I think this article in the SMH sums it up perfectly:

"The opposition moved a motion to remove the Speaker of the House, Peter Slipper, on an accusation of denigrating women, and obscenely so, in private text messages to a staff member.

The moment Gillard rose to defend Slipper and keep him in office, she chose to defend the indefensible, to excuse the inexcusable. The government had spent a month vilifying Tony Abbott for having "a problem with women". But when one of the bulwarks of the government was exposed as having a problem with women, it was suddenly acceptable.

But isn't that what we've come to expect from all politicians - choosing power over principle? Don't they all do that? That is the point. If there was one thing that should have been different about Gillard's prime ministership, it should have been that Australia's first female prime minister should have been a flag bearer for women.
Remember when she ascended to the prime ministership? She was greeted with a surge of approval in the polls as Australians anticipated a refreshing change.

She started on her long trajectory of electoral disillusionment when, bit by bit, she revealed herself to be just another politician. That trajectory reached its lowest point yesterday when she showed she was prepared to defend even the denigration of women if it would help her keep power. If Gillard will not defend respect for women, what will she defend? Just another politician indeed.

Gillard berated the Coalition for endorsing Slipper as a candidate for Parliament in his former life as a Liberal before he betrayed his party to take the Speaker's job. But after abusing the Coalition for defending Slipper in the past, she mobilised her government to defend him in the present. The government managed to garner the barest majority, 70 votes to 69.

Four hours later, this was revealed to be a waste of political capital when Slipper resigned. He recognised what Gillard could not - that he was a lost cause.

Gillard's judgment was flawed. All she achieved was a serious loss of credibility.

200 plus text messages, and we see six. I presume they were the juiciest ones. The decision must be tough. 200 text messages would take a lot of printing paper , not to mention the ink.
It's pretty poor that six messages were singled out, to be chosen for print.

579 do not defend Slipper.
We had him for less than a year.
SMs mob hide him for 28!
He wrote some, the worst, of those things from their side.
SM dislikes him for his taking a vote from Abbott,s tent, nothing to do with filth and bad behavior.

I am not defending Slipper, I think it's odd only a selected few get published.
The ones that did get published were not harassing any one.
Abbott is sending mixed signals again in Indonesia.
What he says there is not what he says here. No doubt we will hear all about it.

So in the end, exactly what has Slipper actually done?

Has he been charged with anything? No.

Did he perform badly as Speaker? No.

Does he have a flawed character? Perhaps.

The "evidence" against him is some unsavory text messages between him and Ashby (at least one in response to Ashby originally calling Mirabella a "botch") - many of which were made while he was in the LNP and would normally never have become public.

Slipper's "crime" was to betray those LNP sponsors who supported him and concealed his private activities for years but then decided to hand his seat over to somebody else.

When it comes to self-righteousness, many others have questions to answer too.

579, Rache,

You labor supporters continually surprise me with how low your expectations of your representative MPs are. But considering the vile acts of Thomson, I shouldn't.

Ministers and particularly the speaker are held to a higher standard and as the police minister in Queensland had to resign for driving without a license (even though he claimed it was in ignorance) so a speaker of parliament is not expected to send vile texts to others.

This is not hard to understand, but maybe for the Labor voters I should use small words.