Junk Explained: Why Is Everyone Wailing On Frances Abbott?
A dubious scholarship, awarded dubiously -- but we seem to be misdirecting the blame.
Yesterday, The Guardian revealed that Frances Abbott, daughter of Prime Minister and massive winker Tony Abbott, received a $60,000 worth of scholarship from the Whitehouse Institute of Design from 2011–2013. New Matilda joined in that evening with a deeper investigation from Max Chalmers and new editor Chris Graham, while The Guardian and Fairfax kept at it, diving headlong into the dodgy circumstances surrounding the scholarship.
Cue the internet digging up everything that Frances Abbott has ever done, and being total jerks to her about it — except this guy, he’s ok.
EXCLUSIVE: the portfolio that got @abbott_frances her well-deserved art scholarship: #auspol pic.twitter.com/LlqRHupIOc
— DiploJOKEus (@davidlawrance) May 22, 2014
Now seems like a pretty good time to catch up on the allegations and the implications that constitute the whole, sordid vista.
What Does Frances Abbott’s Tertiary Education Have To Do With Anything?
In 2011, Frances Abbott met with Leanne Whitehouse, managing director of the Whitehouse Institute, for the first time. In that meeting, she was offered a scholarship from the Whitehouse Institute of Design, an offer that she accepted. This is despite the institute’s stated policy of only offering scholarships during the academic year, and to students who “show exceptional ability and dedication”. The meeting was set up by Les Taylor, the chair of the Whitehouse Institute’s board of governors, and a friend of Abbott’s father.
isn’t it funny how things awarded on merit go to already privileged people a lot of the time, that is such a weird coincidence
— Bec (@Brocklesnitch) May 21, 2014
Now who wouldn’t want a public figure’s daughter attending their school? Good for publicity, right? Well yes, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Taylor has donated at least $12,000 to the NSW Liberal Party, and that that he has given a number of gifts to Tony Abbott as well. Tone has been very good about declaring those gifts with the Members’ Interest Register, which keeps a record of parliamentarians’ potential conflicts of interest — but given that Frances supposedly won the scholarship on merit, he deemed it unnecessary to declare it.
Frances Abbott might have mad design skillz, but given Taylor’s history of largesse towards Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party, the fact that Frances was the only recipient of a rarely-awarded scholarship (known as the ‘Chairman’s Scholarship’ or the ‘Managing Director’s Scholarship’, depending on who you ask), and the fact that the institute broke all precedents in awarding it, it would appear more likely that Whitehouse were bent on doing the Abbott family a large favour.
Why Does Any Of This Matter?
Because, as ICAC has demonstrated, only fools bribe politicians with brown paper bags these days. There’s really no end to the ways in which a citizen might win the favour of a politician — bottles of Grange, fake businesses, and, allegedly, a cheeky scholarship.
Is that what has happened with Whitehouse and Frances Abbott? It’s difficult — and probably defamatory — to say for sure. It’s interesting to note in the New Matilda article, though, that the scholarship arrangement was kept quiet from many institute staff members. This suggests that there might have been some realisation that the deal was not completely above board, at least at Whitehouse’s end. Besides, when has any educational institution ever been this shy about trumpeting its largesse?
Age Of Entitlement
The most awkward thing about the whole issue for Tony Abbott is its timing. If passed as is, last week’s Federal Budget would significantly raise the cost of tertiary study, while simultaneously limiting a prospective student’s alternative options. For one’s daughter to catch a free ride at such a time is a bad look.
Stir in the near-constant refrain about ending the age of entitlement, and the accepting of a dubious scholarship starts to look like hypocrisy of the rankest and most cynical variety.
As infuriating as all of the above is, though, it makes the wave of bile and spite that is currently crashing down on Frances and her slender body of work seem a little misdirected — I won’t link to it, I’m sure you’ll be able to find it.
Tone’s hypocrisy and cynical opportunism does, however, explain the particularly virulent strain of schadenfreude at play. Only this morning, Tone told Karl Stefanovic that “families should be kept out of the front line. That’s the way I’ve always tried to run my political operation – that we play hard but fair. Families should be [left] out of it.”
Given this principled stance, it’s weird how Abbott’s ‘not bad-looking daughters’ keep bobbing at politically expedient moments and for photo-ops. It seems inevitable that this habit would bite him on the arse at some point, and it looks like that point has arrived.
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Photo via AAP