Philip, not only are you absolutely right, but so is the watchful Moderator of The Conversation, who clearly does not have a problem allowing that naughty word in your comment and in the above video clip.

Roxane Paczensky: "Clearly he does." Perhaps Abbott's problems go deeper.
In last night's 7:30 (http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3573785.htm) he was clearly unprepared. Did he not take the interview seriously? Would he have been better prepared, but for the fact that the interviewer is a mere female? From my perspective, Leigh Sales left Abbott with a few chunks torn out.
It seems to me that Abbott's intellectually lazy. He'd much rather grandstand in a Iron Man event or bicycle race than give fully of his intellectual resources. Does disdain for women exacerbate that shortcoming?
I remember one show, on which Abbott and Gillard were both interviewed. A mildly technical question was asked, concerning the NBN. Abbott's response was "I'm not a tech-head". Gillard showed the she'd made an effort to develop a workable, lay understanding. Not a tech-head, by any means, but she at least showed some respect for the audience. Had his opponent not been a mere female, would Abbott have made more of an effort?
Had the occupant of the speakers chair been male, would Abbott have indulged in the puerile remark that resulted in his recent expulsion? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-20/abbott-ejected-from-lively-question-time/4210950

Roxane
thanks for doing the work of collating all of those quotes.

I think they have just invalidated the argument above, namely that it is his political rivals who are 'painting' him as having views that he actually does not hold.

Philip Dowling: "Roxane,
You say "scary stuff".
I am puzzled ...".
Nothing puzzling there. Roxane says scary, I say psychopathic. Neither is more right, just differing reactions.
I think you'll find that most of the electorate is deeply uneasy about Abbott. The most common terms I've heard involve some variation of the term "creep": 'creepy'; 'gives me the creeps'; that sort of thing. Whether that will translate into a loss at the next election, only time will tell.

Phillip

People are entitled to their opinions and to express them. However, a basis in fact, particularly when it is coming from a person in power who is expected or expecting to make decisions that impact other people’s lives, would be advisable. Where it is not based in fact and the person is making decisions impacting others, that is dangerous, and yes, scary stuff.

The question is then, what is based in fact, and what is scary stuff, about what someone in power (in this case Tony Abbott) is expressing? I’ll give it a go.

“Female equality: 'But what if men are by philosophy or temperament more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command?'”

They are not more adapted to this. This comment, framed as a rhetorical question, has no basis in fact.

“The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience.”

Only in his opinion; people who are pro-choice don’t share exactly the same sentiments on the entirety of the issue, which is less about a mother’s convenience and more about a person’s right to choose when it concerns their own body. Again, this opinion is not based in fact.

“If half the effort were put into discouraging teenage promiscuity as goes into preventing teenage speeding, there might be fewer abortions, fewer traumatised young women and fewer dysfunctional families.”

People desire abortions that are not promiscuous and are not teenagers. An example may be a young woman who was traumatised through rape. Dysfunctional families can include, among other forms, nuclear ones that discourage teenage promiscuity. Teenage promiscuity is also not a symptom of family dysfunction; it’s a symptom of puberty interacting with insufficient sex and relationship education; that which says ‘abstain’ to people ill equipped to do so because they’re not also taught to use condoms, respect their partner/s and the self, and are reliant on impulse, myth and peer pressure to guide them. A dangerous brew!

“Why isn’t the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale, say, of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?”

Because Aboriginal people exist in the real world – they have been born and they are here - and some of the reasons why the life expectancy gap exists are due to discrimination based on ignorance, misinformation, and systemic racism. Whereas, ending a pregnancy early on, say within the first trimester, is the biological equivalent to the many occasions when natural miscarriage occurs and does not compare to the suffering of group of peoples artificially displaced within their own damn country.

“Since 1996, contrary to poltical correctness, the Australian parliament has overturned right-to-kill laws and (almost) banned gay marriage. Perhaps a political constituency may even be starting to emerge to ban abortions after 20 weeks. “

Abortions are already illegal in Australia, as crimes in each state. However, some states are not enforcing those laws and there is very limited access to limited forms of abortion, none likely occurring over 20 weeks gestation. Gay marriage is also a separate issue from this, and I’m assuming here the term ‘right to kill’ refers to abortion. There are no ‘right to kill’ laws in Australia, and with the exception of very old and now ceased ‘right to massacre’ practices and capital punishment, there never were.

“The problem is backyard miscarriages if unscrupulous doctors prescribe these drugs for desperate women. “

Is that a genuine comment about the medical issues of RU486, or is this a cheap play on words that takes the issue out context? Quote does not make clear.

“If an application did come to me, I would have to satisfy myself that compelent doctors would administer the drug in safe circumstances to women who had fully considered the alternatives and understood the risks”

That is a fair comment. It is good medical practice to do this. Except, why should an application come to him? He is a politician, not the doctor treating the patient. If he is genuinely concerned about medical ethics, then, registration and oversight systems within this country would be the logical focus of his policy, not a particular drug.

“Even if dispossession is taken to mean that government has a higher responsibility to Aborigines than to other Australians, the production of beautiful art and connectedness to the land does not warrant the maintenance of a way of life also characterised by unemployment, substance abuse and domestic violence. If people choose to live in difficult to service places, that’s their business.”

He is conflating the structural issues of contemporary Indigenous affairs with traditional culture. After all, if these problems were true reflections of the traditional cultures, people would not have survived 50,000 years on this continent. Also, difficult to service places include townships populated by non-Indigenous Australians. It appears that Mr Abbott has here race baited regional Australia and the expense of the health of anyone that doesn’t live in a big city. Or in an easy to service location, like the North Shore, if I may be so cynical, as even suburban Sydney is sometimes considered to be a ‘difficult to service location’.

This comment is not only incorrect but it is despicably so. It fits the definition of ‘scary stuff’.

“I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons”

I hope his opinion has changed over the years because this has no basis in fact. Other than not being able to stand up to pee, women are equally capable to men and vice versa (with men unable to gestate instead). It is actually the case, that male and female human sexual dimorphism is much blurrier than the social binary he proposes, even when compared to other species. It is also the case that even when a person fits into the social binary, this has no bearing on their aptitudes, abilities and interests.

“You don’t have to be a Catholic to be troubled by the current abortion culture”

That is true, as being opposed to abortion is a belief shared by non-Catholics, but characterising debates over abortion as ‘abortion culture’ is sensationalist and inaccurate.

“The Government accepts that some 14 and 15-year-olds might prefer that their parents not know about the medical procedures they have had or the prescription drugs they are on. But children should not be presumed to be the best judges of their own long-term interests and should not have the right to go behind their parents’ backs… The real issue here is whether 14 and 15-year-olds can make informed decisions about what is right and wrong for them. And if they don’t have that capacity, should they be allowed to operate in a moral and ethical vacuum?”

I agree that children are not well equipped to make informed decisions about their long term interests. That is one of the defining characteristics of a child.

Unfortunately, adults, including their parents, are sometimes not equipped to do this for their children. A teen might be scared of being disowned or made homeless or flogged for getting pregnant. This is obviously a matter where social services that support that child’s right to be free from abuse are important, because those actions taken by a parent are abusive.

Nonetheless, a teen may be less likely to have access to those social services, and, may, in some situations, be able to make an otherwise reasoned decision. Social services may be able to provide that teen with appropriate counselling and support to help make a decision that it is in their long term best interests and protect them from what they may fear at home.

Additionally, abortion, and keeping this a secret from the parents, may in some cases be in their long term best interests. Imagine having to get permission from your parents to get an abortion – this situation is far more difficult than let’s say, being caught smoking behind the school toilets – and you’re afraid they will make you homeless for being pregnant and deny that abortion. Well, now you’re a single teenage mum who is on the streets. How is that in your long term best interests?

“The point I make in the book is that a society… is surely capable of providing additional recognition to what might be thought of as traditional marriage…. Something akin to a Matrimonial Causes Act marriage ought to be an option for people who would like it.”

That’s what a pre-nuptial agreement is for. There is no need to legislate this for everyone when only some people will like it.

“On aid to the ‘third world’ funding abortions:
“I just think that surely there are higher priorities for Australia than funding things like that.””

That may be so, however, in some cases the woman may have been violentally raped as an act of war, and now be subject to diseases and poverty as a consequence of the war and rape, and this has long term consequences for her and the child. Should she desire to terminate the pregnancy so she’s not reminded every day of the most horrible thing that happened to her, so that later on, if and when she’s recovered from the trauma, she would like to choose to have a baby that she can love and not – however unintentionally – load that trauma onto, and her ability to this is hinging on a couple of dollars in aid, then, our aid is going to a worthy place.

However, I do agree that preventing war and rape and disease and poverty, would be better uses for the aid more generally. But if Abbott is opposed to any of this aid, due to higher priorities, he would be well advised to change his opinion on asylum seekers. After all, if life didn’t suck so much there, they wouldn’t need to come here.

“On whether a national celibacy campaign would be helpful to counter the rise in teen sexual activity, sexual infections and pregnancies:
“I think that it’s very important that we empower people to reject this kind of rampant sensuality.” “

I haven’t even seen proof that teenagers are having more sex. I have however, seen a cultural shift where teenagers are more open about it. Teenagers (of appropriate age) engaging in consensual sex with each other is a natural act and shaming them is not helping. Advising them on matters of safety, respect, discretion, and if they choose – celibacy, probably would.

“Mr Speaker, we have a bizarre double standard; a bizarre double standard in this country where some-one who kills a pregnant woman’s baby is guilty of murder, but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice.“

Did they kill the pregnant woman as well? This is unspecified and easily taken out of context.
“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up, every year….”

I assume that this is about the carbon tax/pricing system (whatever it really is). This comment is presumptuous in a sexist fashion. Fuddy duddy, outdated. But, other than showing ignorance, it is still the case – albeit in minority – that there are housewives in Australia. That’s the truth of the matter. Generally this is inflammatory and unclear and unhelpful.

” I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak”

It is the right of any person to withhold any actions upon their person that they do not wish to occur, regardless of their gender. To suggest this needs to be moderated is to suggest – perhaps unintentionally – that assault is on occasion appropriate – and I find that position to be abhorrant to say the least.

Nonetheless, the man gets credit for the obvious – people (in his example men, but in my view women also) need to moderate their belief in the right to demand sex from another person. No one has that right.

Sex is ideally, by consent or not at all. Sex by demand, or without consent, whomever is demanding it, is rape. Last I looked, that’s illegal.

This particular comment - yeah, I'd have to agree - scary stuff.

Denis Goodwin: "... psychopathy sound like it belongs in the category of psycho-babble ...". Denial doesn't change fact.
I see by the sudden changes to the flags and the equally remarkable rise in pro-Abbott posts that the Coalition has decided to defend their leader. Fair enough I guess.

Philip, the ultimate clarification was the election result.

So, according to what you are trying to pass off as logic, Roger, any author who actually creates a focus on a specific issue in order to deal with it at some depth is unbalanced.

Do you really want to advance that pseudo argument in public?

See https://theconversation.edu.au/does-tony-abbott-have-a-problem-with-women-labor-certainly-hopes-to-give-him-one-8992#comment_65380

Ken Swanson: "Facts please not hate talk"
Ken, it's a list of quotes, with references. Or are you saying Abbott hates himself?

I read a full gamut of news sources, from the Murdoch and Fairfax twins to Der Spiegel, Crikey, several US capital city papers, the BBC, many different blogs of varying degrees of credibility and newsworthiness.

The first screen of bookmarks on my computer is all news sources of one type or other, along with a few credible reference sources.

I don't bother with what is probably your own preferred source at the ABC, since I can largely anticipate what particular "spin" will be put on every story, unlike the rest of the press. I do listen to ABC local radio though, which tends to be less "latte left" than the web or TV services and much better than RN, which is rapidly disappearing up its own fundamental orifice.