Bullying is a crime

BULLYING not only exists in our schools and social media. In our society, bullying is prevalent in our workplace too.

As a high school teacher with a psychology degree, I have seen and experienced bullying in the workplace.

What example are we setting our younger generation when we are guilty of the same crime?

Yes, it is a crime because bullying leads to psychological and emotional distress which can lead to self-harm and suicide. It is irreparable.

I have seen experienced teachers ‘pushed’ out of their positions; even forced into resignation because of conflicts of interest with their superiors or colleagues.

Common factors that can ignite bullying in the workplace can be related to power imbalance.

Superiors may feel their colleagues are of an age where they should be retired and therefore subject them to bullying tactics so they are forced to leave.

This can have devastating effects on an older person as it saps their confidence and leaves them with feelings of worthlessness.

Another factor is the age old sin of jealousy. Yes, it still exists and unfortunately, is common in the workplace.

Jealousy of a colleague, friend or classmate can have devastating effects on the victim. No matter how we try to avoid it, bullying is part of our lives; be it in the workplace or at school or in our social activities; it exists. Bullying is a crime.

As a community, we need to be aware of the signs of bullying and stand together in our fight against this heinous crime.

Marriage equality

Remove the word ‘marriage’ from the Marriage Act.

We are to be asked to vote on a slogan, “Marriage Equality”.

We have not actually been told what then might change, or any significance of those measures.

Very few would deny two people of any variety the right to bond together for life, to give total support to each other, even though many would protest at the implied change of meaning of the word “Marriage”.

So surely the obvious answer is to remove the word ‘marriage’ from the Marriage Act entirely and replace it with another word such as ‘Bonding’. The semantics of the word ‘marriage’ will then just become a matter of social debate and the taxpayer will have been saved over a hundred million dollars. — JOHN BILLINGSLEY, Toowoomba

❝ Jealousy of a colleague, friend or classmate can have devastating effects on the victim.