Australian lawmaker's online bullying leave Morrison fighting political fires

[March 27, 2021]  SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, already under fire over his handling of rape accusations in the ruling party, reprimanded one of his lawmakers on Saturday for downplaying an apology for bullying two women constituents.

Morrison ordered Andrew Laming to do an empathy course, and change his behaviour, after he posted frivolous comments on Facebook that raised doubts about the sincerity of his apology. If Morrison expelled Laming, his ruling coalition would be reduced to a minority government.

Laming had apologised on Thursday for online abuse of two women over several years after Morrison had scolded him for his "disgraceful" behaviour.

However, Laming later made light of his "unreserved apology" in a post on Facebook.

"In this climate - I willingly apologise - I didn't even know what for at 4pm when I did it," Laming wrote, adding three tongue sticking out emojis and a heart eyes emoji.

The Liberal Party backbencher pulled down his Facebook page on Saturday.

Laming did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Reuters.

The issue is yet another headache for Morrison, and there is speculation that he will shuffle his cabinet in a bid to quieten the storm over his government's treatment of and attitude towards women.

Two cabinet members - Minister of Defence Linda Reynolds and Attorney-General Christian Porter - have taken extended sick leave.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrives at Haneda airport in Tokyo, Japan, November 17, 2020. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Porter is the subject of an historic rape allegation, which police have decided against pursuing. And there is speculation that the defence minister encouraged a cover-up of a separate alleged rape of a staff member in her office in parliament.

Morrison had been enjoying strong public approval ratings, chiefly for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. But a Newspoll conducted for The Australian newspaper earlier this month gave Morrison's party its worst rating since the 2019 bushfires, as it showed the centre-left Labor party gaining the upper hand.

Addressing the latest controversy during a news conference on Saturday, Morrison said he asked Laming to undertake a course in empathy.

"I want to see behaviour change and we've all got a job to do with that, and he certainly has a job to do on this," Morrison said in Sydney.

Morrison has said he will announce a series of measures to improve gender equality in politics in the coming weeks, and hinted he may now back quotas on female candidates for his Liberal Party at the next election, due by mid-2022.

Female lawmakers make up less than a third of Morrison’s ruling Liberal party, in contrast to the near 50% representation in the opposition Labor party.

(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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