Much had been written about the Brittany Higgins Parliament House rape case.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
No doubt by the time this column is published more will come to light as the ripples spread ever wider.
So today I'll focus on a few of the most egregious implications.
That is, those that relate to the culpability of those who should know better.
"The government has done just about everything wrong when dealing with workplace assault. This mishandling presents yet another credibility crisis for Scott Morrison," wrote Crikey.
The first point of concern is the prime minister bringing his wife Jenny and his two daughters into the picture.
ScoMo rather naively told us "Jenny and I spoke last night and she said to me, 'You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?' Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has."
The mind boggles at the thought processes of a prime minister who thought this would help his case.
For, as the Daily Advertiser has pointed out, it shouldn't need a reference to one's own children to make one aware of the appalling enormity of the problem.
Yet another example of a Scotty from Marketing advertising campaign gone wrong.
Morrison was also again demonstrating that he is incapable of viewing women as deserving of compassion unless he is first reminded of their relationship to a man.
He seems not to realise that all girls/women are someone's daughter.
His should not merit special reference because their father happens to be PM.
It also occurs to me that if one of the daughters of Scott and Jenny Morrison happened to be black, we would have succeeded in "closing the gap" some time ago.
Attempting to spin his way out of yet another government scandal, Morrison announced four inquiries into the matter. Four!
And all for the price of one, as a marketing campaign from Scotty would no doubt advertise.
The PM may know the price, but he seems to be oblivious as to the cost.
The real issue isn't the blatant attempt to convince the public that more is better.
The main problem is that they are all internal parliamentary inquiries, when what we really need is a totally independent one.
What ScoMo is offering is as credible as putting the foxes in charge of an inquiry into a raid on the chook house.
Defence Minister Linda Reynolds is also in the firing line, for missing the cues.
Ditto other ministers. And the prime minister, over what he knew and when he knew it.
Higgins told News Corp that it was the sight of Morrison standing beside Australian of the Year Grace Tame, a survivor of sexual assault, that pushed Higgins to go public.
So many of the elements of this story had the recurring features of a government that once again "humbly" promises accountability and transparency only to do its best to hide from view its failures and disregard for earlier conventions of behaviour, as The Saturday Paper pointed out.
When bad news is dominating the headlines, the best solution for a prime minister is to come out with a good news story.
Morrison had two such stories to hand that would distract from the bad news.
Firstly, Facebook banning Australian news sites, which allowed Scotty and Josh to play David battling Goliath.
Following this, they were finally able to announce that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine had been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia, followed by the actual roll-out.
And, true to form, using the excuse that he was demonstrating its safety, ScoMo was one of the first to receive the jab.
Of course, he didn't let on that it would be an excellent photo op after a horror week for him.
The PM has also taken umbrage at a major business group's comments about a pervasive "culture of disrespect" in politics.
His response was that "if any workplace thinks that this is just confined to the parliament, they're kidding themselves".
They aren't. They were just pointing out that Parliament is a particularly toxic workplace.
Which leaves us realising that ScoMo really doesn't get it. It's high time we had a PM who did.