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.