March 04, 2019. Labor’s Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek take the Liberal Party to task for their treatment of women, from complaints of bullying, to the failure to vote for the consistently higher rating Julie Bishop when Malcolm Turnbull was ousted as Prime Minister.
Source: Daily Telegraph
Emma Husar, speaking in parliament:
“I do not object to the media doing their jobs, but misrepresenting members is not one of them. I respect those who have shown ethical and good conduct while reporting. Let me be very specific. At 9.33 am on 2 August, Ms Alice Workman of BuzzFeed published the most damaging article. In it she claimed that she had requested my comment. She had not. This is false.
…
As a result of this initial misrepresentation, over 225 articles were re-published, each and every single one of them misrepresenting me in so many respects. Within 36 hours of this gross misrepresentation and the slut-shaming smears going viral, I was asked to resign as the member for Lindsay”.
Source: Hansard
Comment: If Husar was misrepresented by Buzzfeed then why was she asked to resign as Member for Lindsay?
Later, a spokesman for the NSW Labor branch released a partial statement:
…in a statement in response to the John Whelan report (which NSW Labor will not release in full), a spokesman for the party branch said: ‘Based on this assessment, there is no basis for Ms Husar to resign from the Australian parliament’.
Source: The Guardian
So why was she asked to resign?
It seems that the ALP has a “women problem” – someone – whoever asked her to resign – had no faith in her statement that she had been misrepresented.
Meanwhile, in the defamation case against Buzzfeed, her barrister told the Federal Court that:
“There is no evidence Labor MP Emma Husar engaged in ‘indiscriminate sex’ and BuzzFeed cannot prove she is a ‘slut’ who boasted about sexual encounters”
Source: SMH