REPEATING THE SAME MISTAKES

EVERY time we feel as though we are getting closer to making daily life safer for Australian women, a new issue seems to drag us further away from better outcomes for all. On Monday, a public servant who says her boss referred to her in incredibly derogatory language, learned her complaint had been dismissed.

She wasn’t contacted by her employers but the outcome was instead revealed during parliamentary Budget Estimates hearings in what Premier Peter Gutwein described as an “unfortunate” set of circumstances.

While Mr Gutwein said there would be a review of the process, there’s no getting away from the fact it’s not good enough for a complainant to be treated this way.

What message does it send to other employees who are thinking of making a similar complaint?

It sends the message that their complaint doesn’t matter and due process is not guaranteed.

Opposition leader Rebecca White chastised the government for its handling of the issue, which is an absolute hypocrisy in itself. The Labor Party hardly has a pristine track record when it comes to handling complaints of this natures, given their own recent scandal involving former leader David O’Byrne who was investigated and cleared of sexual harassment but kicked out of the party all the same.

On Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison also came under fire after he delivered a keynote speech while opening the Australian Women’s Safety Summit. He read out a series of survivor statements and was given a pasting for doing so by Australian of the Year Grace Tame.

Universally, it seems, we are doing a woeful job of righting past wrongs, protecting women into the future and even improving the way we talk about these hugely important issues. Time and time again we botch the complaint, leaving neither the complainant nor the accused happy about the outcome.

Women want to be heard, but there’s no use in them raising their voices if they are not actually being listened to – or worse, in the two recent Tasmanian cases, they are being dismissed and told there’s nothing in them. Where is the opportunity to understand why a woman felt aggrieved following unwanted behaviour? Why are the complaint processes for the complainant almost as bad as the behaviour that caused them to complain in the first place? How can we care so little about a complainant that we disclose the outcome of their complaint to the general public first?

So far we hear half-baked apologies or promises to do better, then we repeat the same mistakes over.