I’d pretty much just stepped off the beach at Mount Martha (VIC), arrived home, barely had time to drag a comb through my hair (as you will notice) and was asked to comment on the issue of Jamie Briggs MP and his ‘improper behaviour’ towards a young female public servant at a Hong Kong bar last November as well as his subsequent sharing of her photograph with colleagues both before and after she made a confidential complaint, thus breaching her right to privacy (some lawyers argue this was even worse than the first breach).
If that wasn’t bad enough, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was busted for sending a text message he’d intended for Briggs describing News Limited journalist and editor Samantha Maiden – who had given Briggs a caning in this Daily Tele piece – as a “mad fucking witch”, to Maiden herself. The things men say about us when they think we’re not listening…
The only good to come out of this mess is that, as a result of the complaint made by the female consular staffer in Hong Kong, perhaps more women will decide to complain and speak out against male entitlement and abuses of privilege and power.
