Dear Julia

I am getting so much spam from The Libs, Julia — it’s gross.

This came today from Steve Irons — currently member for Swan (that’s my marge electorate).

Apparently he is a ‘single custodian father’ (as @MisterShuffles would say: What The Quack?!), which qualifies him to talk about paid parental leave.

Also, apparently I am the only person in my household of three who is qualified to get spam about paid parental leave.

I live with my boyfriend and my brother and while usually get two copies of everything* I was the only one blessed with this particular marvel.

Apparently I might be planning to have a family and might care about PPL…. but my definitely boyfriend isn’t ………

I heard Andrew Robb being interviewed by Lyndal Curtis this morning and was GOBSMACKED by their whole father-at-the-mother’s-wage thing.

Wow. Not only are they ADMITTING that women get paid less (let’s leave THAT issue for later!)… They are punishing dads AND families at the same time?!

And then ARobb JUSTIFIED IT (ignoring the pay gap, but continuing the sexism) by saying the whole point of the policy was to let MOTHERS BOND WITH THEIR KIDS even though they are begrudgingly letting the ladies back to work because we need more cogs in the machines so we need to keep them in the workforce….

Wow. I honestly didn’t think it’d be possible to get SO MUCH SEXISM INTO A SINGLE POLICY!!!

You cannot let this slide, Julia! This is atrocious!!

Now… I heard about Laurie Oakes’ cabinet leak scoop thingy… And I don’t really care whether or not you supported it or not or if you didn’t what your reasons were.

It’s been a few weeks now and I realise that we probably have different views on what colour the sky is, so, frankly, your opinions mean jack to me any more.

What I still have a tendril of hope / faith / whatever in is your consultative approach (and hey — PPL eventually got through so hurrah).

Maybe you’ll listen to me on just one thing, eh?

Anyway, so yeah, if you do, it’s this: fight back on the bullshit sexism crap from the bastard Tories, ok?

Call them out on absolute crap like this, and those bloody journos asking about Tim’s involvement in campaigning and all that crap.

Tell them to get stuffed. Diplomatically, of course. But do it.

Point out that we’re not in the fifties any more and that neither women NOR MEN in this country will put up with this rubbish any longer.

Thanks in advance,

Sunili

PS: I just glanced at the comparison table on the back of this letter… Is it true that the ALP policy doesn’t pay dads? Because, ok, that is effing lame. Fix that You might as well call it Paid Maternal Leave. There is no way women can have careers AND kids without society normalising the dual role that is needed by both parents (no matter what gender…… I will also leave THAT issue til later…) in order to even have a shot at making it work. So fix it. Don’t punish dads. Because that’s sexism too.

* Two copies of all addressed campaign spam: apparently the AEC think my brother and are married due to the common surname, cause we get joint mail — though, strangely it’s addressed to ‘Mr & Miss’… It’s clearly not for paper saving purposes cause why would the boyf ges his own… again: WTQ?)