Peta Credlin

A woman most Australians had never heard of put herself out there this weekend in the most startling way. Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin, who until now has been described as “intensely private”, detailed her experience with IVF as a way of highlighting the humanity of her boss - the Leader of the Opposition.

It’s a pretty rare thing for someone to speak out about a medical process which is, ironically, becoming increasingly common. With the exception of a small handful of “personalities”, most IVF patients go through it in private. So as political interventions go, Credlin’s decision to go public is filled with meaning.

Political watchers spent yesterday reading the tea leaves and concluding that Julia Gillard’s YouTube sensation misogyny speech had made a dent and Liberal polling must be showing that the extra efforts of Abbott’s wife Margie to defend his record on women’s issues were not having as much impact as hoped. Amid the tea leaves, however, was a telling piece of information straight from the source, Credlin herself.

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