suffered blistering after being bathed in a weak kerosene solution as a cure for scabies. This led to a national outcry over the standard of care in Bishop’s department.

She was sacked.

Great quote from @Tony_Burke following Bronwyn Bishop's embarrassing backdown on segregating women in Burqas. #AusPol pic.twitter.com/HanqSGi0cv — Kiera (@KieraGorden) October 20, 2014

John Howard was again shocked when, in 2005 ‒ backed up by the delightful Sophie Mirabella ‒ she called for Muslim headscarves to be banned from public schools.

Howard said this was impractical.

Bishop’s latest slap down was perhaps her most embarrassing.

She was in the running to lead the Inter-Parliamentary Union — an organisation of parliaments that promotes democracy. She came second to Bangladesh’s Saber Chowdhury in the final round at the assembly in Geneva and there were candidatesfrom Indonesia and the Maldives — a trio of Muslim states.

But it fell apart when she unilaterally declared that Muslim face coverings would be banned from the visitor’s gallery in the House. She claimed she made the decision on the advice of the Security agencies. That was untrue and Abbott made her recant.

Before she made that blunder I wrote to the IPU and enclosed pictures of her and Mirabella standing in front of those disgusting Ditch the Bitch, Brown’s Bitch placard against Julia Gillard, pointing out how inappropriate it would be for her to lead the IPU.

Mr Chowdhury is now the leader.

Bronwyn Bishop is a woman of many parts.

Few of them qualify her for the high office she now holds.



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