Plibersek said Abbott's "language" was the same as Slipper's - who grossly referred to women's genitalia in text messages - and said he should do what Slipper had done and resign.
Wong said: "I think Mr Slipper has done the right thing in standing down ... but I would say he's had the decency to do a couple of things Tony Abbott has failed to do, and that is apologise for his sexist comments and take responsibility for them by resigning."
This is the government's case; its judgment and sentence on Abbott, and Gillard's own defence for keeping Slipper in his job after even he decided it was untenable.
By equating Abbott's transgressions with Slipper's, the government was attempting to justify its decision to oppose the Coalition's motion to remove the Speaker because Abbott hadn't done the decent thing and resigned. It would seem too that the charge of hating women is probably too extreme to carry the day, particularly since Slipper said he thought Abbott was a man of good character and former Labor minister Con Sciacca thinks "it's just not right".
The strategy was also to continue to harp on Abbott's "problem with women" and associate him with slurs and despicable comments others had made about Gillard - notably Alan Jones's notorious remark that her father had died of shame.
It was also designed to inoculate Gillard from criticism so that anyone who criticised her would be lumped in with the "misogynists and cranks" who anonymously libelled and reviled the Prime Minister online.
Gillard's feisty defence of Labor's position propping up Slipper was designed to fit into the frame Albanese had set before question time on Tuesday and was then buttressed by Macklin, Plibersek and Wong.
In parliamentary terms, Gillard's performance was one of her best; it had controlled anger, emotion and conviction as well as her trademark withering put-downs and ripostes.
But the judgment among Labor MPs is mixed. The Prime Minister's office believes pursuing the line attacking Abbott as a misogynist, encouraging social media to debate the issue and getting international exposure for a video clip will attract female voters to Labor and entrench opposition to Abbott.
Others believe there is an overemphasis on social media, a preoccupation with a gender war that does not appeal to all voters or indeed all women, and that Labor's real difficulty is Gillard's problem with blue-collar working men.
Prime ministerial advisers were cock-a-hoop, boasting that it was the first time an Aussie PM's video clip had gone viral. In fact, working families would be more interested in the rise in unemployment yesterday, but in any case it's not the first time an Australian leader has "gone viral".
Kevin Rudd's video clips went viral twice and actually made prime-time television - the first was Rudd on the backbench picking his ear wax and appearing to eat it and the second was a leaked video of Rudd as prime minister in an expletive-ridden explosion trying to record a Chinese script.
Judgment has yet to be passed on whether the week's events will be a plus or minus for Abbott but it's clear some Labor MPs think this week has been another disaster for Gillard and that a viral video is no compensation.
