The big divorce

Firstly allow me state that I am no fan of Tony Abbott. I have never voted for the Liberal party and I will not vote at all in the next federal election because there is not a politician or party deserving of my vote.

The increasingly bitter and viscous discourse playing out in our political institutions is actually the symbolic Big Divorce between the men and women of Australia. I see it as stage-three feminism manifest on a national scale.

The whinging, nagging and point-scoring went on for years, then the arguments, name-calling and blaming, and now we are seeing the full custody struggle and division of property. We are the "kids" and "Australia" is the property.

The polarisation of Australian society along gender lines has been increasing steadily for many years. The statistics and personal stories are there for all to see. But now the marriage breakdown seems to have entered an acute stage and it is being played out in our federal parliament and on every television set throughout the country.

It is not just Julia (The Mum) and Tony (The Dad) squabbling, it is wholesale, and it is nasty, selfish, and destructive. Many of us have been through it before and know that it can only get uglier!

As in most divorces, caring, consideration and all other positive feelings quickly dissolve, compassion and decency are soon history, the claws are out and it becomes a public fight to the death urged on by "friends, families and lawyers".

As in most open contests and legal proceedings the public’s sympathy is naturally with the woman, as is the bias in the courtroom, but there still has to be at least a semblance of fairness, and claims against the enemy party supported by real evidence.

Hearsay and anecdotes are powerful, and a great way to stir up emotion and bolster support, but even the divorce court has to be seen to operate within loose legal parameters requiring evidence and credible witnesses; just as the court of public opinion which will hand down its electoral verdict in twelve months time will demand genuine evidence that the feminist Gillard government has done well by the Australian people and isn’t simply diverting attention from its ineptitude by screeching “Sexist!”.

It seems to be not uncommon practice for people to make unsubstantiated accusations when they want to win but in the case of Tony Abbott being accused of being sexist and misogynistic by Julia Gillard I haven’t seen anything in Abbott’s behaviour or any examples from Gillard that would convince a fair-minded person of that.

Perhaps she feels certain that simply accusing a man is enough for him to be considered guilty; it has worked so well and so often in the past, but Julia’s faulty assessment may be a symptom of spending too much time surrounded by sycophants and completely indoctrinated feminists that don’t realise that the accusation has been done to death.

Maybe the closed circle of like-minded female chauvinists don’t like to acknowledge that only about 20% of women self-identify as feminist, and the huge shift in wealth from males to females, and the dramatic number of dismantled families has diminished the power of victimhood feminists have exploited for so long.

Julia Gillard has shown herself to be a hypocrite and Tanya Plibersek and others have displayed an arrogant assumption that the general public are dopes. Nobody wins in a divorce, especially the kids, so I hope this messy bit of parliamentary implosion has a better outcome than so many of the other divorces that have ripped this country down the middle.