I've come to the conclusion that Amanda Stoker is an evil woman. I'm pretty sure she would like to burn those who would speak out against her in Hell before she would ever take her place at the head of the flaming queue to pay for the shite she has dealt out during the short span of time she has been in government.
She's almost in government by accident - but not for the want of trying. In the 2009 Queensland state elections, she sought preselection for the electoral district of Oodgeroo - which encompasses Birkdale, Wellington Point, Ormiston and Cleveland. This seat sits adjacent to the seat of Redlands - where I live. I can be thankful for small mercies that she lost preselection to Mark Robinson and we don't have to deal with her. We have had enough suffering with the federal member for Bowman, Andrew Laming - although Mark Robinson is hardly what I would call a shining example of representation for Oodgeroo and his wife, in 2017, was not above defacing the office of a sitting Labor MP.
Stoker again tried, unsuccessfully, in 2013 for a Senate seat in the federal election. Five years after that, the twice-rejected and unelected Stoker was once again unelected - because she was chosen to succeed George Brandis as a senator for Queensland and practically thrown into the federal Senate. Nor did she have to face a vote from the Liberal National party rank-and-file members. The official reason for her selection was that of merit. The unofficial reason was that the government were short of women and they were on the clock to 'fill a quota' for female representation.
My friend, the Blot Report, has spoken regarding Stoker in his blog
.. but considering her recent elevation to Assistant Minister for Women is a slap in the face for women everywhere - and considering Stoker's stance on abortion, her support for men's activist, Bettina Arndt and Stoker's unwarranted criticism of Grace Tame - I thought we might enjoy an In-My-Opinion post-it note.
If you didn't know Stoker, you'd assume she had come from nowhere, being parachuted into the federal Senate at a very young age - but in reality she had been working towards a government seat for a long time. It didn't matter what government - federal or state - as long as she got there. Stoker began her career as a clerk, then solicitor, with the now infamous Minter Ellison who currently have $93 million in government contracts, are representing Christian Porter in his defamation case against the ABC and recently dismissed Annette Kimmitt, CEO, for questioning the practicalities of their representation of Porter. Minter Ellison obviously know who butters their bread each day and want to keep it that way.
But I digress. After Stoker's second attempt at government - and second failure - in 2014, she became a director at the Brisbane-based conservative think tank, the Australian Institute for Progress (AIP) - not for profit, of course. Although ironically, the AIP are critical of anti-mining groups holding charitable status. Looking at their website I found a dubious little address in Woolloongabba which appeared to be listed on all the real estate sites as being up for lease. The AIP's site content consists largely of a right-wing agenda with Tim Wilson-like calls to use 'super savings' to solve the housing affordability crisis and ironically arguing that the Queensland government sat less during 2020 than the other states - while taking care not to look at the federal statistics for being barely there for the entire duration of 2020. Stoker was also a member of Level Twenty-Seven Chambers, where she worked on nine cases in approximately three years. She is listed as being a member of Level Twenty-Seven Chambers but it is noted that she is now non-practicing as she is serving as a federal Senator for Queensland.
Stoker has done pretty well for herself since becoming a Senator. In 2020 she was appointed Assistant Minister to the Attorney General, Christian Porter. Recently she was also appointed as Assistant Minister for Women and Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations by Scott Morrison in an attempt by Scott Morrison to assure the masses that he was indeed on the job, helping women by appointing women to positions of power within his government. Considering the criticism that Stoker has attracted in her time in the government, I doubt that this will do little to lessen the impact and the problems of misogyny and sexism in the government and will do more harm than good.
Apart from being a conservative right-wing Christian to the point of bigotry whose political heroes are John Howard and Margaret Thatcher, Stoker has spoken out about abortion and opposes voluntary euthanasia legislation. Her website suggests she is anti-Chinese. It also reflects her stance on the transgender community with an online form asking people to 'stand up to the transgender agenda'. So far this has accumulated nearly six thousand signatures. She has a similar form asking people to 'stand up for religious freedom'. It has been there for a while and has only achieved around 2000 signatures but the wording cannot be understated - 'religious liberty in Australia has come under increasing pressure'... 'so-called anti-discrimination acts have been turned into weapons against people of faith' and 'It's time to create a level playing field for religious freedom in Australia. And to do that, our laws must change'... This strikes me as a rather biased point of view considering that according to statistics, 52.1% of Australians identify as religious to a degree. That's over half the population of Australia, so there is hardly an imbalance. Among the statistics, 22.6% are Catholic,13.3% are Anglican and another 8.2% identify themselves as followers of non-Christian religions. The fact that Stoker is twisting the data into something that it isn't is merely to benefit a small number of people. I have to ask myself who those people would be. I have many theories, as I do with transgender, abortion and euthanasia issues. They all tie in with religion at some point - and the only way to control them all is to be able to change religious freedom legislation, human rights. Hence Stoker's preoccupation with Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Hard-line conservatives will certainly cry out 'religious freedom' when it suits them - for example, Israel Folau and his right to be able to say what he likes in public and social media, despite it being bigoted and derogatory, was supported by many on the hard-right. But to those same people it's not okay for a transgender child or young adult to express their view, live openly in public or go to a school of their choice.
Case in point. 'In 2018, Stoker opposed a proposed a bill to remove an exemption in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 that allows religious schools to discriminate against students on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity'. She was 'concerned' that children might want to run a 'gay club' within the school. Stoker wants more religious freedom but less freedom for minority groups.
If Stoker's religious freedom rant were to be believed, I would assume that this would apply to all religions, not just the select few. But in 2018, Stoker was 'promoted as the headline speaker' for a group who wanted to ban all mosques'. The forum was organised by a group who called themselves 'The Sunshine Coast Safe Communities Group' - who opposed mosque developments and were generally anti-Islamic in their views'. The event was titled 'Marxism disguised as socialism'. An interesting topic of discussion for a group who are opposed to Islam, considering Marxism traditionally is non-religious and Amanda Stoker is extremely religious. It would appear to suggest that the group were trying to tie in socialism to Marxism for their own agenda and Stoker was trying to broaden her target audience for her religious discrimination argument. Once the event had been reported on by The Guardian, Stoker cancelled her engagement at short notice.
Stoker wants to repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
She disapproves of women playing the 'gender card'.
She argues against raising minimum wages and penalty rates.
Stoker voted very strongly FOR:
A combined Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.
Continuing detention orders.
Decreasing ABC and SBS funding.
Decreasing availability of welfare payments.
Increasing investment in the coal industry.
Increasing surveillance powers.
Increasing the cost of humanties degrees.
Prioritising religious freedom.
Privatising government services.
Privatising the ABC.
Stoker voted very strongly AGAINST:
A royal commission into banking.
A royal commission into Robodebt.
A royal commission into violence and abuse against people with disability.
An independent inquiry into Attorney General Christian Porter.
Buffer zones around abortion clinics.
Decreasing the gender pay gap.
Doctor-initiated medical transfers for asylum seekers.
Ending immigration detention on Manus Island.
Extending Jobkeeper payment.
Federal action for public housing.
Increasing the youth allowance rate.
Increasing accessibility of government data and documents.
Increasing federal government support for childcare.
Increasing funding for university education.
Increasing funding for vocational education.
Increasing housing affordability.
Increasing diversity of media ownership.
Increasing the Newstart allowance rate.
Increasing trade union's power in the workplace.
More scrutiny of the ADF.
Protecting whistleblowers.
The right to protest.
Transgender rights.
Treating government action on climate change as a matter of urgency.
Universal access to abortion services.
The above is just a smaller list of what Stoker has voted for and against. I have included a link below. This is an appalling representation of a woman who has no right to the title of 'Assistant Minister for Women'. Stoker also has no right to claim that she has any understanding of women's issues while she rejects the problems that many women face in society - affordable housing, limited income, gender bias in the workplace, affordable childcare costs, sexual health issues, limited opportunities for study and access to organisations to help further education and limited access to charities and agencies to help domestic violence victims.
Grace Tame was incensed, and rightfully so, when Morrison made Stoker Assistant Minister of Women'. Stoker supported Bettina Arndt - who in turn supported Tame's abuser - a paedophile who repeatedly raped her as a school girl. Stoker retaliated, saying she 'raised the issue of Arndt to 'highlight hypocrisy' and that she has 'spent her career working for justice for women and children who are victims of crime and unconscionable exploitation'. Perhaps Stoker has, but it certainly hasn't been in evidence since she became a Senator.
When Stoker became a Senator, she assumed a position of power she had always wanted for herself. Now she has been given more. We have many hardworking women in federal government and in state government. Stoker may work hard, but it isn't for the specific purpose that she is meant to be there for. There are many things wrong with this government and the fact that it has simply ignored the voices of tens of thousands of women around the country and merely placed a few women in key areas of government who couldn't be less suited to the task of managing the real and ongoing issues that surround women at work, in public and in the home, is worrying.
Marise Payne - Minister for Women/Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Amanda Stoker - Assistant Minister for Women/Assistant Attorney General/Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations.
Anne Ruston - Minister for Women's safety/Minister for Families and Social Services.
Jane Hume - Minister for Women's Economic Security/Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy.
Michaelia Cash - Attorney General/Minister for Industrial Relations.
Karen Andrews - Home Affairs Minister.
Linda Reynolds - Minister for NDIS.
Morrison has shuffled his Cabinet around to look like he is taking action. He's hoping this distraction will be good enough to mask the issues that will continue unabated if these women are not up to the task of 'managing women's issues' - or any of the underlying issues in this government that have yet to be addressed. In essence, Morrison has done nothing about the misogyny, the alleged rape, the sexual harassment and the bullying. He's just moved a few chess pieces around the board to save that one-seat majority.
Amanda Stoker certainly won't be up to the task for any woman - except herself. She's proven that many times over. I remember Stoker's 'Mandy Jane' pseudonym in 2020 - where she posted to her own official Facebook site in 2020, talking herself up and reposting her own comments while agreeing with herself and arguing for religious freedom, family law and other topics which she wrote about to support her own posts. Andrew Laming was also known to behave in this way. He had many pseudonyms and Facebook group accounts. Only people with agendas bother to take the time to do these things.
I don't expect much from Stoker. I never have. She's there for the power and she has her agenda to advance. She's made that quite clear from day one. I won't be holding my breath for her or anybody else in Morrison's 'special women's ministry' to make it any better for me, other women - or anybody else.
One day, Stoker's luck will run out.