Margie Abbott

The visibility of Australian political partners in previous elections has largely been limited to a cursory podium-left guest appearance at a campaign launch or a glossy magazine photo spread that perhaps involved a Labrador.

Come election time, leaders’ wives have traditionally been wheeled out like ceremonial oxen. They were marketing props offered up to the electorate to assure voters that however brusque the candidate may seem, their devoted, polka-dot sporting frau’s visceral devotion would attest to their deep, inner, hitherto unseen, sensitivity.

But since Australia last went to the polls, there has been a sizable shift in the role which politicians’ partners assume in the wider political narrative.

Continue reading "A political WAGS tale" »

It is week two of the election campaign and we have hardly seen the prime minister’s partner, Tim Mathieson. I can’t remember an election campaign where voters have seen so little of the candidates’ better half. So what is going on?

Even the erratic Mark Latham travelled around Australia with the gorgeous Janine Lacy in tow. Yet, so far, apart from the odd appearance in Canberra, Ms Gillard’s boyfriend of four years has not been seen.

If Australia’s first female PM is formally elected by the people on August 21, she will make history by being the first person in the top job to be unmarried and living in The Lodge. (The only other PM not technically married while in office was the then recently widowed John McEwen, who held the top job from late 1967 to early 1968. He married soon after.)

Continue reading "Come on Julia, let’s see some more of Tim" »