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Post by pim on Feb 18, 2021 22:48:10 GMT 10
The Reality: Why is no one taking responsibility? Why was Brittany Higgins’ alleged attacker allowed to disappear without any real consequences? Is the Liberal Party running a protection racket for rapists, abusers and harassers?
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Post by ponto on Feb 19, 2021 7:14:36 GMT 10
Apparently the "attacker" is in hospital ...all stressed out.
We the public punters do not know all the story which then makes it difficult to judge, while questions are raised as to who is responsible for actions that were taken in dealing with her situation, what is certain Higgins will be judged by people in the community for raising story, and women especially will judge her as responsible for being drunk in the first place and will lambast her on social media which probably be more traumatic than the rape scenario 2 years later she has regrets it happened.
How many women/girls are left with scars of being in drunk date rape situations and their voice doesn't raise any concern, Higgins has the benefit of being in the political limelight to gain attention.
Why is there so much free piss laid on at Canberra political functions when instances of rape is not uncommon at such events....Turnbull brought in the no bonking rule, should be a no booze up's rule or limit to 2 drinks and responsible serving of alcohol...and add no cocaine snortin', pot smokin' etc etc.
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Post by Stellar on Feb 19, 2021 10:22:37 GMT 10
Absolutely Ponto! The woman was 24! Think about that ... at 24 I was a married mother buying a new home. We were responsible and mature and in control of our own lives. This 24 year old was neither. But I would hope that anyone working in such a responsible job in Parliament House would conduct herself with the required level of intelligence, maturity and accountability - epecially so early into her employment when you're trying to make a good impression.
So Pim is saying there is no accountability. It's all this alleged attacker's fault? He's already been branded a rapist without even entering a courtroom. He's obviously a ratbag who was probably drunk and out of order and losing his job was fitting. That's because there is accountability when you have a responsible job. And answerability as he has found out.
But what of dear, innocent little Brittany? Well I have no time for her. She's getting more than her 15 minutes of fame and revelling in it. This "poor me" doesn't wash. We are all answerable for our actions and her actions in this case are suspect. Why did she keep drinking until she was drunk as a skunk? Well that's what she's telling us because she says she was completely out of it. That sort of behaviour is appalling from someone who is supposed to be intelligent and responsible. And people who have been drinking lose all their inhibitions. Was that the case with Brittany? We only have her version and apparently every woman who comes forward with a tale of rape is supposed to be believed completely and the male is immediately condemned.
But when you're drunk and no longer in control of your own actions, things happen. Such as driving and killing other people on the roads. It's never ok and shouldn't be used as an excuse.
She's not the little innocent in all of this. Not at 24 and only a couple of weeks into her "dream job." She should have been making a good impression on those she worked for. And that meant a level of decorum and restraint on her behalf where her drinking habits were concerned.
And as Ponto brought up - the responsible serving of alcohol. Where were these people drinking and why were there no restraints on the amount of alcohol they were consuming? Worse, were we the public paying for it?
But of course this has all become political and as Pim gloats - a way to get stuck into the Liberal Party. There really is no concern for Brittany Higgins. At 24 I suspect she was old enough to take this matter to the police herself. Was there a cover up? Were they afraid of the adverse publicity? Probably. But remember this happened out of working hours and that's different. That it happened in Parliament House is the fault of the two staffers themselves. In the long run they will pay the price for their irresponsible actions. I personally don't care who told who what or when. I'm over it. Just get on with the court case and let the court decide if it was rape - although he's been already been found guilty it seems.
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Post by ponto on Feb 19, 2021 11:48:41 GMT 10
Your personal story Stellar is a good one, then not all can maintain a focused level headedness when the turps is laid on for free.
As the story goes Higgins did report it to the police....whether next day or two days later or many days after the event, dunno, perhaps after she got called in for a please explain why she was on the premises after hours, pissed as a newt as she claims she was, what ever the case she did not pursue her alleged assault with the police, so no witnesses, little evidence gathered and so it boils down to in the courts her word against his.....good luck with that unless he says yes your honour I is guilty of molesting the women.
Party piss up's in at the work place or parliament bars should have ended decades ago, no doubt it still happening....people still getting drunk at the workplace getting horny assaulting one another.
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Post by matte on Feb 19, 2021 13:13:30 GMT 10
I find it disgraceful that people are having a go at Scott Morrison about this and his comment about talking to his wife about the rape allegation and seeking her advice on how he should respond to it.
I think it is perfectly acceptable for a person to come to an ethical or moral position based on "how they would react" if it was one of their own family members, in this case one of his daughters. Human beings do not live in a disconnected state, a robotic state, like the extreme left would like the population to live like.
It comes across as though the Greens and Labor are happy this woman was raped, as they feel that this despicable act is giving them an opportunity to one up Scott Morrison. If they want to talk about ethics, morals and workplace behaviour, perhaps they should look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves why they are gleeful about the rape and the political opportunity it brings to them?
Scott Morrison has announced that there will be an investigation, which is what you would expect of a leader. His reaction to this rape has been second to none in my opinion. Once he knew about it, he was quick to act.
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Post by pim on Feb 19, 2021 23:13:24 GMT 10
Usual fatuous rubbish from Matt. Should we wonder if Scotty took advice from “Jen” about the Biloela family with their two little girls? Did Scotty think like a father? Does Dutton? Did Scotty think like a father (at Jen’s urging of course) when it came to “on water matters” as Immigration Minister? If Scotty is guided in his prime ministership by his I-talked-it-over-with-Jen “family” values why is Alan Tudge still a Minister? Why is Christian Porter still AG? And who can forget the way he interrupted Minister for Families Anne Ruston last November when she was asked a question at a presser “as a woman in the government” ( they’re spread a bit thin on the ground in the government of Scotty from Marketing) in relation to the sexually predatory behaviour of her ministerial colleagues Tudge and Porter that had been exposed in the 4 Corners program. Clearly Morrison aimed to prevent her from answering that question and took over the rest of the media conference “mansplaining” “human frailty”. Had he workshopped that with Jen as well?
The French have a wonderful word for male chauvinism - “phallocrate”. And this is a very phallocratic government marked by a deeply misogynist culture. The sexism is becoming so egregious that even Peta Credlin is joining the chorus of criticism of the Morrison government over the rape of Brittany Higgins. Can you believe that? Peta Credlin!! Wonders will never cease!
As usual, in the case of Brittany Higgins, the woman gets named. Courageously she outed herself. That took guts. The bloke remains anonymous and he went on to a nice cushy job in “public relations”. Minister Reynolds insists it was without a reference from her but clearly he got his new job with a reference from someone. When Reynolds was asked if the guy left with a reference from her chief of staff, for example, she suddenly became very evasive. Let’s face it: women don’t rape themselves. Someone does it to them. Rape is sex imposed upon another person against that person’s will. And it’s a crime. When I worked in the public sector in Canberra you were suspended the moment you were charged with a criminal offence and upon conviction by a court of law you were dismissed. That’s the way it works. Why wasn’t the guy charged with rape? However you look at it, if he’s a rapist he’s been protected by the Morrison government and looked after while Brittany has been hung out to dry.
If you’re the head of a government which has misogyny deep in its DNA, with case after case of bullying, sexual predation and harassment and now criminal rape, and the best you can do as prime minister is hide behind your wife’s skirts while giving off-the-record negative scuttlebutt to selected journalists about Brittany’s current partner, sooner or later it’ll catch up with you.
Watch this space.
P.S. Scotty from Marketing just abolished the Family Court of Australia because Pauline Hanson asked him to. Did he talk to “Jen” about that too?
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Post by pim on Feb 19, 2021 23:33:55 GMT 10
The question I asked in the OP remains unanswered: is the Liberal Party running a protection racket for rapists, abusers and harassers? Craig Kelly’s senior aide faces multiple allegations of inappropriate behaviour made by young womenamp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/19/craig-kelly-senior-staff-member-aide-frank-zumbo-allegations-inappropriate-behaviour-young-womenA senior staff member in Liberal MP Craig Kelly’s office continues to work in his role despite multiple young women – some as young as 16 – coming forward to NSW police to allege inappropriate behaviour in the workplace, including an instance of unwanted touching, and despite an apprehended violence order being granted in one case. In September last year police from Sutherland, in Sydney’s southern suburbs, successfully sought an AVO against Kelly’s longtime office manager, Frank Zumbo, whose job included hiring and managing interns and work experience staff. The proceedings were reported in the local St George Shire Standard in July and September last year and Guardian Australia understands they relate to claims that Zumbo kissed a 16- or 17-year-old intern on the neck. But despite police successfully obtaining an AVO to protect the intern from alleged workplace misconduct and confirming to the court that a criminal investigation was under way, Zumbo remains in his role. Since the media reports, at least six women have come forward to police with complaints about inappropriate behaviour. No charges have yet been laid. The new revelations come as the Liberal party faces sustained questions about its culture and the workplace environment it provides for young female staff. Brittany Higgins and the toxic culture of Australian politics – with Lenore TaylorLenore Taylor and Mike Ticher discuss the allegations made by a former Liberal staffer, the government’s response and what it will take to change the longstanding culture of parliamentary politics in Australia www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2021/feb/19/brittany-higgins-and-the-toxic-culture-of-australian-politics-with-lenore-taylor?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other (podcast)
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Post by caskur on Feb 20, 2021 7:16:42 GMT 10
Earlier in my 20s I went from lightly sipping Southern Comfort neat to passing out....I did it on Black Berry Nip and Lemonade when I was 15.... And once on Vodka and Orange at 15 as well. I did not intentionally drink to get drunk. inexperience of drinking alcohol was my cause. I pretty much loathe alcohol nowadays.
I hope they jail the rapist.
In my perfect world the rapist would get 100 lashes before being guillotined.
I recently learn one of Bob Hawkes children was raped too and that was buried from the public.
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Post by ponto on Feb 20, 2021 8:39:13 GMT 10
We have seen the nasty sexist culture born in elite male private schools,...young blokes on trains abusing public school girls with vile sexist remarks, or an entitled approach to society where the beating up on homeless people is considered a sport, bullying is a pathway to manhood in elite private schools..
So from a boyhood culture of sexist behaviour inbuilt by private education these males enter politics to become bullies in a culture of conservative politics where its condoned.
Add alcohol....shit happens.
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Post by pim on Feb 20, 2021 10:23:31 GMT 10
I agree with your comments about a culture of misogyny fostered in elite boys' GPS schools Ponto. Have to be careful of sweeping statements of course. Not all boys who go to elite GPS schools turn out to be misogynist boofheads. Nevertheless the case histories you refer to don't exactly do much for the reputation of these establishments as places of enlightenment.
Gotta go. More to say on this but "stuff" is happening that I have to deal with
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Post by matte on Feb 20, 2021 11:05:51 GMT 10
It is a disgrace what happened to the woman, she was raped and her boss did nothing to help her. That should of course be investigated. But the Greens and Labor need to stop trying to get political mileage out of this. It is disgusting what they are doing.
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Post by Stellar on Feb 20, 2021 12:04:33 GMT 10
Now it seems a second woman has come forward with another rape allegation against this staffer. She says if they had dealt with the Higgins case earlier she wouldn't have got raped a year after. Apparently it happened after the two staffers had drinks and dinner together. No wonder Malcolm Turnbull called for less bonking in parliament! Obviously it goes on. Now me, I'd say if less drinking went on with these parliamentiary staffers, there'd be a lot less bonking!
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Post by pim on Feb 20, 2021 14:56:06 GMT 10
Not so sure that less drinking = less bonking. It seems to me that with a combination of drinking and bonking a law of diminishing returns would operate ... as regards the quality of the bonking. As the Bible says somewhere: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Or should that read “flaccid”. It would follow, perhaps, that with less drinking the quality of the bonking might be enhanced and, these staffers being young and with fizzing hormones, the bonking wouldn’t necessarily be any less in quantity. So less drinking would result in more and better bonking that would have a better chance of being consensual.
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Post by pim on Feb 20, 2021 15:21:52 GMT 10
Stellar you might want to go to this link amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/19/craig-kelly-senior-staff-member-aide-frank-zumbo-allegations-inappropriate-behaviour-young-women which describes in some detail how the office of the Liberal member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, is not a safe working environment for young women. Scott Morrison is not above the fray when it comes to Liberal Party backbenchers like Craig Kelly. It’s been known for some years now that Kelly is flaky on a raft of policy issues and it seems that his office is also a misogynist hotspot. Morrison can’t credibly hide behind the “I-didn’t-know” excuse. He actively intervened to protect and secure Kelly’s preselection as member for Hughes when the local Liberal Party branch members through their F.E.C. (Federal Electorate Council) declared that Kelly did not reflect the views of Liberal Party members in the electorate of Hughes and wanted to dump him and pre-select a different candidate. So Morrison ran a protection racket for a flaky Liberal backbencher who is a fossil fuel luvvie, a climate change denier, a Covid-19 denier, an anti-vaxxer and, so it now appears, runs an electorate office that, if Morrison really did think like a father of daughters, he would never allow his daughters to work in. If you’re the PM, the buck stops with you. And in these cases it most certainly stops with Morrison. More to come ...
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Post by pim on Feb 20, 2021 15:44:56 GMT 10
We have seen the nasty sexist culture born in elite male private schools,...young blokes on trains abusing public school girls with vile sexist remarks, or an entitled approach to society where the beating up on homeless people is considered a sport, bullying is a pathway to manhood in elite private schools.. So from a boyhood culture of sexist behaviour inbuilt by private education these males enter politics to become bullies in a culture of conservative politics where its condoned. And on that last point ... www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/20/viral-petition-reveals-more-than-500-allegations-of-sexual-assault-in-australian-private-schools?CMP=Share_iOSApp_OtherI don’t think I’d dismiss rape with “shit happens”. It’s a crime for which the guy should do jail time. Instead what we’ve been seeing, and on this thread, is a lot of nasty slut shaming of the courageous young woman who has had the guts to call it out. She gets slut shamed and the creep who raped her remains anonymous - and employed! Now it appears that another young woman has come forward with similar allegations about the same bloke. Will she be slut shamed too? No wonder she hasn’t been named. The fact that the news reports are that it was the same bloke indicates to me that outside the realm of public commentary the guy’s identity is known, probably among staffers at Parliament House and certainly within the Liberal Party. The guy should be shitting in his pants because once criminal charges are formally laid, and it appears that they will be, he’ll be publicly named. Serves him right.
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Post by ponto on Feb 20, 2021 18:02:17 GMT 10
I expected the conservation to mention private schools because most private school kids are conservatives born and raised....and the sexism from that schooling goes onto working lives, not all as a small percentage of the more academic types would vote Labor or Greens certainly the conservatives have more than its fair share bullying sexism to be healthy where many a career has been burnt.
Turnbull recognised how endemic sexual bullying in the coalition is, and goes from the top down, then these same people are advocating right to life, anti same sex marriage and far from progressive ideas.
Not that shit happens and so eh who cares, obviously the sexism needs to be dealt better with, and that starts with private education that spawns conservative dick heads who like to rape drunken girls/women.
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Post by pim on Feb 20, 2021 19:13:45 GMT 10
After the record of misogynist bullying going back to the prime ministership of Tony Abbott, and I’m referring to the standover misogynist intimidation of female Liberal MPs by certain male Liberal MPs through the sexual predator behaviour of Cabinet ministers like Tudge and Porter to the cover ups of criminal rape in ministerial offices, a tipping point seems to be reached. Liberal women have had enough of the Neanderthal blokey boofhead misogyny that infects the very DNA of Scott Morrison’s government. Slut-shame Brittany Higgins all you like, but she’s started something Scotty from Marketing might not be able to finish. Katharine Murphy on politics;Australian politics - Brittany Higgins' shocking story must be a turning point. Women in politics have had enoughThe former Liberal staffer says she has found her voice and intends to use it. She will be joined by a chorus of otherswww.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/20/brittany-higgins-shocking-story-must-be-a-turning-point-women-in-politics-have-had-enough?CMP=Share_iOSApp_OtherThe revelation of the grotesque indignity Brittany Higgins believes she suffered on a couch in Parliament House has had a galvanising effect on the women who work in Canberra politicsBrittany Higgins should be the one to tell you, in her own words, about the first time she told the office chief of staff that she believed she had been sexually assaulted by a more senior colleague on a couch in parliament house in March 2019. “At that point I hadn’t processed the trauma of what had happened,” the former Liberal staffer told me this week. “I hadn’t articulated it broadly to myself, and I was kind of scared of this person because he sort of outranked me and I was new to the office.” Higgins had only been working for Linda Reynolds for a few weeks. “Then on the Tuesday (26 March 2019) … my former chief of staff came in. She wasn’t normally Canberra-based and she came into the office that day. I think she stated that she wanted to speak to [my colleague] and I – and it was in front of other people. At that point she took him into the room first, had a discussion with him that probably lasted about 45 minutes or so, and then he immediately left and started packing up his corner of the office. It was then my turn to go into the office. At that point I assumed I was about to be fired. It was a strange white noise thing where I hadn’t processed it yet. In that meeting they asked me to recount the events of that night. I was very candid. I thought I was going to lose my job. I was extremely honest about what had happened. That was the first time when I said it out loud, that I full internalised the [alleged] rape – that I fully understood what had happened. That was when I had a bit of a breakdown, and after that, they sent me home, because I was a bit of a mess.” We need to begin here because this marks an important point in time. This was the first time, according to Higgins, that the government was made aware that something criminal could have happened. Higgins told Fiona Brown, who was Reynolds’ chief of staff. I don’t know Fiona Brown, but I reckon I can posit the following as a person who manages people in stressful environments: having a young subordinate tell you that she believes she’s been raped by another colleague, whom you also manage, is not a conversation anyone would easily forget. Brown worked for Morrison before she worked for Reynolds, and then went back to work for Morrison after the 2019 election. The point of me laying this out is not to make any reflection at all on Brown, but to make a simple point about her boss, the prime minister. Morrison has been saying all week his staff didn’t know about the Higgins allegations until last Friday, 12 February. This isn’t true. Unless Brown had her memory erased when she crossed the threshold of the prime minister’s office, one of Morrison’s current staff knew about these allegations, and had since March 2019, because she was the first person that Higgins says she told. When Morrison was challenged on this obvious contradiction in the House of Representatives by Labor – how could he continue to say staff didn’t know when at least one of his staff demonstrably did – Morrison said at first: “If someone has worked in another office, they have been bound by the issues in that office, particularly when they are working in an office of a sensitive nature in the defence portfolio.” Just in case it’s not obvious, an alleged sexual assault has nothing to do with “sensitive” matters of defence. When Labor kept pulling on the thread, Morrison said: “The member of staff … was formerly the chief of staff to the minister for defence industry. That knowledge related to her time in that role. Not in her role in my office”. If we take this observation at face value, Morrison is contending political staff are only permitted to know or ventilate things relevant to their current political master – which thrusts us all into a weird episode of Downton Abbey, or Upstairs Downstairs, where the cognition or recall or corporate memory of subordinates in political offices is quantifiably different to other professionals. At some level, Morrison’s deeply strange observation provides a penetrating insight into parliamentary culture: hierarchical, boss-centred, and need to know. It also gives us a hint about what might need to change. But sticking with knowledge – who knew what, when – I don’t believe it is disputed by anyone that Brown, who works for Morrison, knew about the allegations. Reynolds also knew about the allegations, a point which is not disputed. Two other Morrison staff assisted with the termination of Higgins’ colleague – although the government says advisers John Kunkel and Daniel Wong believed they were dealing with misconduct after a security breach, not an assault. Higgins says another Morrison adviser, Yaron Finkelstein, “checked in” via WhatsApp around the time a Four Corners exposé of parliamentary workplace culture screened in 2020. Another text message emerged on Friday suggesting that another member of the prime minister’s staff was aware of the allegations about the sexual assault and was “mortified”. In addition to this, Parliament House police knew. The Department of Parliamentary Services knew police were involved shortly after the incident because there were requests to view CCTV footage. DPS officials knew there might have been a sexual assault allegation by 18 April 2019. Anonymous allegations also turned up in correspondence shared with the president of the Senate, Scott Ryan, and the speaker of the House, Tony Smith, the following March, which triggered two separate investigations into the conduct of parliamentary officials. When Higgins left Reynolds’ office she went to work for Michaelia Cash, another senior minister. Cash says she was aware something had happened involving Higgins in October 2019 because a journalist made an inquiry that involved “her previous employment”. That inquiry triggered coordination with Reynolds’ office. By 5 February this year, Cash knew about the alleged rape. She says she offered to go to Morrison’s office with Higgins, but her staffer declined the offer. The point of laying all this out should be obvious: in a building and an ecosystem that thrives on unofficial talk, a lot of people knew either a bit or a lot about what is alleged to have happened to Higgins. Morrison insists that he, personally, didn’t know. The prime minister’s denial is unqualified, and it could be right, given bosses in politics don’t always know everything for a bunch of different reasons. But the idea that no one around Morrison – that a competent office tasked with knowing things and managing incoming problems for the boss (including human resources problems across government staff) knew nothing, when others in close proximity either knew everything or something, really stretches credulity. Given there are contradictory accounts in some instances, Morrison now says he will get his department head, Phil Gaetjens, to check the communications of his staff to make sure the records align with his account that his staff didn’t know until 12 February this year. It is unclear whether this audit will begin and end at government-issued phones and devices, or whether it will extend to private devices and unofficial communication via apps like WhatsApp or Signal. But regardless of how this eventually washes out: whether Reynolds is made to suffer a career-threatening penalty (I’ve lost count of the number of parliamentary women predicting that eventuality this week, given the natural way of things), or whether yet more damning evidence emerges contradicting the official script, I hope Morrison might finally understand this much at least. I don’t say this lightly. This story, the gut-wrenching story of Higgins and the grotesque indignity she believes she suffered on a couch in the people’s house late at night – coming after a succession of stories about women struggling in a professional culture that remains institutionally hostile to women – has opened a wound in the building I’ve worked in for more than two decades. Women who work in politics to serve their country have had enough. They are tired of being stoic. Women around this building have wept this week. They have raged. They need this to be a turning point. The young woman at the centre of this storm, Brittany Higgins has, as she put it in a statement on Friday, found her voice, and she intends to use it.
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Post by Gort on Feb 21, 2021 12:22:38 GMT 10
The vile culture of politics in this country makes it impossible to deal with these appalling cases of rape. That culture of wanting to destroy "political enemies" no matter the consequence, the love of point scoring. The utter contempt for decency in the lust to cause harm to political opponents. Take any event, take any association no matter how tenuous the link to your opponent and damn the consequences. Just go for the kill.
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Post by pim on Feb 21, 2021 13:04:28 GMT 10
Which side of politics has at least acknowledged the systemic culture of sexism, has debated it within its own forums as an issue that needs to be addressed root and branch at an organisational level within its own structures and, most importantly, is viewed as a work in progress and not as an issue that you have on the agenda once and then say smugly “there we’ve dealt with that!”
Which side of politics is in denial about gender as an issue at all, insists - falsely - that the workplace is a level playing field meritocracy in which discrimination on the basis of gender is not a systemic/cultural problem but just a case of the odd “bad apple” and to be treated on a case by case ad hoc basis with the main objective being damage limitation - the “damage” that is being “limited” or “minimised” is of course to the party, the Team. This approach results in victim blaming with the expectation that the victim should take the fall “for the Team”.
Now ask yourself which side you vote for and which side of politics you vote against.
Go figure.
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Post by Gort on Feb 21, 2021 16:23:04 GMT 10
This is a good move ... Morrison backs external complaints body for Parliament sex assault victimsBy Rob Harris February 21, 2021 — 3.50pm Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the culture within Parliament House towards women must improve and abuse victims must feel they can come forward without damaging their careers. He said politics was not alone in needing to continually improve and warned many workplaces were “kidding themselves” if they thought the issue was confined to the Federal Parliament. Four separate reviews of workplace culture in federal politics have now been instigated after former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins said she was raped in 2019 in the ministerial wing of Parliament House. Ms Higgins will make a formal statement to police on Wednesday afternoon to reactivate an investigation into the incident. Mr Morrison and Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt on Sunday endorsed an external complaints handling process for parliamentarians and their staff.“I think there is merit in that, but that is for the processes we put in place to actually consider those things and to make recommendations,” Mr Morrison told reporters after receiving his COVID-19 vaccine. “I really don’t want to prejudge any of this … [but] what we need to do is ensure that people are able in these circumstances to feel they can raise these issues. “Even though people are saying you can, they need to feel that they can, and to do so in a discrete and private way, and so they can get the support they need. That is what I want to see happen.” Ms Higgins says she was raped in March 2019 by another staff member in the office of then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds, after security guards let them into the building late the previous night. She says she felt pressured afterwards to choose between her job and pursuing the matter with police. On Saturday, The Australian reported that another woman alleges she was raped by the same staffer after Ms Higgins. Mr Hunt said there needed to be a “clear external structure” that would give people “total confidence” they have support.
“If there’s a general observation about Parliament, it is that the structures for independent assessment, for personal evolution, whether that’s around training or growth, are not necessarily there,” he said.
“Often young women will have fear or guilt, completely unfairly on them, and that’s what we have to change, and that’s what we’re determined to do, and that’s what we will do.”Special Minister of State Simon Birmingham has been tasked with putting together a bipartisan review of Parliament House’s workplace culture, with details expected in days. Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, her predecessor Elizabeth Broderick and former Democrats senator Natasha Stott-Despoja are among the people who have been suggested to lead the review.Liberal MP Celia Hammond has been asked to examine how to improve Liberal Party culture, senior public servant Stephanie Foster is examining how to build a new structure to handle complaints, and Mr Morrison’s department chief Phil Gaetjens has been asked to look at what and when staff in the Prime Minister’s office knew of the 2019 incident. Labor’s spokeswoman for women, Tanya Plibersek, said the federal government had let Ms Higgins down. “Her initial statements, her follow-up statements all say that she felt as though she had to choose between seeking justice and keeping her job,” Ms Plibersek said. “No one should be made to feel like that. If they’ve been a victim of a serious crime at work, to be made to feel that if they pursue justice they’re risking their job is appalling.” Mr Morrison stood by his previous comments stating he was not made aware of the specific allegations until last Monday morning, despite his office having been made aware of an impending story at least 48 hours earlier. Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten said Mr Morrison should “come clean” about what the government knew. “This is about making sure that not just Parliament but all workplaces are safe for women,” he said. “They must acknowledge that it appears something has gone catastrophically wrong in taking Brittany Higgins’ concerns seriously and indeed now the next person that has emerged.” www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-backs-external-complaints-body-for-parliament-sex-assault-victims-20210221-p574fp.html
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Post by ponto on Feb 21, 2021 17:39:09 GMT 10
Labor addresses the issues of the said rape allegations and then gets condemned for talking about the systemic nastiness that is within the LNP ranks....and then praise for ScoMo when after years of neglect addresses the issue within the LNP ranks....Labor just cannot win with that narrative.
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Post by Gort on Feb 21, 2021 20:22:23 GMT 10
...Labor just cannot win... Always a chance in a two horse race. BUT ... these two charts are not a pretty picture for Labor:
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Post by ponto on Feb 21, 2021 20:37:11 GMT 10
More the point ... Labor cannot win with the media and people like yourself its everything is negative towards the party, while ignoring all the shit the LNP and RW represent.
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Post by Gort on Feb 21, 2021 20:45:15 GMT 10
Trying to pick another fight Ponts? "You may kiss my ring." As the priest said to the altar boy.
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Post by ponto on Feb 22, 2021 16:33:05 GMT 10
You can suck on your own ring priggy boy ...make a change from sucking on ScoMo's.
A 4th women has made a complaint against the former rape staffer....One of GortMo's mates.
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