AUSTRALIA:A senior Australian politician has created a storm by telling a magazine that an opposition member did not deserve a leadership role because she had decided against having children.
Bill Heffernan, a close friend of prime minister John Howard, described Julian Gillard, the deputy leader of the opposition centre-left Labor Party, as "deliberately barren".
"If you're a leader, you've got to understand your community," Heffernan, a 64-year-old senator in the centre-right Liberal Party, told Bulletin magazine yesterday. "One of the great understandings in a community is family and the relationship between mum, dad and a bucket of nappies."
Mr Howard distanced himself from Heffernan's comments but also rejected a call from Labor leader Kevin Rudd to demand an apology.
"I'm not telling people whether they should apologise or not," Howard told Sky Television.
"I'm just stating my own view - I do not think whether you have children or you don't have children is something that should be an issue in a political debate."
Ms Gillard, who has never publicly explained her decision not to have children, dismissed Heffernan as old-fashioned.
"The reality is that modern women know all about modern women's choices. Mr Heffernan is a man stuck in the past," the unmarried 45-year-old said.
Gwen Gray, an Australian National University expert on women's issues and politics, suggested there was a double standard at work.
"I don't want to be sexist, but I've heard stories about many men up there in Parliament House who'd hardly know they had children because they spend so little time with them," she said.
"So is there a difference between having children and spending almost no time with them and deciding not to have children in the first place?"
Heffernan was not immediately available for comment. - (AP)