Politics

Scott Morrison’s Latest Attempt At Being A ‘Daggy Dad’ Is Naming Chooks After Ex-PMs’ Wives

"Even when he tries to do something basic and relatable there's something creepy about it"

by Jared Richards  5 October 2020
Scott Morrison's latest cringe inducing Instagram is also a little sexist

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s team has continued to perfect his ‘daggy dad who isn’t responsible for the prolonged suffering of asylum seekers’ social media presence, posting a series of pictures this weekend of Morrison working on a chicken’s coop for his family. Just one thing: he couldn’t help but put some casual misogyny in there, too.

On Sunday, the PM posted a series of staged photos across social media about his weekend plans: putting together a chicken coop for his family. Just like his photo shoot of building a cubby house for his kids who are far too old for one, this is incredibly relatable content.

“Jen and the girls have been keen for chickens for some time,” the PM’s social media manager wrote.

“The other night she finally just decided to order a chicken coop online. It was delivered yesterday and my weekend task today was decided. Next step is to get some chickens. They’re going to call it Lodge Ladies and name some of their chicks after former PM’s wives who lived at The Lodge.”

It was the last point that people noticed, after 7am podcast editor Osman Faruqi pointed it out on Twitter. While we get the cutesy naming convention — chooks = women, duh — it all reeks of old school gender roles, all the while ignoring that we have, you know, had a female PM before. The response was pretty positive on Instagram but on Twitter, many were calling out the casual misogyny.

“Many of these women contributed significantly to our society and were recognised accordingly with high honours,” wrote Dr. Anne Fletcher. “Pretty funny to name some chooks after them though! Because they’re female, and they lived here, just like these chooks!”

Given Gillard wasn’t from the coalition, perhaps she simply doesn’t count — maybe Morrison is making “Jen and the girls” only pick names from his side of politics? Or will there be a rooster named Tim, for good measure?

Beyond the casual sexism, there’s also the sheer awkwardness of the photos themselves.

It may seem like a frivolous thing to make fun of and call out. But given how these photoshoots are feverishly written up and shared by news outlets (including the ABC Sydney and Perth pages, who subsequently deleted their post though the cache remains on Google), it deserves attention.

When asked why they shared Morrison’s post, ABC Sydney‘s Facebook page reportedly responded by saying that “most of the text is from the PM directly” and that it’s “important” to share what Morrison does with his days off.

This is pure marketing for the PM. That’s to be expected of itself, but it perhaps doesn’t need glowing, uncritical media attention — especially while the PM dodges accountability for Australia’s aged-care crisis, the doubling down against renewable energy, and the reduced JobSeeker payments leaving Australians out of work due to COVID-19 completely fucked.

It’s also working, judging by the Instagram comments. Twitter may be more critical, but ScoMo has long abandoned the platform for this kind of soft promotional material, knowing it’s a much more critical platform. Stay tuned for more daggy DIY projects — now they have the cubby and the coop, what’s next?