
Griffith's state parliamentarian Helen Dalton has criticised the double standard when it comes to sexist and offensive insults leveled by MPs against each other.
"It's great to see female Liberal and National Party MPs calling out sexism in politics lately," Mrs Dalton said.
"However, they are remain silent when their male colleagues abuse women across the aisle."
Mrs Dalton was commenting after Nationals MP Steph Cooke labelled comments made by the Member for Orange Phil Donato as "offensive in the extreme" and "vulgar".
Mr Donato described Ms Cooke's actions as "barren".
Ms Cooke told parliament that his "entire statement reflected on me personally, on my honour, my character and my integrity".
Mr Donato said the comments were not intended as a personal attack and stood by what his comments which he said where taken out of context.
"I would never use a person's gender to insult them. Clearly, she's taken it out of context," he said.
That context was about a parliamentary motion in November last year calling for a supervised school crossing between two schools in Canowindra.
Mr Donato said the schools shared a crossing over the Lachlan Valley Way, a busy state road running through the centre of Canowindra.
He said there had been decades of reports into safety concerns and near misses from cars and trucks using the road.
He said Ms Cooke was moved a motion to remove any mention of the dangers the school children faced, and changed it to spruik the government's efforts to protect the state's school children.
Canowindra is in Mr Donato's electorate and shares a border with Ms Cooke's electorate of Cootamundra.
He said around six to seven months after it was first raised in parliament, Ms Cooke arrived in Canowindra to announce the crossing would become supervised.
"I stand by what I said," Mr Donato said.
"I'm holding the government to account by highlighting the clear absence of care for those school children and playing politics while those children were at risk."
Ms Cooke's colleagues have rallied around her to call out Mr Donato's comments.
Mrs Dalton said the government's MPs had ample opportunity to call out sexist comments from their colleagues.
Helen, you are disgusting human. All politics. Today was a decision for my family.
— John Barilaro MP (@JohnBarilaroMP) May 4, 2020
"Steph Cooke was silent when her leader John Barilaro called me a disgusting human," she said.
"She was silent when her colleague Wes Fang called me the mean girl from school.
"If you're truly against sexism, and not just playing politics, you'd call it out no matter who says it."
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