SJF says:

"The question of whether or not Ms Neal's husband put her there cannot be answered.....".

I beg to differ.

It was widely accepted after the 2002 NSW State elections that Belinda Neal intended seeking ALP pre-selection for a seat in the Central Coast region. The need was for a safe ALP seat, rather than a marginal ALP or winnable Liberal seat, for even back then Belinda's sense of entitlement and perception as being a divine gift to Australian politics was far from being hidden from the politically aware hoi poloi, and was recognised as an electoral liability.

The problem was that the only safe ALP seat was the seat of Peats, held by a well known and respected ALP Member Marie Andrews. It has long been accepted wisdom on both sides of politics that performing sitting members are not challenged for endorsement. Marie had performed.

During the interval between 2002 and 2006 there was scheduled to be a routine redistribution of NSW electoral boundaries.

John Della Bosca, in his then role of Minister for the Central Coast, was regarded as having a lot of input to the redistribution recommendations of the ALP to the Redistribution Commissioners. Those recommendations sought to remove a rural, more Liberal voting, sub-division from Peats into a proposed new seat centred on Lake Macquarie. They also proposed the attachment of some localities around Gosford to the otherwise essentially unaltered electorate that had been Peats to make up the numbers.

The key recommendation was proposal of the abolition of the NAME of Peats, and its effective re-naming as the seat of Gosford. That way, when it came to pre-selection, Marie Andrews would in narrow technicality not any longer be a 'sitting' member in the *new* seat.

Belinda would have been free of the convention whereby sitting members were not challenged.

Word is someone proposed, presumably on John Della Bosca's behalf, that the new Lake Macquarie-centred electorate be named 'Della Bosca'. That was just too much for the Commissioners. The wheels subsequently came off that dirty little plan.

SJF also says, in the rest of that unfinished sentence already quoted:

"....... and it is not meant to be answered.".

SJF, I think you're right on the money there!

I see the article as being an attempt at diverting public attention from the true cause for Belinda's opprobrium, her own bad behaviour and ludicrous claims as to having done nothing wrong throughout this ridiculous affair, to some claimed victimhood to stereotypical male portrayals of women.

Could the article be seeking to rehabilitate the public image of Belinda? I think likely so.

In that circumstance, establishing on the balance of probabilities that Belinda obtained her endorsement because of the position held by her husband would be very damaging to such attempted rehabilitation of her's, and, to the extent her reflection falls upon it, her Party's, public image.

For, you see, whilst her husband is a recognised power-broker and accomplished king-maker within her Party, deep down he is such a nice bloke. He wasn't really trying to inflict Belinda upon the electorate, just humouring her. He knew her chances, or anybody else's, against Jim Lloyd were Buckleys.

John was not to know Belinda would be just one of the many beneficiaries of an electoral event that saw in her own electorate vote claims made against 98.89% of all the names on the roll, and in some others, claims in excess of 100% of all names. An all-time historically high (and over-high) turnout!

It was Belinda who was trying to inflict herself upon the electorate! Belinda made John do what he did, and in doing so had perpetrated a form of domestic violence upon the poor bloke. Therein lies the problem.

You see, in allowing Belinda to remain in the Parliament, in the absence of her rehabilitation, Kevin Rudd's government would be seen as effectively saying:

"To overbearing bullying and domestic violence by God's gift to Australian politics, Australia says YES!".

What's the betting Belinda made John claim spousal privilege during the police investigation into the events at Iguana's?

SJF:"I refuse to keep responding to a broken record. "

I'd be happy if you'd simply stop responding LIKE a broken record. The fact is that Belinda Neal is a very unworthy recipient of the public's trust as a MP. Your efforts to paint her as a victim are, frankly, ludicrous.

Do try to get over the "female as victim" mindset you are so keen on. Give women the respect owed to people making their own decisions, good or bad. As it stands, you'd have us believe that a powerful woman in the ALP is a hapless victim of the machinations of the nasty people in the media, instead of a nasty manipulator who did her best to coerce others into talling lies on her behalf when she got caught behaving badly. What a joke.

Forrest Gumpp

Although you are nowhere near as bombastic as the unfortunate Antiseptic, you have fallen into the same prejudicial trap of assuming that the author is playing the woman-as-victim card.

Your knowledge of the insider workings of the ALP is impressive. However, the public was not conversant with all the ALP’s pre-selection and insider machinations either before or after the Iguana incident. Its response to Ms Neal was almost entirely based on the media’s limited but extremely vehement portrayal of her behaviour.

Antiseptic

‘Your efforts to paint [Ms Neal] as a victim are, frankly, ludicrous.’

As is your ignorance of what the author actually wrote. Ms Neal may be a lot of things, but a victim is not one of them.

How anyone can continue to believe that the truly hysterical public reaction to both her and Ms Morgan was directly proportionate to the degree of their bad behaviour is beyond belief, but I’m not wasting any more time arguing the point on this thread.

"Zoo Weekly is a magazine that promotes a very traditional style of gender relationships"

I just had to buy a copy of this mag to see what all the fuss was about.

I couldn't find any recipes or anything about housekeeping. It did have advice on sex.

There were some articles on nature.

There were heaps of pictures of airbrushed, computer enhanced girls. Most had boobs that looked like they were inflated with an air pump.

It was pretty hard to find the articles amongst the pictures.LOL

I must be getting old, because I couldn'f find a decent picture to use as a pinup.

The author says:

"Since this scandal Belinda Neil has also been dogged by hell-hounds determined to thug-witchify her beyond all contextual belief in the limits and extent of women’s wickedness.".

SJF says:

"How anyone can continue to believe that the truly hysterical public reaction to both her and Ms Morgan was directly proportionate to the degree of their bad behaviour is beyond belief, ...".

Substantially co-located with respect to the more informed Central Coast public, as already mentioned, is another female Parliamentarian in the much more currently unpopular NSW government, Marie Andrews. Across the political spectrum I don't think anyone local to the area feels threatened by her gender in her representational role.

As to the media exposure seeming excessive, such is only due to the absence of genuinely inquiring journalism being the norm. This just shows that the mainstream media can do its job if it wants to, but is in general being editorially dumbed down.

Its most telling exposure was that of the claimed threat Belinda Neal made to a rank-and-file member of her Party in alleging 'sexual assault' after that member attempted to retrieve a document she had snatched from him, in public, in a bullying manner. A lawyer by training, Belinda's first resort was seemingly to the big guns of threatened criminal process.

I particularly remember this piece of reporting, because it happened around the same time as the tragic murder, in an ongoing domestic violence scenario, of Karin Bell's three children. It was claimed that one of the factors in there having been insufficient credit given to the need for the issue and enforcement of AVOs in that case having been the prevalence of the extent to which such orders are sought by persons abusing the process for personal vindication.

Belinda's reported behaviour constitutes one of the worst examples leading to degrading of response as comes to be experienced in other genuinely serious situations.

That's the real context.

When is the Commonwealth Parliament going to wash its hands of this blood, and expel Belinda Neal?