The Lord of the Flies style public persecution of Belinda Neal for her private behaviour is probably now over after the Ruddster threw some red meat yesterday to the rapacious mob in the form of ordering the MP to get some "counselling" but not before two bizarre offerings from certain scribes.
WHEN NEIGHBOURS MAKE GOOD FRIENDS
The first was Andrew Clennell, a chap who glories in the title state political editor of the Sydney Morning Herald who was reduced to door-knocking among Ms Neal's neighbours in Woy Woy soliciting slag-offs:
"I've heard them arguing, fighting and throwing things, she's a mouth on her," one neighbour said.
Three other neighbours in the small dead-end street agreed.
"You can hear the language, you can hear the throwing. She's the one that does all the calling and the abusing," one said.
Puh-lease. Mr Clennell is so very lucky he lives in Sydney, if he was camping out in Melbourne the OC would see how we'd go checking with his neighbours about his domestic situation.
I'd wager we'd find at least one willing to comment about his selfish car-parking, late-night noise-making, flatulence, unkempt front-yard or some such. The relevance of it? Well, we'd have to work on that.
GRUMPY DUFFER JIM LLOYD
Even stranger was the normally sound Brad Norington who not only sought out Ms Neal's son's former trumpet teacher for her pitiful and odious free character assessments on the parliamentarian but also obtained the commentary of an independent kind from Jim Lloyd, the uninspiring old dope (allegedly an opponent of voluntary student unionism) who suffered a huge swing against him at the last election, despite being given a cushy junior ministry to distribute much largesse.
With Ms Neal beating him by just 184 votes after the distribution of preferences, the former Coalition minister for local government, territories and roads said the gift to Ms Neal could easily be withdrawn in 2 1/2 years at the next election.
Mr Lloyd vented his frustration at Ms Neal's behaviour since taking over Robertson at the November election, claiming she had whittled away community support.
Quite possibly she has but he would say that, wouldn't he?
Lloydy is one of those blokes who works hard on being seen as a harmless gentleman in a hat while sharpening the blade with a quiet intensity:
Mr Lloyd told The Australian he was frustrated not because of his election defeat but because of what he had observed of Ms Neal's performance since then.
And if you believe that, you'd surely also be interested in the exciting new land subdivision we could hook you up with, known as Moon Vistas.
But lest you think Lloydy isn't beyond a low blow personal attack, he thinks that Ms Neal should get out of federal politics because her husband is a state MP:
He said he was concerned that a husband-and-wife team from the same party in both federal and state politics could not work for the local area.
Charming.
But taking the cake in the charm stakes was the alleged victim of Ms Belinda Neal's alleged soccer violence.
Ms Amy Parslow, a twenty-year single mum who paraded her baby son on A Current Affair last night apparently is what the Americans would cruelly call white trash. We're just as cruel.
ACA SHARES THE LOVE WITH FORKED TONGUE SINGLE MUM
And in the true spirit of Jerry Springer journalism, they even paid the young shrew for her fictional account which basically accused a federal MP of criminally assaulting her in front of dozens of witnesses by means of repeatedly kicking her on the ground. It's just fanciful.
No one else will call her what she is so we will. Ms Parslow is a jumped-up liar. Other witnesses with far more credibility disagree with her account.
And now we know why she's lying, she's turned it into a nice little earn. She's had thousands of reasons to lie.
It was probably the most sympathetic treatment dished out by ACA to an unmarried welfare mum in many years. Someone even splashed out on a new hairdo for the young bimbo. She even had the temerity to say she didn't know she'd be getting all this attention, presumably before she'd posed for cameras, kicking a ball around, pushing a pram around a park.
FIFTEEN MINUTES OF SCRAG FAME
She seized her fifteen minutes of trashing someone else's name fame with alacrity, being urged on by her mates.
Trouble with Amy Parslow was that while the slack-jawed yokel had clearly been taken by a woman twice her age with a soccer tackle, it was nothing like the spiteful incident she claimed it was.
Anyone watching soccer as much as this Chelsea fan knows that even pretty reasonable attempts at the ball in sliding tackle form that trip up the opposing player can get you red-carded pretty easily. It's not like Aussie Rules.
EYE-WITNESS CONTRADICTS PARSLOW
We linked yesterday to the sole independent eye-witness account in the public domain where a soccer coach accused Parslow quite directly of lying about the incident and twisting a tough but legitimate soccer tackle into a Jackie Chan style on-field kicking incident. He didn't mince his words on the 2UE interview telling Steve Liebmann that Neal was a very fair player who'd never been carded before and that he thought the tackle was entirely kosher.
In the frenzy of the moment yesterday, it seemed no-one wanted to listen to reason about the whole thing, from PM Rudd and DPM Gillard down. So Ms Neal is off for counselling and after the week she's had, it will no doubt be welcome as she attempts to comprehend a bizarre world where rude-ass staff in a pub and north coast NSW white trash prove the truth that a lie can be half way round the world before the truth has even got its soccer boots on.
Game on.
UPDATE: And while it is OC policy to never agree with Julia Irwin, on this occasion we must. There's no doubt Belinda Neal's "anger management issues" would be a non-issue if she was Gareth Evans, Wilson Tuckey or Robert Ray or Steve Conroy, all of whom are famous for losing their cool in spectacular (and often quite effective ways). We have a very different standard of expectations for how we think women should behave and that's just as bogus as the preposterous lies of guttersnipes like Amy Parslow running around collecting her cash for comment and reptilian staff at Iguana Joe's who just happened to have their sworn statements vetted and signed off on by the staffer of a political opponent.
since failed candidate 
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