12 June 2013
Subjects: Julia Gillard gender war
E&OE…
TOM ELLIOTT Ms Bishop, good evening.
JULIE BISHOP Good evening, delighted to be with you.
TOM ELLIOTT Now your colleague, Tony Abbott, is he a misogynist as the Prime Minister has said a number of times?
JULIE BISHOP Absolutely not. It’s offensive and quite frankly juvenile for the Prime Minister to claim that. She really does trivialise what it means to call somebody a misogynist, a woman hater. I’ve worked closely with Tony Abbott for over 15 years and from my personal experience, my personal observations, I’ve found him to be very respectful of women. He has great relationships with his female colleagues and works exceedingly well with them.
Indeed I recall a time when Julia Gillard used to delight in spending time with Tony Abbott and it’s only since she became Prime Minister and has been found to be wanting in so many respects - her misjudgements, her miscalculations, her general incompetence - that she seems to blame Tony Abbott for everything. She’s become obsessed with blaming Tony Abbott for her woes. This latest rant about the gender war just goes to prove my point. This isn't the Tony Abbott that people know and love and respect. Julia Gillard is making up a fiction for her own purposes.