Every parliament has members capable of pointless and sophomoric Bulletin blurts. However, a bluestocking such as Julia Gillard does not need our sympathy. She is capable of joining Bill in the gutter through her own actions. It was only a few short years ago that Sophie Panopoulos was campaigning for the Liberal Party trying to win the federal seat of Indi. Her ALP opponent said that Sophie Panopoulos was unfit to represent the people of Indi because she was unmarried and childless. Who was it that that was undisturbed about those comments and even joined her sophomoric ALP colleague and helped him to campaign in his quest to win the seat of Indi for the ALP? It was none other than Julia Gillard.

Interestingly Kerry Cue had an opinion peice in todays Herald Sun.

"Women wimp out over insults"

"THE Julia Gillard "deliberately barren" insult fiasco highlights one tragic flaw in women today - we can't take insults.

We can throw insults about. We're good at that."

and I think the best bit was

"If I had to offer advice to women, especially women in politics, on dealing with insults, I would say: "Lighten up.""

However as the first poster noted Gillard aint no shrinking violet in the insult stakes either.

I am a supporter of Bill Heffernan because he is not afraid to say what he thinks. Bill may not always be correct or even accurate but he is a far more honest and dependable politician than many of his well-groomed and politically correct fellow members who with a careful selection of words avoid the issues in front of them.

WE NEED LEADERS WHO ARE NOT AFRAID TO STEP ON THE EGGSHELLS.

"Bill may not always be correct or even accurate..."

Mmm.

Heffernan honest?! If he was really honest he would have included Julie Bishop in his comments. She's just as childless as Gillard. At any rate, Bishop was also offended and Heffernan was cajoled into an apology by his boss - which he obviously didn't mean. And who can forgot the cowardly, dishonest attack on Justice Kirby?

Heffernan seems to spend most of time giving his opponents free kicks. Not very useful for the Coalition if you ask me.

Sille---or is that just plain silly.
Your comment about stepping on egg shells is compeletely in line with Orwell's warning about boots smashing into faces.
And once boots start smashing into faces where does it stop---and who decides which face---perhaps someone has been nursing a petty gripe towards you for however long and wants to get back at you.
I would suggest that the said hefty man (more like an adolescent goon) would be at home in the ministry of "truth".

Perhaps you should go and see the superb film The Lives of Others.

To have children, or not have children. That, methinks, is the question!

Perhaps Senator Heffernan should stop and think for a moment as to just why Australian women chose not to have children in this day and age. Wasn't it his very own Government that made women who had children at a young age, then stayed home to look after them, welfare bludgers? Wasn't it his Government that forced single mothers with children of a certain age to go back to work, some of whom had vastly inferior skills for the modern workforce? These same single mothers are then forced to juggle childcare (not everyone has a family member to look after the kids), whilst trying to pay for childcare on a grossly inadequate income due to their poor educational standards.

And what choice are given them? They can't afford university education thanks to HECS fees and lack of University places courtesy of Liberal policy. Nor can they sit at home only to be subjected to the horrors and degradation of Centrelink. Drug and psych units across Australia are only just beginning to see the results of such policy that the likes of Howard and Heffernan hold in such high moral regard. It only goes to show how out of touch both men are. They belong to a bygone World where men in society were highly regarded and women were there simply as breeding cows for mens personal satisfaction and use.

Women have come a long way. I don't know why Juila Gillard chose not to have children and I don't care. It's none of my business and none of Senator Heffernan's either. What people like Heffernan fail to realise is that Gillard is not a "kiddy factory" and his ideas, like that of his PM, are well out of date and so is this present Federal Government. Any member of either and all parties that sink to such low depths in order to score political points should be immediately sacked. Decent Australians are sick to the stomach of such dirty politics. Time for a change.
Wildcat.

“no baby puke crusting that neatly striped lapel” - Depreciation of babies.

“very big boys”. - Depreciation of men in the mining industry.

“Howard, too, is starting to look like a man of the past.” - Depreciation of a person because of their age.

“Next to all of that, Heffernan looks like - well, you fill in that blank”. - Deprecation of a person because of their appearance.

I think the author scores very well in their ability to make personalised remarks and depreciate others

Bill Heffernan's comments reveal more about himself than Gillard. I'm glad someone pointed out his embarrassing and reprehensible plot to destroy Justice Kirby a few years back. For those of you who might have forgotten:

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/article_1103.asp

Heffernan is the quintessential slimeball politician. The only reason he is even in Parliament is because the Liberals keep him on their senate ticket. Unlike Gillard, no electorate would dream of voting in Heffernan as their local member. He should have been kicked out years ago...

So "he says what he thinks" (SILLE)That's exactly why I can't stand him - I always know what he thinks.

He's our very own Karl Rove.

Adele Horin's column in Saturday's SMH was interesting. Essentially, she made the point that some issues such as childlessness should never be raised the way Heffernan did with Gillard. Some couples may have wanted to have children but have not been able to do so. To outsiders, who don't know their circumstances, they may seem to be "deliberately barren" as Heffernan put it in his archaic fashion.

There are a few things Heffernan and his supporters need to shut up about. Comments like "you should have children" or even "you should lose some weight" are so personally offensive they should never be uttered. That's not "political correctness", the old cliche that morons trot out. It's called respect. The likes of Heffernan need to learn that or get out of public life.

How ironic.

The deepest suspicion, disrespect and disdain for carreer focused unmarried childless women tends to come from... women.

The suspicion that women have for these types of women is a few orders of magnitude beyond the same feeling that they have for 40-something year old batchelor types.

Methinks that Heffernan was merely tapping a generalised community attitude and appealing to the latent distrust that many men and women have for single-minded careerists who eschew family.

Voters are inherently conservative in nature. When was the last time you saw a fatherless, unmarried man elected to the top job?

The fact that women turn this into a personal issue that specifically reflects on their gender speaks volumes. And that women to whom the comment wasnt directed are taking offence. Speaks to personal insecurity and betrays a level of immaturity that drives identity politics.

Now, if only, we could actually talk policies rather than 'he said, she said' cry-baby insults and retorts. The thing that grabs me about political 'debate' is that its usually marginally removed from the level of debate a couple of 7 yr old invoke during recess.

These people are running the show. No wounder there is so much cynicism and resignation about pollies in the general community.

Penny Wong for PM, that would give really Heffernan the irits. Grin.

There is no doubt that Heffernan put his big foot in his even bigger mouth, but that was his opinion and he is entitled to it. He did not lie simply said it how he saw it.
Both sides would appeal more to the thinking public if they kept the party clean. If either side resorts to insults it is because that side is deficit in common sense and courtesy.
Simple isn't it?

Quite right Mikijo,

There is no doubt that Heff's comments will do and have done far more damage to himself and the Liberal Party than to Julia Gillard and the ALP. Interesting to hear that Gillard has a double standard of her own though...

On the subject of Heff, maybe we should give him an evening gown and a pipe...

Ho Hum,

Reading one book or seeing one movie rarely changes someone's world view. It is more likely to reinforce one's own view. I know people just like you, people who are utterly convinced that if I just go to see that Mike Moore documentary, or read that book by Noam Chomsky, I will somehow see the error of my ways.

Bill Heffernan is probably the stupidest politician in federal parliament (no mean feat). He made the dumb remarks about Gillard last year. Likewise the classic remark suggesting that priests should be able to get married 'because priests, like the rest of us, wake up with a horn at 4 in the morning' . Being interviewed for the Bulletin this year he stood by these dopey comments, despite the fact that Gillard was now deputy opposition leader. http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/titfortat-week-with-labor-the-winner/2007/05/04/1177788391587.html

Of course this is the man who told fellow National, Fiona Nash, to "blow it out her backside" (he sure has an ear for poetry), in public at Canberra Airport. The man who stole Green how-to-vote cards, while shouting "If you want to decriminalise drugs for your children, vote Green." The man who attacked Justice Kirby in Coward's Castle with a fabricated document. The man who John Hewson alleged had "dirt files" and had used them "for almost as long as I have known him". The man who (according to Alex McTaggart) was running the campaign to get rid of John Brogden. The man.... well, that's probably enough for now.

This oaf should be given a boot up the a--a (to use one of his milder phrases) and given a one-way ticket to Junee.

As an aside, I can think of the US Secretary of State and the German Chancellor on the conservative side of politics who are childless. On the left (well, sort of) the leader of Socialist Party in France and the Speaker of the House in the US are women with children. Okay, so it's a selective example and there are mothers on conservative side as well. But the point is Heffernan really scored an own-goal by insulting childless women. If Howard keeps this dropkick on, he risks alienating more women voters. Not wise in an election year.