“Are you serious?” is one of three common reactions to the latest outrage emanating from the morality-challenged NSW branch of the Liberal Party: that its upper house MP Peter Poulos five years ago circulated explicit photos of a woman because she was a rival in a preselection contest.
The second reaction, spread over social media, is “Well, what did she expect?” because — and I can’t believe I have to type this — the photos were from a Penthouse modelling shoot some decades earlier. Apparently, according to this worldview, the exercise of agency over your own body is something you only get to do once. If you’re a woman, at least.
But back to Poulos. Let’s be clear about this: his reason for spreading the images was personal political gain. That’s implicit in his apology and statement that this was “a regrettable mistake”. Understandably, because the other possibilities are that he is a misogynist and/or a pervert.
Whatever the putrid truth about his motivations may be, this guy is a member of Parliament. On what planet is his behaviour tolerable? He wasn’t a 21-year-old when he did it — he was in his 40s, a hardened political veteran.
Which brings us to the third reaction, that of Premier Dominic Perrottet — a recent apologist for his own prior inexplicable acts. What did he think of Poulos’ conduct, he was asked? “Incredibly inappropriate”, Perrottet labelled it, just not inappropriate enough to warrant any sanction whatsoever. Instead, what he had for Poulos was forgiveness: “people make mistakes”.
A mistake is forgetting to put the garbage out. Posting explicit photos of another person without their consent is not a mistake. It is even further removed from a mistake than wearing a Nazi uniform to your birthday party.
Perrottet’s response wasn’t merely tone-deaf. It was on par with Tony Abbott winking in the radio studio when a sex worker came on the talkback line. It speaks with unmistakeable clarity of the sickness that has infected the Liberal Party so deeply that it can no longer instinctively distinguish the most gobsmackingly unspeakable, unforgivable outrage from political business as usual. And Perrottet, for all his oddities, seems to be one of the nicer ones. God knows what these guys are saying behind closed doors.
Least surprisingly, some “Liberal women” are apparently unhappy with the absence of consequences for Poulos. Not enough to go public with their concerns, but sufficient enough to raise them in internal party correspondence that’s been leaked to the media. Great, but at what point do they realise their silent presence is not changing a thing?
The politics of this are obvious. The Liberal Party will continue to lose votes — of women but also many men — if it continues to present itself as a collective of overgrown frat boys.
The ethics are worse. It is simply untenable to suggest that a party, which sees no reason to expel Poulos for what he did, has any remaining legitimacy as a serious party of government. Walking past this standard means this government has no standards at all.
Does Peter Poulos deserve to be expelled from Parliament? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
