A female federal politician has taken to Twitter wearing a bin bag to slam sexist attitudes in Australian media.
South Australian Liberal MP Nicolle Flint posted the odd but powerful video yesterday from her offices in Canberra.
Flint, 42, has been the member for Boothby since the 2016 election and in the video details such alarming incidents as being targeted by a male stalker and having her campaign office defaced with the words “skank” and “prostitute”.
However, it was Flint’s appearance on Monday night’s episode of Q+A that appears to have been the final straw and impetus for the video.
Flint, a former solicitor, slammed media veteran and commentator Mike Carlton who, during the Q+A episode, allegedly tweeted that fellow panellist and singer Jimmy Barnes had “shown great restraint by not leaping from his seat and strangling [Flint]”.
The pollie then set her sights on ABC radio host, Peter Goers, who recently wrote a column criticising her glossy brochures issued at taxpayers’ expense and Flint’s wardrobe selection.
In the column, Goers wrote of Flint’s “pearl earrings and a pearly smile” and “vast wardrobe of blazers, coats and tight, black, ankle-freezing trousers and stiletto heels”.
In the video, Flint asks Goers: “What should a woman in politics wear?”
“How about a garbage bag to match your rubbish views,” Flints said, while removing her coat to reveal a grey bin bag cinched with a belt.
Goers has not responded to the video.
Flint’s video won immediate praise from her fellow poilticians.
Labor’s Anika Wells tweeted “I’m with Nicolle Flint. The standards expected of women politicans are garbage.”
Another Labor MP, Madeline King, also took to Twitter to declare: “I stand with Nicolle Flint,” saying the kind of sexist rubbish she had copped belonged “in the bin”.
