The Ironing is Delicious

Whenever Prime Minister Tony Abbott opens his mouth, he jams at least one foot into it. Don’t laugh – it’s fact worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. No-one can be that verbally accident-prone, surely. There must be an explanation: magnets, or a super-secret homing device that mean his toes are fatally attracted to his molars.

The only other explanation is that he’s just stupid, and we wouldn’t elect an inarticulate chump to lead our country, would we?

Don’t answer that.

Instead, let’s explore this morning’s display of involuntary foot insertion, televised for all to see on Nine’s Today Show.  When host Lisa Wilkinson asked the Prime Minister – who has appointed himself as the Minister for Women – what was his most worthy achievement as the Minister for Women, he answered repealing the carbon tax. 

"Well, you know, it is very important to do the right thing by families and households. As many of us, er, know, women are particularly focused on the household budget and the repeal of the carbon tax means a $550 a year benefit for the average family."

And there goes his foot, all the way down to his tonsils. Apparently the carbon tax is a women’s issue, because when we’re balancing the grocery budget, we’ll have an extra $550 per year to spend at Aldi. Or we could save it all up to spend on doctors' visits and pharmaceuticals.

Two things spring to mind: Firstly, I know of no-one who is saving anywhere near $550 a year on their electricity, and secondly the absolute certainty that Tony Abbott has been instructed that the answer to any question about his government’s biggest achievement is “repealing the carbon tax”. If Ms Wilkinson had asked what his biggest achievement for multiculturalism was, the answer would have been the same. If she’d asked about his biggest contribution to arresting climate change, the answer wouldn’t have changed then either.

It’s nothing new for the Minister for Women, though. As Opposition Leader, one of his early foot in mouth displays involved having no carbon tax, thereby benefiting women by making the electricity cheaper so that women could do the ironing at home. After Mr Abbott’s gaffe today, countless vintage ironing memes appeared on social media. 

"What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on, are going to go up," Mr Abbott said in 2010.

Yet again, it falls to someone else to extract the foot. Today, it was Julie Bishop’s turn, and she did a reasonable job of trying to make his remarks as vague as possible. 

"Women's policy is everyone's policy," the deputy Liberal leader said. "What's good for women is good for the community generally.

"I think the Prime Minister was focusing on the policy change that would have the largest impact on families and households and getting rid of the carbon tax is certainly that."

Meanwhile, we still don’t know why, when he had the opportunity to add more women to his front bench, he chose to keep such stellar betesticled performers as Attorney General and Minster for Bookcases, Senator George Brandis, former Minister for Heterosexual Marriage, Kevin Andrews, who is now in charge of Defence, and the former Minister for Copayments, Peter Dutton.

Apparently we should be thrilled that he doubled female participation by promoting Sussan Ley to Minister for Health. It’s hard not to be insulted when he promises promotion to Cabinet is strictly merit-based, but can only find two women who merit a position up front.

When Lisa Wilkinson asked the question about the Minister for Women’s biggest achievement, she wasn’t looking for a stock one-size-fits-all response. She was looking for action on more conventional ‘women’s’ issues’ – a focus on domestic violence, pay equity, affordable child care, sexism and gender discrimination – and we all know that. The fact that Mr Abbott was unable to address any of those issues by pointing to an achievement is a measure of how effective he has been as Minister for Women.

Strangest of all, polling by Roy Morgan shows that women are generally more committed to action on climate change, and were more accepting of the carbon tax. Perhaps if he was to spend more time listening and less time gnawing on his own shoe leather, he might not have such a problem understanding women.

I'll be over here, not doing the ironing.