Her Politics: Scapegoating Peta

Posted on 9 January, 2015

Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin. Creative Commons: (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

When talking to my friends during the 2013 federal election campaign the observation I made most often was that Tony Abbott’s minders had to be completely exhausted. A man who habitually put his foot in his mouth to offend wide swathes of the voting public had somehow pulled himself together enough to not only remain on message, but to spearhead an electoral campaign which took the Liberal party into government.

The person responsible for this change was the Prime Minister’s now chief of staff, Peta Credlin.

Last month, Credlin was blamed for the Government’s problems and accused of micromanaging the Prime Minister by some ministers and members of parliament. She’s an interesting choice of scapegoat, particularly as she is simply doing the job she was asked to do. In 2009, the Liberal Party powerbrokers chose Abbott, a man who regularly alienated voters by opening his mouth, to lead them to the next election. Enter Credlin who, since joining Abbott’s team in December 2009, has worked hard to manage Abbott’s image and message.

Peta Credlin has been extremely successful in making Abbott presentable to the voting public. Now, the Liberal party powerbrokers are attacking the very same woman for doing her job.

But it’s not about her being a woman. It’s about Credlin being the only person who could make Abbott presentable enough to elect.

The ministers and members of parliament who have criticised Credlin seem to have forgotten she is doing the job they asked her to do and are now resenting how well she has done it. From an image point of view, Abbott could not have a better person to consistently appear at his side.

It’s not a bad thing that the Prime Minister, a man with a reputation as a misogynist not popular with female voters, has a strong, confident woman as his Chief of Staff. Add to this the fact that as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Credlin attends Cabinet meetings, speaks at Cabinet committee meetings, speaks for the Prime Minister when asked questions by donors at high level fundraising events, performs the dual administrative and enforcer roles needed by the Prime Minister’s closest advisors.

These are roles which have been performed by Prime Ministerial Chiefs of Staff since the role was created by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1972. Credlin is not doing anything different or unusual as she fulfils her role.

Something to remember about politics in Australia is that it is generally run by faceless (male) powerbrokers that operate in back rooms without notice. In the last five years Australian leadership has been overthrown twice by faceless men in the background of the Labor party.

The problem the Liberal party powerbrokers have with Credlin is that she is not faceless. She is honest about her role in the Australian parliament.

She’s not faceless; in this age of immediate news and social media saturation Credlin had very little chance of being an anonymous chief of staff operating in the background. Credlin is also someone who naturally stands out, not least because she is a woman.

Read through any article about her and as much mention is made of her height, her appearance, her independence, and the way she dresses as her impressive intellect and high level of competence in managing the chaos that is a Prime Ministerial office.

Most importantly, perhaps, it’s always easiest to scapegoat those who are different and stand out from the crowd. It’s interesting that our parliamentarians, elected to lead us and run the country, resort so quickly and easily to such small-minded tactics when things aren’t going the way they want.