Amazingly, Last Night’s ‘Q&A’ Had Some Excellent Moments That Weren’t About Butts
Buried deep under ButtGate, last night's Q&A was an example of why you love this infuriating show in spite of everything.
Last night’s Q&A is already headed straight to the pool room after some poor sap let a Twitter handle involving Prime Minister Tony Abbott and butt stuff flash up on-screen. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has already phoned ABC managing director Mark Scott to yell about the offending tweet, and if past experience is anything to go by the government’s going to be publicly whingeing about this for the next six weeks or so. That will be fun, won’t it boys and girls. No overpowering desire to join hands and walk into the sea here, oh my goodness no.
@1_linz There is outrage at @couriermail about #abbottlovesanal they set very high standards. #auspol #QandA pic.twitter.com/oRquRLqc9r
— The Pointless PM (@FlatEarthGang) August 24, 2015
But for anyone valiantly struggling against the tidal wave of santorum that we shall hereafter christen ButtGate, there were some pretty interesting and even quite touching moments in last night’s episode. I’m going to try and get them down in writing here so future generations digging down through the layers of compact garbage that was the internet in the early 21st Century momentarily reconsider their extremely accurate assessment that it was a terrible, terrible time and we were all awful.
One of the biggest non-butt themes was women in politics and the challenges and indignities they face because of their gender, especially the trailblazers. Former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who became Australia’s first elected female head of government in 2007, has been pretty up-front about the frequently demeaning treatment women receive in the political sphere for a long time; the title of her recently-released memoir, Through the Wall, is in reference to some of the barriers she herself faced.
One of the most interesting insights Bligh offered was in response to a question asking if she would recommend a career in politics for young women, considering the environment they’d be stepping into. “When you go through the wall of something like that for the first time, of course you get some cuts and scratches on the way through,” Bligh told the questioner. “I don’t want you, and young women like you, to look at the scratches — I want you to look at the hole in the wall, and jump through it.”
Former independent MP Tony Windsor, whose support for the Gillard government helped it maintain office for almost three years, won a few brownie points from the room when he elaborated on Bligh’s point, saying that “women tend to make better politicians than the men”.
But he also drew on his experiences watching Julia Gillard face off against the extraordinary levels of hatred and misogyny that marked her time in office, and offered a pretty strong character assessment. “She went through some extraordinary abuses,” Windsor said. “I saw her cry once. But I think she was probably one of the strongest individuals that I’ve ever met, and I think she deserves great credit not only for being the first woman Prime Minister, but the first woman Prime Minister in the circumstances such as it was.”
.@AnnaMBligh says women should jump through the wall. @TonyHWindsor says women make better politicians #QandA http://t.co/MCETR8fdQ0 — ABC Q&A (@QandA) August 24, 2015
Like Gillard, Bligh was the first woman to hold her political office, and when her government suffered a landslide defeat in 2012 she feared it would be a setback for women more generally.
But as Annabel Crabb pointed out last night, despite the rough treatment they often receive those first female political leaders do succeed in clearing a path for those who come after. Bligh’s opponent Campbell Newman was famously defeated by Bligh’s Labor successor Annastacia Palaszczuk earlier this year, and Queensland now has the first majority-female Cabinet in the country.
.@annabelcrabb says the hardest is the first but number 2 is important. #QandA http://t.co/EvBFwaX4kD
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) August 24, 2015
The discussion also touched on a fairly personal side of Bligh’s life that many watchers might not have fully understood. In Through The Wall, Bligh talks a lot about her father, an abusive, emotionally manipulative alcoholic who inflicted “relentless psychological violence” on her and her mother.
Discussing the book last night, Bligh explained how she consciously emphasised the more personal aspects of her life in the memoir, partly as part of a healing process but more importantly in response to people’s demand to hear more of those kinds of stories from their leaders.
.@AnnaMBligh discusses how reflecting on her personal stories helped her heal #QandA http://t.co/rmBCijkg0Y — ABC Q&A (@QandA) August 24, 2015
None of which, of course, is as interesting as a stupid Twitter handle that slipped through to the keeper, which is why you won’t hear about anything else today. But buried deep under ButtGate, last night’s Q&A had some moments that remind you why you tune in to this usually infuriating but occasionally uplifting show in the first place.