Howdy dear availees...I'm not going to apologise for posting about this horrendous situation yet again...quite literally, before I'd finished yesterday's post there's been a series of extraordinary developments, including that a third young woman has now alleged that she was Raped by the same Liberal senior staffer who 'allegedly' Raped Ms Brittany Higgins...this 'alleged' Rape appears to be just one of a series of Assaults/Rapes committed by the same Liberal staffer...if you are not aware of the broader issues around Ms Higgins' experience, please read the previous 3 posts on this issue...also please, if you have not already signed it, here is the link for the official petition asking for the establishment of a genuinely independent authority to deal with these issues within Parliament...
Petition update · The alleged assault of Brittany Higgins and four more women · Change.org
Here's a link to another story from Channel 10's The Project who ran the initial extensive interview with Ms Higgins last week, as provided with our previous posts on this issue...
https://twitter.com/theprojecttv/status/1363403628564910087
Just listening to ABC/BBC News Radio live from Parliament and to Scummo again at the Dispatch Box lying through his crooked teeth about how his office only knew a week ago and there are currently processes underway to review the processes, etc, etc...he continues to be confronted with the un-challengeable reality that multiple senior Liberal staffers in his office knew about the Security Breach and resultant Rape back in March/April 2019, and that his office was notified at the time, and again repeatedly since, and that senior Ministers Michaelia Cash and Linda Reynolds knew directly, and that Ms Higgins was told outright that if she went to police that she would no longer have a job, etc, etc...
Fact:...Linda Reynolds has openly and categorically contradicted herself, alternatively stating and re-stating that 1) she wasn't aware of the 'alleged' Rape when she spoke to Ms Higgins only 3 days later and in the same office where it had occurred, but then has also stated 2) that she (Reynolds) had sought and received advice from the Dept of Finance about what to do about the Sexual Assault and spoke to Ms Higgins about that in that meeting...here's a link to the Twitter feed of journo Samantha Maiden...
https://twitter.com/samanthamaiden/status/1363273514988408834
Fact:...from the day of the Rape, and in the first week there-after there is a clear trail of multiple involvements from the Australian Federal Police, multiple Ministers and staffers, including from the PMO (PM's Office), and including the resignation of a senior Security official, reportedly due to the appallingly bad 'handling' of the incident...
Here's the link to Scummo's extraordinarily bizarre and quite pathetic attempt to try and Daggy-Dad his way through the shit-storm of his own lies and deceits, trying to pretend that he's not the least bit concerned about the raging bonfire of accountability blazing just outside his door...in the circumstances, it is not just embarrassing to see our PM behaving like this, it is basely offensive...
https://twitter.com/Kiki__Stewart/status/1362956218201858050
...and it's particularly offensive because Scummo has only been a 'life-long' Sharkies supporter for about 9-10 years, it's purely a politically expedient construct to try and promote his 'Every Man's Mate' faux-persona with his electorate...that was Saturday, and then on Sunday came the hastily organised COVID19 distraction of him getting his vaccine shot, along with a couple of senior citizens...this took place at what is reportedly the clinic of an LNP supporter and Hillsong Pentecostal preacher...even that stunt went pear-shaped when Morrison semi-assaulted the elderly woman by grabbing and twisting her arm, and trying to laugh it all away...touch my elderly mother like that and see how it works out for you Scotty mate...
In 2019 another former Liberal staffer Ms Chelsea Potter made public that she had been Sexually Assaulted by a Liberal "up-and-comer" in 2015, and that Minister Simon Birmingham knew when he was interviewed but denied knowing, etc...I do not know whether this is another 'staffer' or the same man who Raped Ms Higgins...here is the link to Ms Potter's story from InDaily, which includes a further link to Simon Birmingham's response...and like everything I've seen him do this past week, I'm going to call it a deeply disingenuous and carefully non-committal response, avoiding certain issues and speaking fakely insincere, politically expedient concern to others...
https://twitter.com/chels_e_potter/status/1363680853566529537
Since I started this post yesterday, now a fourth young woman has come forward claiming that she was groped by the same Liberal staffer who 'allegedly' Raped Ms Higgins...below is the link to a Twitter thread about that assault, but I've quoted here what I consider to be a critical statement about the 'culture' of Parliament House...***
5. She said it wasn't the first time she received unwanted attention or advances from men she worked with at Parliament, and it wasn't the last. "By that time, I was just so used to sexual harassment I just brushed it off," she said.
https://twitter.com/Julieoz836/status/1363693655374979076
***...this follows several pieces I've read about how senior journos would provide new Parliament reporters, particularly young women, with a list of Ministers and senior staffers to avoid being alone with...this is not a new claim, and has surfaced several times in recent years when claims of inappropriate behaviours have been raised...
I note that Sexual Harassment and/or Assault is also an issue for young men in Parliament, who are also preyed upon by senior staffers or politicians...I've read claims of married, supposedly straight men (Ministers) having 'dalliances' with male staff, including direct claims of witnessing such incidents and other claims about 'rumours' of male staffers being Harassed and/or Assaulted...it is also clear that these issues of power imbalance and Harassment/Assault, etc, whilst clearly an endemic and epidemic problem within the LNP, is not a problem limited to the LNP...there are several instances of similar claims against Labor staffers and/or Ministers, etc, including against former leader Bill Shorten...
I find it fundamentally unbelievable that Scott Morrison didn't know about Ms Higgins Rape, probably within days, and possibly within hours...with the 'security breach' in the critically important Defense Minister's office and unscheduled deep cleaning of the office within hours, etc, and then the 'sacking' of the perpetrator within days, but not of Ms Higgins, etc, etc, it is blatantly obvious that everyone involved knew that a crime had been committed against her...further, given the security breach and subsequent sacking, etc, I find it absolutely unbelievable that this incident remained some sort of secret between a few people, this would have been known right through-out the Liberal/National Party, and likely through the Labor Party and broader Parliament staffers, and almost certainly by the Canberra press gallery...whilst Morrison et al are currently trying to use 'The Culture' to distract away from Ms Higgins specifically, there is undoubtedly an issue of the broader conduct/attitudes in our Federal Parliament...
There are now also 4 'inquiries', including a 'secret review' by Morrison's senior staffer Phil Gaetjens who cleared Morrison of any involvement in Sports Rorts, a ridiculously and obviously tainted and false exoneration...the results of this 'secret review' will not be released...it's a farcical joke from Morrison, who clearly knew back in March/April 2019 and is clearly now relentlessly lying about it...multiple former Liberals are also crawling out of the woodwork to defend Morrison and say what a great job he's doing in dealing with this situation...here's links to 1) Amanda Vanstone's comment, and 2) Alexander Downer's appearance on the ABC's The Drum program...please note Downer, a definably criminal National traitor regarding East Timor, repeatedly talking-over the women trying to speak...
https://twitter.com/Terrytoo69/status/1363571424040939521
https://twitter.com/Terrytoo69/status/1363571424040939521
Here's what Minister for Women Marise Payne has had to say...it's absolute gas-lighting and victim blaming to say that Ms Higgins was mistaken or misinterpreted how she was treated, and didn't get treated how she thought she should, etc...this from the Minister for Women...
https://twitter.com/Terrytoo69/status/1363571424040939521
....faux empathy and weasel-worded white-anting of Ms Higgins credibility/claims...what hope for any genuine change or action when this is the response from the Minister for Women?...
Vicki Campion, former staffer and now partner of The National Party's Barnaby Joyce, has, sans any actual credentials or qualifications or experience, been gifted an apparently regular column in the Daily Telegraph...I've included here the link, but in short, it tries to play down the importance within the Liberal Party of the 'up-and-comer senior staffer' who Raped Ms Higgins...the most obvious fact that undermines that premise, is that this man had access not just to Parliament House after hours, but had officially sanctioned access directly into the actual office of the Minister for Defense...that's not the sort of access that a nobody gets, that is not "the fringes of a Parliamentary office"...
Vicki also claims to have extensive knowledge of this man's extensive rorting of Parliamentary allowances, but why hasn't he then been reported and held to account for that?...it's reminiscent of Michaelia Cash's unhinged melt-down in Senate Estimates when she threatened to 'name young woman in Mr (Bill) Shorten's office about whom rumours abound in this place'...either Michaelia was making vacuous threats with nothing to back it up, or she has failed to report multiple issues of Sexual Assault and/or other illegal/inappropriate behaviours committed in Parliament House...I don't think Vicki realises the vastly ironic hypocrisy of someone like her, who was moved from Barnaby's office when the 'scandal' broke, through 2 other apparently non-existent jobs in other National Party Ministers' offices, then into this 'journo' job, someone with that history then casting aspersions on someone else's entitlement and/or qualifications for a parliamentary job...the only saving grace in this article is the observation that both men and women suffer under this culture of Assault and Cover-up, and that some genuinely talented people have lost their promising careers to this issue...
Tomorrow: Probably More Mt Gambier City Council Corruption
I know I keep promising this, and it's likely that there'll be further revelations about Ms Higgins Rape, etc, but we'll get to this MGCC stuff eventually...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...
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