Sky News host Rowan Dean says the furor around Liberal staffers being caught out filming themselves participating in sexual activities in Parliament house, including masturbating over the desk of female MP should be directed at homosexual men, saying it has nothing to do with male culture in Australia.
Chatting with his Outsiders co-hosts Rita Panahi and James Morrow, Dean commented on the Prime Minister’s Tuesday morning press conference in the wake of the Channel Ten report.
“This has really irritated me about me this, the thing that really triggered the tears and the ‘mea culpa’ press conference was this activity, as you described, a group of staffers cavorting around in a very unsavory manner on various desks, one of which was a female Minister. Now the truth of this matter is that this is a group of homosexual staffers, let’s not beat around the bush, the idea that this has something to do with basic male culture in Australia is complete garbage.” Dean said.
Dean said there needed to be more focus on the LGBTIQ+ community’s role in the scandal, and homosexual leaders needed to address the staffer’s actions.
“This was a group, who for whatever reason – and it’s great that we’ve got a diverse and inclusive parliament, terrific, but I did not hear – I mean if that had been a group of footballers behaving like that it would have been ‘Oh, you’ve brought the footballing community into shame’, if that had been a group of whoever, it would have been ‘Oh, you’ve done this terrible thing.’
“I did not hear one single senior MP or senior Minister who identifies as homosexual coming forward and criticising this mob, this group of guys for the most despicable acts, and why is mainstream male heterosexual Australia being blamed for this? What has this got to with men, supposedly Australian men having a problem with Australian women – it’s complete garbage…to label this as something that can be fixed with female quotas is obfuscation and it’s lying and not telling the truth. That’s what’s disgraceful to me about this week.” Dean said.
Dean went on to say the Prime Minister had fallen into a Labor trap by showing support for female quotas within the Liberal party.
“Scott Morrison has fallen into the classic Labor trap, he has gone straight down the kind of rabbit-hole of identity politics, he’s fallen into the trap, what a weak leader.
The host then went on to restate homosexual politicians needed to show more leadership and accountability for the staffer’s actions, and there was no cultural problem with mainstream Australian men.
“I’m going to say this on behalf of the men of Australia – I am fed up to the back teeth of being blamed as if we had some kind of cultural problem with women, I’m sorry it is not in the Australian male culture to sit around jerking off on people’s desks, it’s not part of the Australian male culture.”
“I’m sorry but to have the Prime Minister smearing half the population of this country as some kind of cultural problem, I’m fed up with it to the back teeth, I seriously am, and if we’re not going to identify problems for what the genuine problem is – this was bad behaviour by a group of men who need to be called out by their role models, by the people within parliament they look up to, and stop attacking mainstream male Australia for a problem which we do not have.
“Mainstream Australian women know full well that this one of the greatest countries in the world, and I tell you they’d rather be here than pretty much any other country in the world because of the way male and female Australians love each other and work together.” Dean said.
Dean’s not alone in pointing the figure of blame at the LGBTIQA+ communities, Lyle Shelton the former head of campaign against marriage equality said the leaders of the Yes campaign from the 2017 postal vote needed to take responsibility for “their minions”.
“Where are the Yes Campaign leaders condemning this disgusting treatment of women? If Morison has to answer for rape culture in Parliament House, surely the Yes campaign leaders should be answerable for what their minions have done.” Shelton posted to Twitter.
On the ABC’s Insiders program journalist Patricia Karvelas shared her thoughts.
“I saw people on the weekend saying, ‘this is different though, this is gay male culture or something’. I have a lot of gay friends, I am gay. I know a lot of people who are gay, and they go to work and they do not masturbate at work. I think it is deeply offensive to suggest that people with jobs across the country, that this is some kind of normalised behaviour.
“‘This is a particular problem of this culture. This is not a bigger broader cultural problem’ – I find that kind of offensive that this could be conflated as a cultural issue in the broader gay community. This is not normal behavior in a workplace. It’s disrespectful and it’s not a safe environment for women to work in.” Karvelas said.
The scandal involving gay staffers filming sex acts was just one parliamentary scandal this week that involved people who are LGBTIQA+. On Wednesday Peta Credlin, Tony Abbott’s former Chief of Staff, said that she had previously uncovered evidence that gay staffers were regular hosting orgies during Question Time. Since leaving politics Credlin has launched a new career as a Political pundit on Sky News.
OIP Staff
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