In the dry, sprawling expanse of the Farrer electorate, where the dirt clings to your boots and the Murray River dictates the rhythm of life, words usually carry the weight of a handshake. People out here value plain speaking. They like a candidate who looks them in the eye and talks about water rights, fuel prices, and the survival of the family farm. But there is a line where "plain speaking" curdles into something else—something that reveals more about the speaker than the subject.
Richard "Dick" Gower, the One Nation candidate recently set to challenge Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley, stepped over that line. He didn't just step over it; he trampled it with a comparison that has sent ripples far beyond the dusty roads of Albury and Deniliquin.
By likening former Prime Minister Julia Gillard to a "non-productive old cow," Gower didn't just use a rural metaphor. He invoked a specific kind of dismissiveness that treats leadership, gender, and human dignity as line items on a livestock ledger.
The Ledger of Worth
Think about a paddock in mid-summer. The grass is bleached gold, the heat is a physical weight, and every head of cattle represents a calculation of survival. A "non-productive cow" is a liability. She is a mouth to feed that offers no return. In the brutal logic of the farm, she is destined for the truck.
When a political candidate applies that terminology to a human being—let alone the first woman to hold the highest office in the land—they aren't just being "politically incorrect." They are signaling a worldview where a person's value is tied strictly to their utility as defined by the observer.
The comments, unearthed from a 2012 social media post, surfaced just as the political machinery of the next election began to hum. In the post, Gower suggested that Gillard should be sent to the "abattoirs" alongside the metaphorical livestock. It is the kind of rhetoric that supporters often defend as "larrikinism" or "tough talk," but for the people living in the electorate, it raises a sharper question: If this is how he views a Prime Minister, how does he view the women in his own community?
The Ghost of 2012
To understand why these words sting a decade later, you have to remember the atmosphere of the Gillard years. It was a time of intense polarization, where the "ditch the witch" placards weren't just background noise; they were a fever pitch.
For many women in regional Australia, watching Gillard navigate that gauntlet was a vicarious experience of the glass ceiling. They saw a leader scrutinized for the shape of her earlobes, the cut of her jackets, and the status of her kitchen. Gower’s "old cow" comment wasn't an isolated jab. It was a leftover scrap from a feast of vitriol that many Australians hoped had finally been cleared from the table.
Sussan Ley, the incumbent Gower seeks to unseat, occupies a unique position in this drama. As a high-ranking woman in the Liberal Party, she has navigated her own share of the "boys' club" culture. The irony is thick: a man seeking to represent a diverse electorate by using language that would be HR-coded as "toxic" in any modern workplace, aimed at a woman who once held the job he’s indirectly vying for a seat under.
The Mechanics of the Fringe
One Nation has always traded on the idea of being the "voice of the forgotten." They position themselves as the only ones brave enough to say what everyone else is thinking over a beer at the pub. It is a potent brand in regional areas where people feel abandoned by the "Canberra bubble."
But there is a difference between being a voice for the underdog and being a megaphone for malice.
The facts of the matter are simple. Gower is a former farmer and a local businessman. He has lived the life of the people he wants to represent. He knows the struggle of the drought and the frustration of the bureaucracy. That lived experience should be his greatest asset. Instead, it has become the camouflage for a brand of rhetoric that feels increasingly out of step with a nation trying to move past the gender wars of the early 2010s.
When asked about the comments, the response from the party or the candidate often follows a predictable script: It was a long time ago. It was a joke. People are too sensitive these days.
Consider the impact of that defense. It suggests that respect has an expiration date. It implies that "true" Australians shouldn't care about the dignity of their leaders. But if you walk through the streets of a town like Griffith or Narrandera, you’ll see women running the local councils, leading the SES, and managing multi-million dollar agricultural enterprises. They aren't "productive assets" to be graded; they are the backbone of the region.
The Invisible Stakes
Politics is often sold as a battle of policies—tax brackets, infrastructure spends, water buybacks. But at its core, it is a battle of culture. It is about who we decide is worthy of a seat at the table.
When Gower used that phrase, he wasn't talking about Gillard’s carbon tax or her education reforms. He was attacking her essence. He was using the language of the saleyard to describe the halls of Parliament. The danger isn't just in the insult itself; it’s in the permission it gives to others to view their neighbors, their colleagues, and their leaders through a lens of dehumanization.
The electorate of Farrer is a massive, diverse slice of Australia. It deserves a contest of ideas. It deserves a debate about the future of the Murray-Darling Basin and the viability of regional healthcare. What it doesn't need is a regression into the basement of political discourse.
The real cost of this rhetoric isn't found in a poll or a headline. It’s found in the young woman in Albury who looks at the political stage and sees a "Keep Out" sign written in the language of the paddock. It’s found in the father who has to explain to his daughter why a man who wants to lead the country thinks it’s okay to compare a woman to an animal destined for slaughter.
The Long Walk to the Ballot Box
As the election approaches, the noise will only get louder. There will be flyers in mailboxes and signs on fences. Richard Gower will likely continue to campaign on the platform of being a "straight shooter" who tells it like it is.
But voters are sharper than the political operatives give them credit for. They can tell the difference between a straight shooter and a loose cannon. They know that you can be tough without being cruel, and that you can be rural without being regressive.
The comparison of a human being to a "non-productive cow" isn't a sign of strength. It is a confession of a limited imagination—a failure to see the person behind the politics. In the quiet of the voting booth, when the only sound is the scratch of a pencil on paper, the people of Farrer will have to decide what kind of language they want representing them in the capital.
Words matter. They build the world we live in, or they tear it down, one insult at a time. The paddock is for cattle; the parliament is for people. And forgetting the difference is the first step toward losing the very "Australian values" these candidates claim to protect.
The sun will rise over the Murray tomorrow, indifferent to the squabbles of men. The farmers will be out in the paddocks, and the shopkeepers will be opening their doors. Life goes on. But the stain of a cruel word lingers, a reminder that the most important thing we cultivate in this country isn't wheat or wool, but the way we treat one another when we think no one is watching.
Would you like me to look into the historical voting patterns of the Farrer electorate to see how these controversies typically impact One Nation’s performance?
