When a "Ditch the Witch" billboard truck rolled around Melbourne on Friday night targeting Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, Anthony Albanese had a public statement out by the weekend. The campaign was "a disgrace", he said, and the people behind the material should withdraw it immediately.

The speed wasn't the problem. The selectivity is.

The femicide royal commission he won't call

On 18 May 2026, Albanese was asked on Hit100.9's breakfast show in Hobart whether his government would call a royal commission into violence against women. Host Christie Hayes was holding a petition that had collected more than 91,000 signatures. Five women had been killed allegedly by men known to them in the previous week. The 2026 toll stood at 27.

"What does a royal commission do besides fund lawyers?" Albanese said.

Hayes pushed back. "I think deaths of women are pretty paramount, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah, they are," Albanese said, "but you gotta work out what does a royal commission do, besides fund lawyers."

Hayes told the Daily Mail after the interview the response was "very tone deaf and so out of touch". Sherele Moody, founder of Australian Femicide Watch and the petition's author, said women "deserve to have a light shone on the violence we endure".

Two years earlier, after three women had been killed in Ballarat over the space of two months, Albanese had declared violence against women a "national crisis". When the formal inquiry was put on the table, it became something that funds lawyers.

The PM has previously described royal commissions into antisemitism and veteran suicide as "the most powerful form of inquiry we have". The mechanism appears to be powerful when he chooses to use it.

Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence report released in August 2025.

The rally organiser he made cry, and the ones he didn't show up for

At the No More rally on the lawns of Parliament House in April 2024, Sarah Williams, founder of the What Were You Wearing movement and the rally organiser, welcomed the PM and Women's Minister Katy Gallagher in solidarity.

Albanese took the microphone. He told the crowd he and Gallagher had been denied the opportunity to speak.

Williams, standing next to him on camera, said: "That's a full out lie."

She then burst into tears.

The PM kept talking. Williams later posted on Instagram that Albanese "lied to his country", that her office had only ever offered Gallagher a speaking slot, and that "Albanese's office made it clear he was just walking and was not interested in speaking". She said the rally was held because Albanese wasn't "doing enough", and that he "walked to that stage and listed your achievements to try to save yourself".

He hasn't apologised. Williams said no-one from the Prime Minister's Office reached out.

That was the last major women's safety rally Albanese has been photographed attending. Across the International Women's Day weekend in March 2025, Australian Femicide Watch and the Red Heart Campaign ran memorial protests in 14 cities and towns, including Alice Springs, Adelaide, Melbourne, Geelong, Bendigo, Orange, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Sydney, Newcastle, Roebourne, Hobart and Port Macquarie. The femicide toll at the time stood at 117 women killed since January 2024, including 14 since the start of 2025.

The Prime Minister sent Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth in his place. She defended the government's $4 billion investment under the National Plan. The leader's seat at the table didn't get filled.

The culture war line on women's spaces with Sall Grover

On 15 May 2026, the Full Federal Court dismissed Sall Grover's appeal in Tickle v Giggle. The court ruled Grover's women only social networking app had directly discriminated against Roxanne Tickle, a trans applicant, and doubled the damages to $20,000.

Nationals MP Alison Penfold introduced the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sex Based Rights) Bill 2026 to restore biological definitions of "man" and "woman" to the Act. Albanese rejected the bill and dismissed concerns about the impact on women's shelters, change rooms and single sex spaces as a "culture war".

Liberal MP Melissa McIntosh said the response treated 13 million Australian women as "just a culture war". Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody, who supports Albanese's position, called the Penfold bill "retrograde".

Grover has indicated she'll take Tickle v Giggle to the High Court.

Image: via The Australian. Roxanne Tickle (left) and Sall Grover. The Full Federal Court dismissed Grover's appeal in May 2026 and doubled the damages awarded to Tickle.

Women's sport, a $95,000 penalty for Kirralie Smith, and the exemption Labor won't use

While the Prime Minister was calling concerns about women's spaces a culture war, a New South Wales woman was being ordered to pay $95,000 for raising one of them in public.

On 26 August 2025, Deputy Chief Magistrate Sharon Freund found Kirralie Smith and her group Binary Australia had unlawfully vilified two transgender soccer players in social media posts under section 38S of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act. It was the first finding of unlawful transgender vilification under NSW law, per Equality Australia.

On 5 December 2025, Freund handed down a $95,000 penalty, $55,000 to one player and $40,000 to the other, with 28 days to pay or watch it double, plus an order that a public apology be pinned across all Smith's social accounts. A stay was granted on 31 December 2025. The appeal is listed for the NSW Supreme Court.

Five months later, the International Olympic Committee landed on the position Smith had been arguing for. On 26 March 2026, the IOC announced a new policy excluding transgender women from women's events, effective from the 2028 Los Angeles Games. IOC President Kirsty Coventry, a two time Olympic gold medallist and seven time Olympic medallist in swimming, said it was "absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category". The policy was, in her words, "based on science and led by medical experts".

The IOC wasn't first. World Athletics moved in 2023. World Aquatics in 2022. World Rugby in 2020 on player safety grounds. A 2021 review in Sports Medicine by Hilton and Lundberg found 12 months of testosterone suppression reduces lean mass, muscle area and strength by only about 5%.

Federal law has had the answer on the books for 40 years. Section 42 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 specifically permits excluding people on the basis of sex from competitive sport where strength, stamina or physique are relevant. The Albanese government hasn't used it to provide federal direction. Sports Minister Anika Wells previously said the Coalition's Save Women's Sport bill could "gather dust at the back of the shelf".

The protection the IOC just settled on at the global level is sitting in Australian federal legislation, untouched.

Image: Human Rights Law Alliance. Riley Dennis, one of two transgender soccer players awarded damages in the NSW Local Court ruling against Kirralie Smith and Binary Australia, August 2025.

Grace Tame, "difficult"

At the Future Victoria Summit at Crown Melbourne on 25 February 2026, hosted by News Corp's Herald Sun, Albanese took part in a one word association game with editor Sam Weir.

Donald Trump? "President." Oscar Piastri? "Winner." Prince Andrew? "Grub." Grace Tame, 2021 Australian of the Year and child sexual abuse survivor? Albanese paused. "Difficult."

Tame, who has spent her public life advocating for survivors after being groomed and raped by her former maths teacher, reposted a line that morning: "'Difficult' is the misogynist's code for a woman who won't comply."

Albanese later told reporters he'd been referring to her "difficult life". Tame called it "a patronising cop out from a total coward". The PM didn't retract the original word.

Linda Reynolds, no apology

In April 2024, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee found there had been no political cover up of Brittany Higgins's allegations against Bruce Lehrmann, contrary to the line Labor had been running for years.

In August 2025, WA Supreme Court Justice Paul Tottle awarded former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds $315,000 plus $26,000 in interest in her defamation case against Higgins, having ruled Reynolds had not harassed Higgins, had not mishandled her complaint, and had not behaved inappropriately.

Reynolds, vindicated by two courts on the central charges Labor pressed against her in opposition, asked Albanese for an apology.

In Perth on 19 November 2025, the PM was asked whether his senators who pursued the cover up claim should apologise. He said: "Well, that's not right. I don't accept that characterisation." Reynolds is now suing the Commonwealth over her exclusion from the one day mediation that produced a $2.4 million payout to Higgins.

The denial of an apology hasn't moved.

Image: via Sky News. Linda Reynolds and Brittany Higgins. In August 2025, the WA Supreme Court awarded Reynolds $315,000 plus interest in her defamation case against Higgins.

The hug Plibersek didn't get

At Labor's campaign launch in Perth on 13 April 2025, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek leaned in to hug the Prime Minister. He gave her a handshake. The moment was caught on multiple cameras.

The next day, Albanese was asked which frontbenchers he would retain if Labor was re-elected. He named Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Defence Minister Richard Marles, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Trade Minister Don Farrell. He declined to name Plibersek.

Albanese later insisted Plibersek was "a good mate". She told the ABC's Greg Jennett: "She left me hanging."

The Fowler captain's pick

This pattern of overriding women isn't reserved for non Labor women. In September 2021, Tu Le, a Vietnamese Australian lawyer who'd grown up in the electorate, was set to be preselected by Labor for the seat of Fowler, the seat held safely by the party for nearly 40 years.

The party parachuted in then Senator Kristina Keneally instead, a Northern Beaches resident, after factional negotiations.

At the 2022 election Labor lost Fowler to independent Dai Le on a swing of more than 15%. Tu Le later said the result was a lesson her party had to learn "the hard way".

Albanese was the opposition leader at the time of the preselection. He's the Prime Minister now.

Meanwhile, the bill

The May 2026 budget shows gross debt at $1.05 trillion, a forecast deficit of $31.5 billion in 2026-27 and deficits projected for the next decade. The 2025 budget delivered $42.1 billion in deficit and gross debt above the trillion dollar mark for the first time. The Coalition's reading of the May budget puts the higher taxes over the forward estimates at around $50 billion, including changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing.

The women being killed every four days are also paying that bill. The royal commission they've been asking for is still waiting.

The pattern

Anthony Albanese had a statement out on the Allan billboards inside a day. A petition signed by more than 100,000 Australians asking for a royal commission into femicide has been with him for weeks. Grace Tame got a qualified apology. Linda Reynolds hasn't received one at all. Sall Grover is heading to the High Court because the Prime Minister won't legislate for the women's spaces she set up her business to protect. Sarah Williams hasn't been called by the Prime Minister's Office. Tanya Plibersek had to settle for a handshake at her own party's campaign launch. Tu Le never made it to the ballot in Fowler. Kirralie Smith is facing $95,000 for raising the question the IOC has just answered.

Sherele Moody's petition has now passed 100,000 signatures. The Prime Minister's position hasn't moved.

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