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Journalism of Courage
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was accused by a government colleague on Thursday of applying a sexist double standard by insisting that a woman lawmaker seek anger management counselling when male politicians’ similar behaviour has been overlooked.
Rudd took the extraordinary step on Wednesday after the lawmaker Belinda Neal was the focus of a series of media reports alleging threatening or violent behaviour.
Neal, a 45-year-old former union leader, has been accused of threatening and abusing staff at a nightclub last week and of kicking an opponent during a recent football match.
Neal has denied threatening or abusing nightclub staff and denied the football player’s account of Neal’s rough tackle, which led to her being barred from playing for two matches in the women’s amateur league she plays in.
But when Rudd interrupted a business trip to Japan to telephone her on Wednesday, she said she accepted his advice to undergo anger management counselling.
“I have agreed that I will attend counselling to deal with how I deal with conflict with other people,” she told reporters after the phone call.
Rudd told reporters in Tokyo that he warned Neal that her political career could be in jeopardy. Neal was elected to Parliament in the November polls that brought Rudd to power.
But Julia Irwin, a lawmaker in Rudd’s Labour Party for a decade, said former party leader Mark Latham was not required to seek counselling when he broke a Sydney taxi driver’s arm during a beer-fuelled argument over a fare.
“We seem to allow some of our male politicians to be aggressive and pushy, but women are expected to be meek and mild,” Irwin told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio on Thursday.
