Sexism in politics, or just politics?

The reality is that Rein and Rudd have dealt with a clear conflict of interest in the most sensible way possible. The conflict? The JobSearch policies of the federal government do not fit well with ALP policy - or what the ALP has stood for and professed in the past.

John Howard’s Government abolished the Commonwealth Employment Service. Employment services were privatised. Tenders were called for. Church organisations came into the field with a vengeance. What was the ALP’s position on this? As I recall, there were objections to the Howard Government’s privatisation of employment services. This is the field Ingeus entered.

For quite some time after jobsearch privisation, the ALP raised questions in Parliament about the way funds were being allotted and how the new employment agencies were dealing with job applicants. There were suggestions that job search applicants were being kept on the books for so long as it meant the job search agency would profit, and that they were dropped or moved on when the greatest benefit had accrued. All this was raised in question time by opposition members. And if we went back in time, over the 10 years of the Howard Government and its jobsearch policies, its privatisation of the sector, more areas of contention would be found.

Therese Rein got it in one when she talked about the need to be consistent with ALP policy.

This is not an issue of husbands and wives, or what businesswomen or businessmen should or shouldn’t do when married to politicians and putative prime ministers. It’s an issue of what the ALP stands for, what it professes and whether it follows through.

Yes, partners of politicians have a right to their private lives, to their independent careers and to their own political leanings. But in the end, if the ALP wants to be accepted as a party for the people and a party for principle, it cannot promote leaders who contest Howard Government policies on the one hand, while adopting them in private. It cannot maintain trust if it allows its leaders to pick and choose where they stand, when it is in full flight against government policies and practices.

Let’s concentrate on substance, ignore red herrings, and reserve arguments about sex-gender and politics for instances where they’re really relevant - and count.