Weekend Reads with Virginia Trioli

 

Prime Minister, all you needed to hear was being said right next to you. When the Australian of the Year Grace Tame lifted her angry, defiant voice to cry "well, hear me now" after years of being silenced by sexual abuse, Scott Morrison was standing only a few feet away. When she gave her incendiary Press Club Speech in Canberra this week urging sexual assault and abuse survivors like herself to "share your truth, it is your power", the Prime Minister, his Cabinet — with one member off on stress leave and another soon to join her — and all the staff of what might be one of the most toxic workplaces in Australia were just up the hill, in a shining stone building under a slow-waving flag. I'm sure they must have heard her. Tame's voice was trembling slightly that night on Australia Day eve, but the time she has spent since, and also surely the last two weeks that she and the rest of us have gone through, appear to have put even more steel in her call. When Tame speaks, like the roar of a lion, it shakes the trees. As we have reeled through the horrifying allegations made about sexual assault in Parliament House, allegations about the federal Attorney-General, and the patchwork of explanations that make up the official responses to all of this, we have needed a mighty voice like that. I'm glad Grace Tame spoke this week. A friend of mine said yesterday that last week she was angry, but this week she just felt sad. She wanted to go back to the angry feeling — at least that contained energy, motivation. Now, like millions of others, she felt tired, so tired. Many callers to my show this week spoke softly and in terror of a history they were only revealing for the first time. Others talked in despair and exhaustion at having to make the point again, and again — that sexual violence is more common than many Australians want to believe. The Prime Minister has called for an independent review into the culture of Parliament House, to be headed up by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins. But really, she's already done one. The commissioner's comprehensive national inquiry into sexual harassment in the workplace was released last March and people from every workplace in Australia were invited to make a contribution. I read many of them. They were depressing and repetitive and predictable. The submissions came from government agencies and private businesses alike. So many women — and men — did not feel safe in their workplace. It's not as if those in power couldn't know. One of the many exhausted and overwhelmed women grappling with these truths this week posted that while almost every woman knew of other women who'd been sexually assaulted — no man seemed to know another man who was a rapist.   I always say we keep men's secrets: I guess they keep each other's secrets too. Commissioner Jenkins made 55 urgent recommendations. But the federal government has acted upon only one, and even that is incomplete. Once she finishes her year-long review into Parliament House I sincerely wish Commissioner Jenkins luck in getting any new recommendations acted upon any faster. I hope this review is the answer, but what if the Prime Minister had turned to that slight but mighty woman standing just a few feet away? What if Grace Tame had been asked a simple question — what do you think we should do? — and the Australian of the Year who has inspired silenced Australian women everywhere to find their voices could have added hers? Last year, the Prime Minister said he wanted women to be believed. When journalist Ronan Farrow, who broke the Harvey Weinstein allegations, was asked if the best way to honour a woman's experiences was to believe her, Farrow replied it was better to investigate. To trust — but verify. To listen, really listen. To understand just how much it took for a woman to speak out at all, and then do the work to establish the truth. And if you look closely around you, there might just be the right person to help. This weekend, Laura Tingle offers her incomparable analysis of this crisis gripping Canberra and after weeks of traumatising news, we have advice for how to silence the inner voices that can drain and defeat us. Have a safe and happy weekend and do find a moment to light a candle, pour a glass of a nice Macedon Ranges red and turn the amp up to 11 in remembrance of the irascible giant of Australian music, Michael Gudinski. I was lucky enough to meet him as a young idiot music writer in the ‘90s and ever since he has terrified, inspired and charmed me in equal measure. Michael would want you to get up and dance. He'd want you to remember the music, always. Go well.