Julia Gillard was subjected to the highest proportion of opposition questions of any prime minister on the floor of federal parliament in recent decades, a new study has found.
More than 21,000 Question Time questions were tracked in the study that looked at the tenures of 10 prime ministers.
The study, first reported by the Australian Associated Press, showed how the tactics by oppositions in Question Time have changed over the years. For example, prime ministers were asked just 26 per cent of questions in the early 1980s, but the nature of political theatre has changed to see prime ministers field about half of all questions from the opposition in the past decade.
Gillard, Australia’s first and only female prime minister, was the most heavily targeted prime minister in the study, receiving 62 per cent of all questions from the then Tony Abbott-led opposition.
The next highest was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at 56 per cent.
The study’s authors noted a gender dynamic at play during Gillard’s prime ministership, including that opposition strategies “appear to have been shaped by gendered contestation and public claims that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was misogynistic”.
“In this context, Question Time tactics shifted toward greater use of the deputy leader, a woman, Julie Bishop, to ask questions,” the study said.
The study also pointed to existing research that found women leaders are often subjected to higher levels of personalisation in political questioning than men. It may explain why Gillard found herself on the receiving end of the highest proportion of opposition questions compared to other prime ministers.
Daniel Casey, one of the study’s authors, told AAP that politics has become more personalised and centralised around party leaders in recent years. Question Time in particular is “becoming a heavyweight title fight” focused on prime ministers, letting ministers “off the hook”, he said.
With Tony Abbott as the opposition leader during Gillard’s prime ministership, there was an increased level of personalisation at play. The dynamic eventually resulted in Gillard’s now famous ‘misogyny speech’, where she declared she would not be lectured on misogyny by Abbott, “not now, not ever”.
It has gone down as one of the most memorable moments in Australia’s political history.
At the time, Abbott had been photographed at a rally next to signs that read: “Juliar…Bob Brown’s bitch” and “Ditch the witch”.
Gillard, who is now the Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, has since said that when it comes to her experiences as prime minister, “Gender doesn’t explain everything, it doesn’t explain nothing, it explains some things.”