Zero-tolerance on violence against women, missing wine, and an altercation can only lead to one thing – a speech to the Australian Democrats state council meeting.  The following is a transcript of the speech by Edith Pringle who is campaign co-ordinator for the Democrats in South Australia.
You may be aware of the member petition mooted under the terms of our Constitution which would have the effect of declaring the Leadership position of the Democrats open.

I would first like to acknowledge that Senator Bartlett is a person who has made a wonderful contribution to this party, exampled through his public stand on issues such as refugees, live-sheep export, his parliamentary contribution and importantly his unifying role.

Briefly this relates to an incident during the sitting of our Federal Parliament whereby six bottles of wine where removed, ownership was questioned, an altercation took place in which Senator Andrew Bartlett pursued a Liberal Female Senator, Jeanne Ferris, physically grabbing her arm, pointing a finger close to her face and calling her, “a Fucking Bitch”.

The Parliamentary wing of the Democrats quite rightfully stood Sen. Bartlett down and extracted, I understand, an undertaking that he makes full use of the parliamentary break to seek assistance for the underlying problems that were made apparent after the incident.

In this very room, shortly after the story broke, we listened to speaker after speaker. Sen. Stott-Despoja quite properly expressed the party’s policy and philosophical view of zero-tolerance on violence against women. Sandra Kanck, our SA Leader made it clear that her view was that Senator Bartlett should resign.

What followed was a decision based on pragmatic compromise. Who would Senator Bartlett be replaced with? Could our Senators agree? Did Sen.Bartlett insist on retaining the leadership or did he leave that decision and fate to others. I understand it was the latter. We should not offer up people as sacrificial lambs in the name of political pragmatism. Let’s not blind ourselves to the history of the context in which the compromise decision was made.

So we compromised ourselves on political standards, compromised ourselves on expected behaviour of our parliamentarians, compromised ourselves on the zero-tolerance on violence against women issue and followed the lead of other political parties close ranks, stay really quiet on it – people will forget, the incident will be brushed under the carpet. Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapping? Repackage the incident and person – and hey, within a couple of months it will all go away. Why can’t we do that?

Simple, this is the Democrats. As members we do not compromise on our political integrity, it is that integrity that separates us from the other parties. We set a higher moral standard and we are the gatekeepers of that standard. We keep the bastards honest and we have the mechanisms to keep ourselves honest too. The petition is one of those mechanisms.

We are loyal to the principles and philosophies of the party. We stand by our policies. We may change our stand on certain policy issues by ballot of the membership. Zero-tolerance on violence against women is just that. Zero. No excuse for abuse is just that – no excuse. We don’t support the notion that one-off incident violence is excusable.

We don’t say, well it really isn’t violence because it wasn’t on the big end of the scale, we don’t say that calling someone a fucking bitch over and over is not really verbal abuse just a bit of parliamentary rough and tumble, we don’t believe for one moment that if a Labor or Liberal person said that on Hansard to one of our female Senators that we wouldn’t write it off as such.

We don’t believe in some redefinition of what violence against women is to suit any political pragmatic approach.

1999 International Labour Organization (ILO) – which the Democrats support – report on workplace violence emphasized that physical and emotional violence is one of the most serious problems facing the workplace in the new millennium. The ILO definition of workplace violence includes bullying:

“any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work. These behaviors would originate from customers, co-workers at any level of the organization. This definition would include all forms or harassment, bullying, intimidation, physical threats/assaults, robbery and other intrusive behaviors.”

CUPE’s National Health and Safety Survey of Aggression Against Staff, published in January, 1994, mentions verbal aggression and harassment in its definition of violence:

People do make mistakes and everyone needs a place to heal and recover from. Sen. Bartlett is no exception. Surely no-one seriously believes that a few months is all that it takes? Surely no-one can seriously put forward an argument that someone who states that they suffered from the effects of stress during a heavy parliamentary session should be placed in an even more stressful situation of leading a party during an election and within a couple of months? Surely no-one can argue that someone who states they have a drinking problem can, by mere personal assurance, deal with that whilst being a leader of a national party during an election? Yet these are not the only issues. The role of Senator would be enough to contend with. There is an insufficient time frame in place for his return.

I have faith in the party processes that will see us work this out. The petition is one of those processes and I am accepting expressions of interest in signing at this stage. The petition will be available during the month of February.

I believe it is the true party loyal thing to do, loyal to our principles, policies and spirit of the party. I believe that it is a uniting thing to do – we are united in our common philosophy. I believe it will have a long term stabilizing effect (I say this acknowledging some in this room who are here, and still members only because of the petition). I believe it is the principled thing to do. I believe it is morally right and whatever is morally right will always be politically right in the long-term.