After the revelation of the alleged rape of a staffer in a minister’s office, and its gross and abysmal mishandling; after casually dismissed rape accusations levelled against a minister; after yet more details of a deeply toxic and misogynist workplace culture in politics; after gender issues dominating politics for the first third of the year, the verdict arrived this week: nothing has changed.
An accused sexual harasser is once again deputy prime minister. He joins an industry minister accused of rape, who discontinued his defamation suit against the media outlet that revealed the allegations, and a minister who described a woman allegedly raped in her office as “a lying cow”, along with a prime minister who lied to Parliament about the investigation into his own office’s handling of the rape allegation.
For good measure, accused sexual harasser Barnaby Joyce is on the Cabinet Taskforce on the Status of Women. At the first meeting of that taskforce in April — dominated, of course, by Scott Morrison — the prime minister said “women’s safety and security are very much, I think, the heart and soul of what the agenda for this group is about”.
Joyce denies the allegations against him. One of the women who has alleged he harassed her — the prominent and respected agriculture businesswoman Catherine Marriott — has refused to state publicly what she says Barnaby Joyce did, and instead provided a confidential letter about the alleged incident to the National Party.
The National Party’s response to the letter was to leak her name to News Corp — which Marriott has described as “horrific” — and to conduct an investigation in which the party concluded it was “unable to make a determination” due to insufficient evidence. The report, unlike Marriott’s identity, remains confidential.
He is also the subject of another unresolved sexual harassment allegation, also denied, in relation to a complaint of an incident in 2011.
As with Christian Porter, it appears sufficient for a Coalition figure to simply deny any allegation for that allegation to be entirely dismissed, without independent inquiry. In Porter’s case, however, he has not been promoted onto a committee intended to address women’s safety and security.
Given the unresolved nature of the allegations against Joyce, and the failure to establish an independent inquiry, a threshold question is whether women participating in that committee are safe and secure themselves.
Like chief lieutenant Matt Canavan, Joyce is also a long-time and ardent opponent of abortion rights. In 2019 he conducted spam calls to NSW households misrepresenting a bill to decriminalise abortion in that state, and compared abortion to slavery.
While it’s unsurprising that the government’s pretence for addressing gender issues barely last three months, what of the media? For the most part, the unresolved sexual harassment allegations against Joyce were a footnote to his return this week. It was News Corp’s Samantha Maiden — who had broken and pursued the Brittany Higgins story — who pressed Joyce on the sexual harassment allegations at his first media conference as leader.
Joyce again dismissed the allegations as “spurious and defamatory”, though like many a politician who claims to have been defamed, Joyce has never followed through with court action against his accuser. Joyce insists he’s now a better person and that he spent three years on the backbench as a result of the allegations and “for the good of my party”.
Joyce thus portrays himself as the real victim of the incident: targeted (for at least a second time) by false accusations, defamed by a woman, taking a bullet for his team and spending three years out of the limelight as a result, and returning as a better person. It dovetails nicely with the Nationals’ embrace of grievance politics and their ongoing efforts to coopt right-wing victimhood as a political fuel.
For many in the media, this self-serving narrative of victimhood and personal redemption appears sufficient, despite what we’ve learnt about how toxic the political environment is for women. We’re back to the reporting of Joyce’s purported genius as a “retail politician”, the delighted coverage of his unique communication style, the media excitement of the “wild ride” he offers compared to the colourless Michael McCormack.
Much more interesting is the tale of how disruptive Joyce will be compared to the idea of justice for women.
If it was unlikely the government was going to change on gender issues, perhaps it was equally unlikely much of the media ever would either.
I don’t understand how people can ever imagine Barnaby Joyce is a victim – everything that has happened to him has been through his own actions and appetites.
Also – I always think it is so hypocritical when men loudly rail against abortion – has anyone ever seen a man come forward and say he will take responsibility for an unwanted child?
What an ugly concept – “unwanted child“.
Almost on par with “what is the use of a baby?”.
The only thing uglier than the concept would be the reality.
A reality in which a mother does not want her child?
Sorry to have to inform you, there are some women who don’t want to have a baby, at least at a particular time. Shocking, isn’t it?
The cry, “don’t want to” – the be all and end all of the eternally spoiled child.
No correspondence will be entertained into.
Wow you are so closed minded.
About what?
Are you claiming that an individual’s wants & demands must be met or acceded to – by others?
Do their druthers not count?
Let’s look at it from your angle. The spoilt brat man says “I want sex and I want it from you”. The women says “I don’t want”. The spoiled brat male says “this is your fault you made me do it because you are here”. He rapes her. He got what he wanted, she didn’t.
She finds out she is pregnant. Why should she have to carry that foetus through to birth. Because a spoilt brat man wanted a sexual act from a women, who didn’t consent.
In your scenario banMorag, I see a pregnant women walking around saying to everyone she meets, “yes, a spot brat male raped me and as you can see I’m pregnant!. I just have to wait until it’s born so I have some proof it was a spoilt brat male who raped me. Then he can agree/deny in a court and society, according to the courts can decide what to do about the baby because its societies baby not mine. I didn’t choose to have sex with a spoilt brat and become pregnant. If I felt like I wanted the baby of a spoilt brat, I’d raise it, but I don’t have any sense that I want to keep the baby”.
That is what society would look like. Open, honest and blunt. But of course that’s a very clean synopses. In reality, she would look more like Brittany Higgins than Grace Tame.
She would more than likely suffer many secondary abuses from society. She may have ptsd mental health. She may be hounded by her abuser or her abuser gets someone else to hound her. She may be physically harmed or even killed. She may even kill herself.
What would society like to see happen?
A scenario that society should well understood by now. We’ve had thousands of years to come to terms with the scenario in our modernia.
Perhaps she could just keep the half, of the putative baby, that is hers?
BTW, did the spoiled brat leap out of the bushes or did she ‘know‘ him?
A solid principle of jurisprudence is “extreme scenarios make bad law”.
Whether she knows him or not is not the issue.
It is hard to pick ones family but everyone else is a matter of choice.
In principle, Jennifer, yes : agreed but in practical terms the assailant is much more likely to be known.
Typically, according to the literature, a dress rehearsal has often occurred. Hence the emphasis on choice and choosing which company to keep.
Such as a rape victim, perhaps?
What, from 19th century (and prior), should I select for you bm? The issue was identified by the hardly radical Somerset Maugham. The incidence of infanticide astonished the not exactly meek Spanish sailors of the 16th century.
Until pensions six children sufficed as necessary.
Ask children adopted from incest and rape that have been abused in the foster system what they were good for! BM? We already know what a money making cesspit that can be at the hands of institutional sex abuse.
Are you claiming the authority to say that they should not have been born?
You have not addressed Faraday’s question “What good is a newborn baby?”
Faraday was defending research (science if one prefers) and not children specifically. Faraday was only too aware that the child could become a member of the Royal Society or a villain.
What authority have you to claim that a baby should be born? It’s a woman’s body & therefore her choice alone. The other question’s completely different.
No more than someone denying that.
Are you claiming that regardless of how the sex occurred, the female is responsible to birth the baby, if one is conceived, regardless of her circumstances?
No wonder the adds for 3rd world countries to feed vaccinate, clothe and educate the children are still on sbs TV 40 odd years later.
How about you set up a safe place for every female that falls pregnant under a males ownership who can’t provide for them.
Nature takes care of unsustainable life. Even animals, not human, follow this rule. No infrastructure for sustainable life and animals will spontaneously abort or leave the young to die.
Watch a bit more of Attenborough! Maybe you will get a better understanding of earth laws according to nature.
Our human food is more reliable, our laws cross the natural nature law. In society abortion is more noticeable. Natural attrition by nature is curbed by so many things. Embryos survive in situations they would not normally. Who are you to say all pregnancies should go to birth. Leave out current medicine, food, shelter etc. then argue with me.
It’s hit and miss for every life. Your arguments are shallow in the broader scale of life.
Ponder “…how the sex occurred..”.
Yes that’s right, you ponder…I’ve already done so in respect of power realistically 2021.
To you and your semantasist counterparts, semantics is neither here nor there. It is the fundamental content that tells the story and informs societal norms that serve societal expectations and the laws that serve that democracy. Fit for purpose! Do you understand that concept?
So, IF the “…norms that serve societal expectations and the laws that serve that democracy.” are not to your liking, what do you suggest?
I suggest the current laws are not fit for purpose, not for my purpose specifically, but currently for societal expectations on what is right and wrong.
We supposedly are to teach children right from wrong, according to social expectation. But society teaches them differently; in school and in adulthood in all arenas of life.
The gaols are full of examples of societal contradictions regarding norms. So is society. Clearly the message is not getting through the tunnels of learning.
Fundamentally, semantics is bamboozling basic content. As a result, technicality is destroying fundamentals. Society relies on fundamentals not technicalities. Technicalities are bumps in natural processes. Natural processes experience technicalities when new variables arise. Artificial technicalities arise in both natural and constructed scenarios.
Ethics and morals are subjective, objectively at best. But if we are too afraid of saying our (all) truth then everything is subjective. Laws are subjective. If everyone who said they were innocent roamed freely and everyone who said they were guilty were locked up – I think alot of innocent people would be locked up. Vigilantism happens in many domains, including law.
Operationalising definitions in context
correctly seems more important to me than the arguing semantics isolated from context.
Plague is natural, technicality provides vaccines.
I’m a baby-boomer…ie pre effective birth control… plenty of us were unwanted and we knew it
That’s really sad. Thank you for having the courage to share it.
Sounds like a sick society.
My extended family even have a male and female baby name for the “surprise or gift baby” which has extended over at least 4 generations to my certain knowledge.
There is a world of difference between a surprise baby and an unwanted baby and it certainly does depend entirely on the mother and her circumstances and her ability to cope.
Every baby born should be loved and welcomed.
No child should come into this world unloved and certainly unwanted by its mother.
It is an ugly term for a dreadful situation.
I know a woman who carried a baby that she certainly did not want.
Her 4th pregnancy was the result of her husband sabotaging their contraception.
I consider this betrayal as a form of rape.
I felt extremely sorry for the lovely child.
My friend said that she could not bond and felt as though someone had dropped off their baby for her to look after.
She certainly did not neglect his physical and intellectual needs and anyone who did not know the story probably would have not detected the difference in her parenting in the early years.
As the years progressed and I watched as she made her husband do all of the parenting of their last child, while she sat back and watched.
She left her husband and the child and moved into the nearest city, to be able to be near to her first three children when they went to university.
If her husband could have foreseen the results of his perfidious behaviour, I certainly think that he would have not gone down the path he did.
And Barnaby cannot understand that Australia is a victim of Barnaby.
Maybe it’s time the Labor Party started saying a few home truths about the behaviour of Govt ministers, eg Joyce, Robert, Morrison, Porter, Taylor, McKenzie, Dutton etc, and use words like “corruption of proper process”, “self-interested benefits” and other possibly defamatory stuff. Then let the accused person threaten to take it to court, and tell them the defence will be the truth. See if they want to do a Porter or a Ben Roberts-Smith.
If the courts can rule that corporations have a duty of care to future generations, why can’t that apply to political leaders?
I’m not sure you mean political leaders. The leader of a party has a responsibility to that party, and that’s about the limit of it. If that political leader is also elected to a parliamentary seat, we can add some responsibility for representing a constituency. However, political ministers are quite different, given they are responsible for running the executive government. Good luck persuading them to take any responsibility for future generations; at present they keep denying they even have any duty of care to the current generations.
A delicacy of touch and understanding, wasted here.
The Labor Party would never-ever be able to get any traction in Parliament (which has just closed for the winter break) with the Govt. leaping up to move that the member no longer be heard etc. . BUT this should be a good time to fire some shots/home truths as you suggest.
The Beetrooter needs to control the narrative. Though I live in his electorate I’m blocked from posting on his public Facebook page. As I have never posted anything there, ever, that is unacceptable. I remain baffled why 100% of the commentary on said FB is in absolute rapturous support of the mining industry and the awesomeness of every opinion expressed by the red vegetable. Enquiries to his office why I cannot comment always result in vague assurances that it will be looked into.
This blocking from commenting is common for Liberal politicians, so unsurprised the Nats have followed the same path. Certainly in the electorate where I live anyway. Say anything that is critical and the staffers block you. Only the ‘yes’ people who feed their egos are acceptable. Anyone with a contradictory viewpoint is very quickly silenced.
The official Beetrooter page will be restricted to paid acolytes and PR types. Have you considered creating an alternative Beetrooter Facebook page for people in your electorate who are blocked from his official page? You could have your say (being careful of defamation) and see how many people agree with you. Enough support and he might get worried. Of course once your website is known about expect paid trolls from his website (who taxpayers probably pay for by the way). If you don’t feel adequately tech savvy I expect there are a few disaffected typically younger folk in the electorate who could help – though they would have to be weaned off Twitter and TickTok first. Just a thought.
Sounds like yet another way for Zuck to make money: charge public figures an extortionate fee to prevent those with a less-than-glowing assessment. I have no proof of this, of course, but it’s not much of a stretch.
Sounds like Fairfax and NewsCorp comment strategy too where even subscribers cannot get comments published; keeping all in line and on piste with LNP messaging.
The torrent of incompetence, corruption, secrecy and almost complete policy inertia Morrison has delivered means that nothing shocks me about this government anymore. And it is entirely consistent that all Morrison has done about the toxic misogynistic culture of parliament, dominantly within the coalition, is spin bullsh*t sympathy for women brutalised by it. He puts more effort into justifying inertia and incompetence than action on anything. The LNP should be polling in the 20s, but astonishingly the muppets are competitive. I am beginning to believe that this is not about voter political engagement. It is how Australia is.
He did nothing wrong but “he’s now a better person”. Hmmm.
So, grammatically, he’s now pluperfect?
A thing finished, at some time past not, necessarily, specified.
ONLY if he HAD BEEN a worse person. But, future perfect, he might be a better person.
Not at all. Completion does not imply change of any sort, never mind improvement.
It is a thing to be desired that, whatever he was, is now finished.
If not a blank slate, perhaps a palimpsest?
From appearances, it could have been sourced from his countenance rather than some unfortunate young ungulate.
The discussion concerns grammar and not ‘attainment’ (or enlightenment)
Not to me – I simply expressed my hope that the Rootbeeter was done.
Dusted. Finit.
Na. Greater longevity than a cat, mate, although I doubt if the electorate is so soft as to make him PM.
Apart from gifting him his seat, his electorate has no power to make him PM.
That could only happen – in some galaxy, hopefully far, far away – by a majority of his colleagues agreeing that he was primus inter pares.
Even those representing the MIA might balk at being thought of as pears with a kero stove in their midst.
Welcome back Erasmus. Long time no see. Which may be just be due to my erratic Crikey reading these days. Or did I see you opining as Erasmus in the NYT?
“ONLY if he HAD BEEN a worse person”
That “HAD” is not past perfect (or pluperfect). It indicates subjunctive mood and a simple past tense. Just as “were” in “if I were a rich man” indicates subjunctive mood and present tense. “Might be” is not future perfect tense. “Might” (though always right) does not indicate the future perfect. The future perfect tense is indicated by “will have” – as in, “By the time this sentence finishes you will have stopped reading.”
What a pleasure it is to discuss something of importance for once.
Agreed, kinda, Keith, but the ‘had (or has) been’ makes it past perfect (and not the “has” in isolation. You are correct over “might” Future perfect does require a sense of completion.
Well done to Penny who detected the claret and the malt (but, otherwise, I stand by what I wrote).
Once upon a time kids learned this stuff in their Latin classes. I’ve been a tad busy over the last or so and my sub expires at the end of the month. There is very little to distinguish Cky from The Guardian (alas).
You can test the tense of a counter-factual or conditional subjunctive by supplying the factual opposite or a resolution of the uncertainty: i.e. “If I were a rich man… but I am not,” “Only if he had been a worse person… but he was not.” or “Only if he had been a worse person… and he was.”
I respectfully re-submit, Erasmus, that your “had been” is a subjunctive and that it refers to the simple past, not the twice-removed past that a past-perfect alludes to. Past-perfect: “He was no longer a bad man, but he had been.” It is one of the confusions of English that it cannibalizes past tense forms (had and were) to also indicate subjunctive mood.
Mind you, some deny that subjunctives in English have a tense at all, and I think they must classify counter-factual and conditional “were” and “had” constructions in some entirely different way. Had I studied such accounts in the past (but I did not) I might be tempted to try to refute them. Were I motivated (but I am not) I might begin studying them now.
Interesting points Keith. Perhaps it is a pity that English ceased to be a declarative language (Latin, ancient Greek, Russian, Slav and Arabic to a point) where word order is of no great importance.
It was the presence, and misuse of, ‘IF’ that made Raz’ riposte appear subjunctive.
“..
(if he)… HAD he BEEN a worse person” would be conditional but not subjunctive. The following future tense, while notMost of the confusion that bedevils what passes for English grammar (as distinct from plain error of those innocent of such rules) is that a Germanic language became almost indissolubly merged with Norman French (still the official language of Hansard in the Lords) over the last millennium – it’s hard to find words, especially nouns that do not have both german and french rooted alternatives.
This was no big deal and why we can still read Chaucer, albeit with a bit of effort which is then well rewarded by an enhanced appreciation of the possibilities of language.
Alas, then was added the pernicious result of a foreign clergy, tutoring the recalcitrant sons of landed gentry, imposing their mother tongues as well as Latin & Greek syntax and grammar on already an adequate argot until the Enlightenment – something up with which we should not put.
The final banjaxing was when the 18/19thC poseurs picked up a little French & Italian on their Grand Tours (program/me, the extra ‘u’ inbetween ‘O’ & ‘S’ or ‘R’ – thanks King O’Malley for the amerikan spelling of Labor) and insisted on it becoming a U/nonU demarcation, as if Britain didn’t already have sufficient class barriers.
The final attempt at a future perfect is better passed over.
Alas I think not banMorag – his comment suggests he regards himself as a work in progress. And I find myself forced to agree, at least in part: he is certainly a piece of work.
Hard to see any evidence of work having taken place, over the last couple of years as he claimed.
The prospect of any in the future is even less credible.