The Attack Dog

As far as the Liberal Party is concerned, Bill Heffernan is a necessary evil.

He has no major following of constituents, no portfolio to attend to, and doesn’t have to worry about re-election to the Senate until 2010. What’s more, his connections in the NSW Liberal Party, including a close friendship with John Howard, will ensure that he’ll get in on the top of the NSW Senate ticket. And no matter how unpopular a major party is, the person on top of each state’s Senate ticket gets elected.

With his place secure, Bill Heffernan has nothing to do but political dirty work. With Barnaby Joyce stalling on the sale of Telstra last year, it was Heffernan who brought him back into line, no doubt at the suggestion of the Prime Minister. But with the need for an united front this election year, Howard’s beloved attack dog has decided to focus his aggression on the other side of the Parliamentary chamber, specifically, Julia Gillard.

So in an interview with PBL’s The Bulletin, nominally about agriculture in the Top End, Senator Heffernan made a comment about Gillard that was little more than an aside.

He was picking off flaws in the Labor Party’s frontbench, and his comment about Julia Gillard was one that was little else but sexist. He stated that Gillard’s decision to remain “deliberately barren” made her unfit for leadership.

"One of the great understandings in a community is family, and the relationship between mum, dad and a bucket of nappies,” Heffernan said.

As shocking as it was to most of the population, Heffernan’s comment may well have been rather shrewd. Heffernan is rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things, being little more than a loud-mouthed backbencher, and his comments won’t sabotage the Coalition’s bid for re-election. But what it did manage to do was activate some deep down levels of chauvinism in some sections of the Australian population.

The comments were condemned by the media, the newspaper letter-writers and the Opposition, but not by everybody. A silent segment of the community may forget about the economy, education and climate change and decide on voting Liberal so that they don’t have a woman as Deputy Prime Minister. Heffernan’s comments may galvanise the chauvinists like Pauline Hanson did the racists.

The argument that a childless woman is unfit to be Deputy Prime Minister will hold no water in political circles, but Heffernan was appealing to the talkback radio crowd rather than the academics. In a Labor Government Julia Gillard would hold the same position as Mark Vaile does now. Does the average Australian know if Mark Vaile has children? Would the average Australian be able to select Mark Vaile from a line-up?

The most successful thing about Heffernan’s comments was not the effect they will directly have on the voters, but the way they diverted attention away from the ALP National Conference. The other big politics story of the week was all about Kevin and his dream team, and the Coalition seemed powerless to stop it. All it took was for a pig-headed backbencher who doesn’t have to worry about re-election to take the spotlight away from the conference and point it somewhere completely trivial.

The Coalition has been throwing plenty of mud at the Opposition this year, but little of it has stuck. Senator Heffernan certainly doesn’t seem averse to doing some of the Government’s dirty work. After all, a bit of political dirt pales in comparison to a bucket of nappies.