My eldest daughter snapped my official "Back to Work for 2024" snap which after more than six months off felt like a moment. Sooo happy (if a little rusty 🫠🙃) to be back.
I am incredibly grateful for
@Jess_Rudd
& the team for ensuring
@the_parenthood
soared in my absence.
The eery radio silence in response to a woman outlining how a former High Court judge ruined her career compared to the cacophony we heard when a young woman chose not to smile at a powerful man is disturbing. Where are the screaming headlines about that man's lack of courtesy?
We locked down. We isolated. We got vaxxed. We attempted remote learning. We wore masks. We checked in. We got tested. We kept working. WE DID ALL THE HARD THINGS! And in return? No tests. No plans. No certainty. Cancelled appointments. Empty supermarkets.
Grace Tame Does Not Lack Manners!
She rejected the deeply ingrained and toxic expectation on women to smile even when they’re deeply uncomfortable and she acted with integrity. I will be delighted if my daughters have one 100th of
@TamePunk
’s dignity.
THE COMMUNITY OF LISMORE AND SURROUNDS ARE STILL IN TOTAL DISARRAY FROM THE FLOODS. THE CRISIS THERE IS ONGOING AND NO ONE THERE IS FEELING ESPECIALLY SUPPORTED. THEY FEEL FORGOTTEN & IGNORED. TODAY.
#abc730
There’s no doubt that
#StrongFemaleLead
is incredibly compelling but it is also absolutely crushing. Australia’s treatment of Julia Gillard - led by Abbott & Jones et al - is a devastating indictment on this nation. And the worst part? I’m unconvinced we’ve changed much.
It's incredibly difficult (almost impossible?) to envisage a situation where an individual, company, NFP, executive, association or political party would be able to freely accept $1 million in benefits from an 'unknown' source. That a MP expects that to fly is extraordinary.
"My father was a bus driver, and I was born in a country where the daughter of a bus driver could only ever hope to be the daughter of a bus driver," Dr Anne Aly says she thought of her late father while enroute to her swearing in.
"The girls were ranked from top to bottom as “wifeys”, “cuties”, “mid”, “object”, “get out” and then finally “unrapable”. "
This is sickening. And it isn't about one group of students at one school. This is our culture.
Being subject to
@ScottMorrisonMP
speak about respect & safety for the 51% of the population whom he has steadfastly ignored, demeaned, dismissed & belittled in full faux sincerity is the final straw. THERE IS NO END TO THE HORROR & CRUELTY OF 2021.
#EnoughIsEnough
Hmm I'm perplexed. Just finalising my FY20-21 tax return and my accountant has come back querying the $1million in benefits I received from an unknown source in a "blind" trust. Apparently this isn't acceptable. Anyone know a lawyer who can help?
“I will not respect a man who has the time to shake hands of men who have won a football match but is ‘too busy’ to attend the March for Justice,” Eels sports scientist Tahleya Eggers.
#EnoughIsEnough
Having received a phonecall myself from the PMO back in October 2020 telling me to stop criticising their budget I’m not buying this ridiculous fantasy. Threatening outspoken women behind-closed-doors is the PMO’s MO of choice.
#CredibleWomen
15 days ago the Prime Minister promised a national plan for schools reopening. Today, he deferred to the states, once again displaying no interest in bringing people together & leading. At a time like this, that failure is creating confusion & fear in the community.
The impact these fearless, articulate warriors have made is extraordinary. I’ll never not wish they rose to national prominence for something other than enduring hell - but I’m endlessly grateful they’re so committed to raising hell to ensure others do not endure what they have.
Women, who comprise slightly more than half the population, who have carried Australia through this pandemic and borne the brunt of the adverse financial & social implications of COVID19 get 0.0385% of the $600B+ spend. There's no way that's not shocking. But wait! There's more!
Please consider this. A woman lost her job for tweeting about abortion.
A senior police officer forced a woman into hiding after sending her violent ex-husband her address and he still has his job.
The double standards are astonishing.
There is bravado & there is brave.
There is hubris & there is humility.
There is cunning & there is courage.
There is bulldozing & there is
@BridgetArcherMP
A portrait of a brave, humble & courageous politician rebuking the bravado, hubris & cunning of her former leader.
Couldn’t help but notice that three female Cabinet ministers in this room - seated directly in front of
@TamePunk
and
@BrittHiggins_
no less - were among the tiny minority who chose not to stand after their addresses concluded.
#npc
I will NOT be lectured on decorum and respect by a Prime Minister who just last week publicly attacked a journalist for doing his job & weaponised a sexual assault allegation he was not entitled to.
Prime Minister
@ScottMorrisonMP
I understand you were 'incandescent with rage' about your budget being criticised for ignoring women. So let me be explicit. You’re on notice. We're over being ignored.
#March4Justice
#ENOUGH
#crediblewomen
Also confirms that every Australian citizen has legitimate grounds for being absolutely furious with the Federal government for its total lack of urgency in seeking vaccines. It was a race. We got a
#VaccineStrollout
and we’re all paying for it now.
Forgive me if I've missed this (my head is still spinning about this mix up tbh) but in relation to the 163 Year 12 students who were "accidentally" vaccinated; has the issue of consent been discussed? Wouldn't their parents/guardians have had to provide written consent?
Dear
@ScottMorrisonMP
ABS data shows 87% instances of sexual violence are NOT ever reported to police. Among reported cases the conviction rate sits between 2-10%.
With this in mind, how can Australians accept that the 'authorities' can appropriately deal with these matters?
I have read this now at least four times and I just can't. The condescension is breathtaking.
The young & naive are drawn to the left while the 'older & wiser' are drawn to the right? Is attending university only a 'dubious fortune' for women?
🤯🤯🤯
Am I alone in thinking that if my partner or son or brother was accused of sexual assault that they denied, if anything, I’d be *more* interested in those allegations being properly tested to prove their innocence?
#insiders
It came to me last night as I attempted to find my way into slumber. The PM
@ScottMorrisonMP
had heard ‘rumours’ of allegations against a Cabinet minister from inquiries via
@4corners
&
@Milliganreports
'Nothing of substance' though. He couldn’t possibly 'interfere'.
The entitlement & absolute disregard for proper process & propriety is unconscionable. Porter’s false read on “blind” trusts is insulting and to quote
@TurnbullMalcolm
it is just wrong. So very wrong. And there is nothing “private” about this.
Doesn’t matter how many time you hear that audio from Alan Jones deriding Julia Gillard in the context of her late father, so close to his passing, it never fails to shock. I cannot - and will not ever - understand the utter lack of humanity.
#StrongFemaleLead
I shouldn't have watched the PM's opening keynote at the National Safety Summit. How dare a man who said he didn't even read a dossier containing criminal allegations about one of his Cabinet Ministers lecture women about perpetrator accountability or justice.
#EnoughIsEnough
Brava
@BrittHiggins_
&
@TamePunk
- given what you’ve been endured & experienced this year alone I can only imagine how wild it is to find yourselves on the cover of Marie Claire. Iconic heroes, you both!! And props to
@NickyBriger
& MC team for the vision. 🔥💯🔥
#EnoughIsEnough
Calling a budget a budget for women doesn't make it a budget for women. The fact it's marginally better than the last one doesn't make it a budget for women. Women around Oz didn't march for marginal progress. Women marched for justice for all women. This isn't that.
#Budget2021
Dear
@ScottMorrisonMP
You know the AFP cannot investigate the allegations of rape by one of your cabinet ministers. The High Court managed to instigate an independent inquiry into Dyson Heydon. Perhaps you could call them? Pretty sure they have a grip on rule of law.
A 🧵 on a piece of
@MonashUni
research that ought to make us all weep, retch, explode with white rage & demand better.
'Between 2001-2018 middle-aged women have gone from a place of relative mental calm, to reporting the highest level of serious mental distress.'
‘In an act of chutzpah not seen since the day Tony Abbott appointed himself minister for women, Morrison has reserved the opening keynote address at the National Safety Summit for himself,’
@KZiwica
writes.
#enoughisenough
One plum OECD appointment was worthy of 55 phone-calls from the Prime Minister
@ScottMorrisonMP
but the issue of ensuring adequate supply of vaccine to inoculate the population of Australia against COVID19 didn't warrant a phone call. Just sit with that for a moment.
Did
#ChristianPorter
really say it would be groundbreaking for a public figure to be required to participate in a formal investigation & disprove allegations from 33 years ago? Did he miss the Royal Commission into institutional child sexual abuse? Does he recall George Pell?
This is Molesworth Street in Lismore yesterday. It’s one of the main streets downtown. The devastation is unfathomable. It is akin to Darwin after Cyclone Tracy and the mayor Steve Krieg says ‘Lismore will die’ without state and federal rescue.
I’m going to call it.
@TamePunk
and
@BrittHiggins_
are untweetable. Both of their
#npc
speeches need to be watched. Their collective courage, intelligence and command of the spoken word is majestic to behold.
I hope Dyson Heydon watches every moment of
@alexeggerking
’s extraordinary interview with
@latingle
& that every one of her courageous, vulnerable words haunt him - and anyone who has ever abused their power to exploit women - forever. He did not get away with it. 😭
#abc730
I’m a woman standing up for women & girls and their access to safety, respect & equity in this country. Have done for 10+ years.
In October 2020 the PM’s office rang to admonish me for my advocacy to that end.
Why
@ScottMorrisonMP
was it ok for me to be silenced?
#auspol
The bad news? That the Prime Minister dismissed the informed & sophisticated views of the 2021 Australian of The Year about tackling sexual abuse. The good news? Grace Tame is not afraid to call him out with formidable, dignified power. She is not afraid.
#EnoughIsEnough
My husband recently operated on a young man who, on his very first day on a building site, chopped off four fingers. A week on he was discharged from hospital with four fingers alive and reattached. Function won't be 100% but it's a good news story.
Call me demanding but I’d like fully grown adults paid to represent Australians in Federal Parliament not to require remedial empathy/sensitivity training.
Straight to the poolroom. Finally being able to meet
@BrittHiggins_
&
@TamePunk
IRL after watching them deliver the most electrifying, courageous, spine-tingling, tear-jerking, heart-swelling, nation-changing speeches I’ll ever have the privilege of witnessing was a mood. 🔥💯🔥
Why will
@Lisa_Wilkinson
address the
#March4Justice
in Canberra tomorrow? Because women are done with being ignored. Given the instrumental role Lisa played with
@samanthamaiden
to help
@BrittHiggins_
tell her story it's a remarkable honour. Very grateful for her support.
Proud to stand alongside these women in calling for action to ensure ALL women can enjoy safety, respect & equity. NB: the women visible are not the only women involved. Some women weren't able to be visible. Which is precisely why we're calling for action.
#SafetyRespectEquity
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The lack of decency afforded to
@BrittHiggins_
is breathtaking and so disturbing.
😥😥😥
On 15th March at 12noon we’re marching. We’re calling time. We’re demanding respect for all women.
#March4Justice
‘The personal price Brittany Higgins has paid is astronomical.
We cannot continue to expect individuals to pay such a price in the pursuit of justice,’
@GIWLANU
statement.
"Morrison’s aversion to transparency remains deplorably consistent & universal," Niki Savva in another absolute banger of a column about a government that made "some very rich people even richer while still hunting down pensioners for a few lousy dollars".
It’s genuinely disturbing to fathom an Australian Prime Minister acting with this level of impunity but that is what
@ScottMorrisonMP
is doing and I am fed up. And so are thousands of others.
'This is so clearly fraught with possible peril, to the potential for undue influence or even blackmail, it is astonishing he didn’t just say no,'
@hughriminton
on the untenable situation of accepting this from a serving Cabinet minister.
That
@ScottMorrisonMP
can deliver this keynote to open the National Safety Summit with a straight face will never not be gobsmacking. His lack of insight is utterly repugnant. And matches his lack of commitment.
#EnoughIsEnough
#SaferFutures
#12things
I wonder how Christine Holgate is feeling about the PM declaring allegations of a cabinet minister raping a 16 year old school girl as effectively outside his remit - morally, legally, political - to be concerned with?
This feels deliberately obtuse. A secretive holiday in Hawaii during the bushfires is not equivalent with a PM visiting a war torn nation in the middle of a publicised global trip. It's just not. They are worlds apart.
Here's a question. How many Australians, in any line of work, would keep their job if their employer had to make a payment of $500K to another employee?
Sidenote: Can you imagine the furore of Tony Abbott, for example, if Julia Gillard tried this?
My heart-bursting highlight today came from Miss 10. At school today they each had to name a woman who inspires them & explain why. “I put you down mum and told everyone to look you up because you’re trying to make child-care free for all families.” 😭😭😭
#didnotevenbribeher
Between that inexplicable pledge from Tanya Plibersek, Ken Wyatt’s pro January 26th stance, Bridget McKenzie’s allegiances, Scott Morrison’s ‘hazard-reduction is climate action’ & Bettina Arndt’s ‘gender equity’ award, I can’t help but wish it was all one sick joke. If only.
If the PM accepts workplace sexual harassment & even assault is prevalent in Oz why has he not actioned a SINGLE recommendation from
@Kate_Jenkins_
' historic & revolutionary workplace sexual harassment inquiry? (As detailed by
@KZiwica
in
@WomensAgenda
)
This thread is an absolute disgrace & before you read it, let me clear something up. This. Experience. Is. Commonplace. The motherhood penalty in Australia is punitive & prolific. "Choice" is not why so many mothers in Oz work part-time or not at all.
Today I was forced to ‘resign’ from the ABC instead of returning to work from maternity leave. Resignation infers a degree of choice, of which I had none. Management would no longer allow flexibility around childcare hours available to me: 12-hour days between 6.30am and 6.30pm.
Three years ago Catherine Marriott told
@leighsales
about allegedly being sexually harassed by Barnaby Joyce in the hopes it would "improve the way all political parties deal with complaints of sexual harassment". Today Joyce was re-instated as Deputy PM.
Accept Arthur Moses’ legal position but securing a criminal conviction in court is not the minimum standard to necessitate further investigation. Public office holders have always been held to a higher standard than not being convicted of a criminal offence.
#4Corners
Husband home from work after 9pm, at which point we debriefed.
Me: toilet paper sorted. Tonic very low.
Him: This is f#%*ing serious. There are people aged 40, otherwise totally healthy, currently on ventilators, in ICU in several Sydney hospitals.
Meanwhile...Bondi. Tonight. 🤯
This story and headline fills me with fury and despair. That another female Liberal staffer was sexually assaulted by the same man who raped Brittany Higgins late last year is on the government. It’s on every single person who knew - or ought to have known - and did nothing.
Interrupting holidays with an ask! Can I urge you to share this
@marieclaireau
cover, buy the magazine when it hits stands tomorrow & pledge your support for the
#UluruStatement
? We’ve joined forces with 31 prominent Australians to campaign for this long overdue change.
#ItsTime
To the women of Australia, If you're wondering how seriously the Prime Minister takes the concerns of women in this country, please consider this latest exhibit. Christian Porter appointed Leader of the House in Dutton's covid-related absence.
#EnoughIsEnough
Thinking of every survivor and every woman who marched for justice who is struggling with the latest news from the nation’s capital.
⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️
⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️
⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️
In a Father’s Day social media posts on Sunday, the Prime Minister did not refer to his trip to Sydney to spend time with his family.
In the caption on an Instagram post he said: “this photo was taken of our family together earlier this year.”
Morrison asking his women’s cabinet taskforce to kick off the Women's Safety Summit in the very same week he brazenly rejected 49 of the 55 game-changing Respect
@Work
recommendations transcends even Tony Abbott's temerity towards women.
#EnoughIsEnough
I'm intrigued Minister - do you mean brave enough to act by moving a young female victim across to country to hide her? Or brave enough to bury an 'inquiry' into who knew what when about an alleged rape in a minister's office? Brave enough to refuse to meet women who marched?
“If victims of abuse are brave enough to speak up we need to be brave enough to act. It used to take a village, now it takes a country” -
@AusFedPolice
Commissioner Reece Kershaw.
#WomensSafetySummit
‘I don’t know why it wouldn’t be read. To deny allegations you need to read them,’ Julie Bishop pretty unequivocal I thought on neither Christian Porter or Scott Morrison having read the dossier.
#abc730
Ummmm
#ChristianPorter
didn’t ask to read the full dossier? Notwithstanding it being forwarded to the AFP? And the PM
@ScottMorrisonMP
didn’t suggest he might have a read? Is that the level commitment to investigating the allegations?
As a people-pleaser wired to deliver politeness & niceness & almost apologise for my presence lest I make another person feel uncomfortable this is difficult to watch. The authenticity & courage of
@TamePunk
is iconic. No one 'speaks truth to power' in words & deeds like Grace.
“I’m not party-political, but I call out injustice where I see it, and in this instance, it is damn-near blinding,”
@TamePunk
on the Prime Minister’s ‘deliberate & transparent’ decision to promote Christian Porter.
#EnoughIsEnough
Morrison says correspondence to him confirms 'the intolerable interactions too many women have with the justice system'.
@ScottMorrisonMP
- many also have issues with their employers.
@BrittHiggins_
comes to mind. Has she felt supported? Or has she felt on trial?
Both
@murpharoo
and
@annabelcrabb
have made a pertinent point in relation to Christian Porter that
@vanOnselenP
is at odds with. A criminal conviction is not the only justification for a Federal minister - or public figure - to step down/stand aside.
#insiders
A genuine question for
@ScottMorrisonMP
Back in February you became emotional when Tegan George asked about
@BrittHiggins_
You said your wife, Jenny, had 'clarified' the issue for you.
Is this the way you, or Jenny, meant you'd want it handled if it was one of your daughters?
I am seething. A male staffer masturbating in a female MP's office. Sex workers. Phil Gaetjens deflecting
@SenatorWong
's questions about the status of his 'investigation' after the PM's abysmally woeful response to Brittany Higgins. It is too much.
#abc730
If my words shared as a journalist & advocate through two small independent orgs –
@WomensAgenda
&
@the_parenthood
– are enough to warrant a phone call from the PMO, tell me how rumours of a Cabinet minister allegedly raping a 16 year old doesn't pique the PM's interest?
It's not for the PM to "interfere" when a talented, brilliant woman took her life after allegations she experienced a brutal crime at just 16 that she said was perpetrated by a Cabinet minister that police can't investigate? We need leadership not obfuscation from PM.
What shameless hide of Morrison to call a summit on women’s safety having been instrumental in cutting funding for women’s services,emergency accommodation for victims of domestic violence and failing to respond to accusations of sexual harrassment and bullying in the Parliament
Some context re
#CredibleWomen
It was coined by yours truly after a PMO staffer told me y’day ‘no one credible’ was being critical of the Budget re women.
It was not coined to be exclusive or elitist. Quite the contrary. It is for ALL men and women who see the Budget’s flaws.
Am I alone in finding it utterly gob-smacking that it's only *now*, ten weeks into the nation's most disastrous outbreak, that the Federal government is seeking this advice?
The Prime Minister's dishonesty - by omission, deflection, semantics and subterfuge - around the status of the Gaetjens 'inquiry' is unforgivable. He misled parliament.
That it's a female CEO who loses her job over historic allegations of sexual assault??? It is so maddeningly fitting I want to scream. THIS is
#WhyIMarch
because I'm
#fedup
with accountability being the domain of women not perpetrators.
#EnoughisEnough
#March4Justice
MinterEllison chief executive Annette Kimmitt will leave the law firm after its board decided her position was no longer tenable in the wake of an email she sent to staff.
If I saw any of my children behave like this at school - let alone adults in a professional setting - I’d be mortified. (I wish I could say it would *never* happen at home either but they’re under 10 & some insolence at home is age-appropriate.) This isn’t that.
Lord knows how many times I've said this year that there's nothing more that 2021 can present that will shock me, but here I am. Shocked again. As well as speechless and sad.