Circling the wagons for Gladys

There is ample evidence that both women and men use their attractiveness and their sex (as in gender) to attain and hold power and generally to advance their interests. Women politicians have advantages in some areas. They play the female card when it suits. Julia Gillard was able to stitch up Tony Abbott with a meme that still dogs him. This was after years in which the two of them could be seen to be flirting on a grand scale.

No, women leaders generally get a good run, and there is no reason that a female politician should expect to be any less accountable than a man. Just imagine that it was – say – Tony Abbott who was caught in this web of sleaze. I expect there would be very little sympathy, if any. There wasn't much sympathy for Barnaby's "private affair", and there was no suggestion of corruption in that case. Malcolm Turnbull hounded him from office.

The feminist message to Gladys is – hold firm and "do this for the women who will come after you". What? Do feminists give a pass to corruption, shoddy governance, non-existent standards of accountability and breaching ministerial codes of conduct, just because she is one of the girls? Seemingly, Gladys hovers effortlessly between being an "independent woman with my own finances" and one wandering around the place with (according to one eye witness) "a little girl lost" look about her.

The second defence of Gladys is her "record".

She is a "good premier" who has governed well, and she deserves a break for a "personal" mistake. I have pointed out her ghastly, deal-making, bungling two-faced record to the point of tedium. Gladys Berejiklian is not a good premier.

For the unaware, here is a quick summary for revision.

First of all there is the no "buck stops here" attitude of the Premier of the Premier State to the Brett Walker Commission into the Ruby Princess. That hardly raised an eyebrow. Long forgotten. Ruby who? The non-acceptance of responsibility for this disgrace by NSW ministers could be considered either breathtaking in its arrogance or merely par for the course in the cesspit of NSW politics.

Then we had Gladys's sleazy, secret deal with NSW Abortion Inc, aka Alex Greenwich MP and Brad Hazzard, to deliver the state's own version of Daniel Andrews' infanticide on demand legislation. The euthanasia mob, led by the appalling NSW Nationals, is merely having a breather before they return to the fray.

Then we have the mad green leftism of most of the NSW Liberal frontbench about anything from koalas to climate change. The midwit Andrew Constance thinks bushfires are the result of global warming. He would be at home in the Andrew cabinet south of the Murray. That would be the same Andrew Constance on whose watch as Transport Minister the embarrassing NorthConnex project is nearly eighteen months overdue and still not open – for reasons yet to be explained to NSW taxpayers. A sackable offence in former times, for the sheer incompetence of the man. The man who cannot even make up his mind about which parliament he wants to sit in.

Then there is the NSW Premier's appalling behaviour towards her own deputy premier, on sick leave because of depression. In many workplaces this would be called bullying.

Then there were the overruns worth billions on the unwanted and unneeded Sydney trams. What about knocking down perfectly good football stadiums at a cost of over 700 million dollars?

Then there was the Powerhouse Museum relocation fiasco, a dreadful initial decision only put right as part of a deal to get the rainbow warrior Don Harwin back into cabinet. And still costing the NSW taxpayers dearly, now that we are going to get not one but two Powerhouse Museums! Parramatta has to have one too. Why not one in every city in New South Wales? (Perhaps Harwin had leverage over the Premier that he used to get his job back).