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Australian leader panned for `insulting' housewives

Australia's opposition leader was accused yesterday of insulting housewives after saying his successful business-owner wife showed that modern women are no longer "appendages of middle-aged men."

Rudd said on Thursday his wife, Therese Rein -- a self-made multimillionaire and mother of three -- should be entitled to continue her successful business career if he were elected to power.

"Part of the reality we are dealing with here is this is the age of professional women who run their own companies, who have their own lives and are not simply the appendages of middle-aged men," Rudd told reporters.

Government minister Peter Dutton said Rudd's remark showed he does not respect women who stay at home to raise children.

"That's an offense to all stay-at-home mums," Dutton told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

"My wife is tertiary-educated, she's a professional woman and she has taken a decision to stay at home and look after our children as tens of thousands of mothers do across the nation," he said.

Sarah Maddison, a University of New South Wales expert on gender issues, said Rudd's comment was merely "stating a reality of modern life."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard did not directly attack Rudd for making the remark, but said he "should have used a different expression."

The center-left Labor Party, which promises fairer labor laws if it wins government, has been embarrassed by revelations that Rein's job-placement company is under investigation for allegedly underpaying staff.

Rudd said he did not know about the allegation until shortly before it was revealed in newspapers on Thursday.

Later yesterday, Jackie Kelly -- a rising star in Howard's government until she resigned from the Cabinet in 2001 in order to have children -- announced that she was quitting Parliament altogether to focus on taking care of her family.

"It's a bugger of a life ... harsh, unforgiving, relentless, without a break," Kelly said of politics.

"Financially, emotionally, personally, family-wise ... every other way conceivable ... my family is better off with me at home for 365 nights a year, rather than the 100 nights a year I spend in Canberra," she told Southern Cross Broadcasting network.

The role of women has been a political issue since earlier this month when a lawmaker called Rudd's deputy, Julia Gillard, "deliberately barren" for choosing not to have children because of her career.

The lawmaker later apologized for the remarks.
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