of misappropriating union members' funds to pay for prostitutes; and a Prime Minister who when put to the test refused to condemn the male bastion of faceless men or do or say anything in relation to the demotion of Senator Wong. This is gross hypocrisy at its very best.

The Prime Minister will now be remembered as the Prime Minister who let down the women of Australia when put to the test and abrogated her responsibility to show leadership by endorsing the demotion of a female member of her cabinet, only to be subsequently told by the faceless men that they had now decided that the order of the Senate ticket would change.