Peta Credlin criticism is sexist, Tony Abbott tells Coalition colleagues
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Version 0 of 1. Tony Abbott has told some of his Coalition colleagues to “take a long, hard look at themselves” when they criticise his chief of staff, suggesting that sexism influenced some of the complaints. The prime minister strongly defended his most senior adviser, Peta Credlin, after MPs and some ministers privately raised concerns about centralisation of decision making in Abbott’s office. Abbott said people could tell him if they had a problem with his office, because his staff did what he asked them to do. He said it was the same office that “ran a very effective opposition” and “got an enormous amount done this year”. Abbott told the ABC in an interview on Friday: “Do you really think that my chief of staff would be under this kind of criticism if her name was P-e-t-e-r as opposed to P-e-t-a?” When the interviewer, Lyndal Curtis, told Abbott his comments were a message to his colleagues, the prime minister said: “I think people need to take a long, hard look at themselves with some of these criticisms.” The comments follow reports of tension between Abbott’s office and the deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, and Coalition members criticising decisions made by the prime minister’s office. The social services minister, Kevin Andrews, said Credlin was doing “a bloody good job in difficult circumstances” and colleagues should “not get diverted by personalities”. “I think there’s a lot of mischief making going on at the present time,” Andrews said on Friday. “Let me be blunt about this: we’re not changing leader, we’re not changing treasurer, we’re not changing the chief of staff. Our job is to get back to the task that the people of Australia elected us to do and that is to fix up the enormous mess that we’ve inherited from the Labor party.” Late last year a Liberal National party senator went public with his concerns. Ian Macdonald, who was demoted from the outer ministry after the 2013 election, told the Senate the prime minister’s office displayed an “obsessive centralised control phobia” over every aspect of parliament and he would not be bossed around by “unelected advisers”. The former Howard government minister Peter Reith said Coalition MPs had raised genuine concerns about centralisation in Abbott’s office. Reith said Abbott should rethink the role of his staffers in communicating with members of the backbench. “I think it’s a bit of a mistake on Tony’s part to throw in the gender claim, quite frankly,” Reith told Sky News on Friday. “I think there is some reform necessary [on how the prime minister’s office operates] and Tony would be wise to put to the side gender issues and focus on genuine concerns and worries people have had, generally on the backbench but also some ministers.” The former Gillard government minister Craig Emerson told Sky News: “Oh the irony of Tony Abbott playing a gender card. He spent three years criticising Julia Gillard for speaking about women’s issues and the treatment of women, condemning her for talking about the treatment of women, and then he plays the gender card. The longer you stay in and around politics the less you’re surprised about the way the wheel turns.” The Palmer United party leader, Clive Palmer, was widely criticised in June for personally targeting Credlin in a speech to parliament about paid parental leave. |