Aug 31

There is no doubt in my mind that bullies and people who intimidate abound in Australia. It would seem that this is the case in the Australian parliament where Julia Banks, my local member resigned with these stinging words:

They know that I will always call out bad behaviour and will not tolerate any form of bullying or intimidation. I have experienced this both from within my own party and from the Labor Party.

The scourge of cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation continues against women in politics, the media, and across businesses. In anticipating my critics saying I’m “playing the gender card” – I say this. Women have suffered in silence for too long and in this last twelve months the world has seen many courageous women speak out.

Here we are presented with a worldview from Julia that clearly says she is a victim of bullying and intimidation in her job. She goes on to say that there is still a cultural and gender bias with politics.

She says that women have suffered in silence way too long.

Support has been plentiful for her position. Kelly O’Dwyer, Sarah Hanson Young among them.

However, others continue to down-play the behaviour. Something that I’ve seen many times. When those of us in the GLBTIQ community say that we are subjected to bullying and intimidation the response from some quarters is to downplay it and tell us that we’re not that badly off, that we need to toughen up.

The missing value here is those that deny the situation haven’t taken proper stock. If someone says that they’re the subject of a bully, then we need to listen to them.

Craig Kelly MP missed the mark when he said her resignation is the wrong thing to do and that she should “roll with the punches in this game”.

Roll with the punches? Such a violent, graphic image. Why should the game require punches at all? After all, this isn’t a game; it’s real life. This is her real job. I’d suggest that approaches like Kelly’s are the issue. Rather than check his behaviour, he tells her she’s wrong and to toughen up.

The Guardian in their article says this:

Former Liberal minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and the president of the federal women’s committee, Helen Kroger, both said on Thursday that claims should be properly investigated. But Kroger said she didn’t believe there was a bullying culture and Fierravanti-Wells appeared to blame Malcolm Turnbull.

There should be no ‘but’. The conversation needed to stop at ‘properly investigated’.

For Helen Kroger to suggest that there isn’t a culture of bullying is to turn a blind eye to the issues. Craig Kelly more or less acknowledges the problem, Helen Kroger ignores it. That’s her way of dealing with it. Concetta Fierravanti-Wells won’t admit it as a problem, and if it is would instead point at someone else and say ‘look over there’.

We have seen outright lying, sexism, misogyny and now bullying and intimidation.

This is no way to run a country. It’s not good enough to ‘investigate’. If our newly and temporary Prime Minister had any sense, he’d launch a special envoy for bullying and intimidation prevention, throw some money at it, set appropriate standards and change the constitution to allow the dismissal of any MP that breaches the standards.

Because that’s what would happen to anyone else who behaved in a deplorable way.

To bully or intimidate anyone is unacceptable.

 

Leave a Reply

*

preload preload preload