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AUSTRALIA-US-POLITICS-WOMEN
Melania Trump ‘mistook former female Australia FM for partner’
SYDNEY, March 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Australia’s former foreign minister says
she was mistaken for the spouse of a politician by US First Lady Melania
Trump, in her latest comments on the subordinate role of women in
conservative politics.
Julie Bishop has been vocal about the treatment of senior female
politicians since she stepped down after the ouster of former prime minister
Malcolm Turnbull last year.
Bishop, who was Australia’s first female foreign minister and deputy leader
of the Liberal Party, is among several senior politicians from the centre-
right government set to quit parliament at upcoming national elections amid
expectations of an opposition win.
She told a talk in Adelaide Saturday that Melania thought her partner David
Patton was Australia’s foreign minister, instead of her, after President
Donald Trump stuck up a conversation with him, the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation reported.
“Melania, standing by, assumed David was the foreign minister and she said
to me: ‘Julie, will you be coming to my ladies’ lunch tomorrow?,” Bishop said
of the encounter at the UN General Assembly Leaders’ week in 2017.
“And I said ‘No, David’s going to the partners’ lunch’. She thought about
that for a while, thinking: ‘Why would Australia’s foreign minister come to
the partners’ lunch?’
“So this went on for a while until the president explained that I was the
foreign minister.”
Australia’s embattled minority government has been accused of having a
“women problem”, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently boosting the
number of female politicians in his cabinet to counter the criticism.
One cabinet minister who is also leaving parliament, Kelly O’Dwyer,
reportedly said as a warning in a party meeting several months ago that the
Liberals were widely viewed by voters as “homophobic, anti-women, climate-
change deniers”.
Bishop said she was not comfortable being the only woman among 18 men in
cabinet after Turnbull’s predecessor Tony Abbott won national elections in
2013.
“This isn’t fine. This is not completely normal,” she said of the
situation.
There have been growing calls for the Liberals to introduce quotas to
improve the low levels of female representation in the party.
This is not the first time the issue of sexism has been raised in
Australian politics.
Former prime minister Julia Gillard became a torchbearer for women around
the world in 2012 with her fiery speech about misogyny in parliament, where
she accused Abbott of sexism.
BSS/AFP/RY/1642 hrs