Discussing the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard defamation case, Bill Burr pointed out that Western society has become so skewed that mere accusation has become the punishment.
Consider the slew of recent allegations which have effectively ended the careers of powerful men and women: Christian Porter’s still-anonymous accuser; Brittany Higgins, whose is the only side which has been aired, ad nauseum, by the media. In the US, as Burr pointed out, many men have been falsely accused of rape, yet continue to bear the stigma long after they were completely exonerated. Some men, such as game developer Alec Holowka, committed suicide under the stress of false accusations. So did teenager Jon Cheshire, who killed himself before his accuser withdrew her complaint; Cheshire’s mother committed suicide a year after her son.
A slightly less dramatic tactic of weaponising complaints is alleging “bullying”.
Many people might be wondering why former government staffer Rachelle Miller qualified for a payout of over $500,000 when each of the numerous investigations concerning her claims of bullying by Alan Tudge, Michaelia Cash and Cash’s chief of staff found that none of her former bosses had a case to answer […]
The critical point seems to be that Miller’s payout was made under the federal Comcare laws, which are effectively “no fault” – meaning any federal employee who suffers damage at work might qualify for a payout.
I have several friends in Canberra. Their stories of public servants leveraging Comcare laws are legion. For instance, a female public servant who claimed to be so traumatised by a knitted penis some prankster brought to the office that she went on years-long stress leave, including taxpayer-funded gym memberships. Another Canberra acquiantance, an HR manager, relates the story of someone in their office whom they knew to be, in their words, “a psycho”. Despite making several other worker’s lives hell, this office psycho protected themselves by accusing others of “bullying”.
We may never know the truth behind recent allegations of bullying against Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka, either. Or other similar claims that hit the media, not to mention those that do not make headlines but affect workplaces across the country.
The truth is hidden behind the now familiar legal dance. Before we get to that, the starting point, needless to say, is that people who are injured at work should be properly and fairly compensated.
And yet, many will rightly suspect that the system does more than that, that it also allows malcontents to weaponise bullying, harassment, stress and psychological claims to ward off performance issues, to punish a boss they don’t like or to make political points. Or maybe all of the above.
This gnawing fear that bullying allegations are the weapon du jour is only fed by the fact that entire industries thrive on workplace complaints, no matter how spurious. Not just lawyers, but PR advisers, activist journalists and, where it suits them, politicians.
What’s particularly noticeable is how often “bullying” accusations are leveraged by, not the lowly office drones, but by the middle-managerial types, often women. They are, after all, the ones who know the system and can afford a good lawyer. If they work in the fields of politics or media, as so many of them seem to do, they can muster a sympathetic coven of supporters with ease.
Notice how Brittany Higgins, Emma Sulkowicz and Zoe Quinn were ginned up into feminist heroes — the latter, even after their lies were exposed.
Any lawyer practising in this area knows the key words and phrases […] using “toxic culture” will often have the chair and chief executive instinctively reaching for the settlement cheque book, and if you can justify even the sniff of a “boys club” allegation or a bit of “toxic masculinity”, no matter how bogus in fact, the firm is likely to be showering you with dollars before you can say “systemic sexism/racism/ageism” […]
While reputable media will check claims, that is no barrier at the ABC, for example. A quick call to Four Corners with a salacious complaint about a male Coalition politician might see the formation of a media task force.
But doesn’t the fact that companies so often pay out complainants prove that they’re guilty?
Even when faced with a most dubious complaint, an employer or some public authority may offer a cash payment to save time and make it go away. If the employee hasn’t signed an NDA when taking such a settlement and later feels aggrieved at the amount or any other part of the settlement, they might go for a second bite at the cherry by using the media.
The Australian
Does all of this mean that no-one is ever bullied, let alone harassed or even raped? Of course not. But only a fool would deny that unscrupulous, vengeful scoundrels have weaponised laws with an ever-lower bar of proof.
Maybe once courts placed too high a bar to the complaints of genuine victims. But, swinging the other direction and lowering the bar to the point that mere accusations are taken as proof enough is surely not a just solution.
