The Reckoning – How #Metoo is Changing Australia by Jess Hill

June 27, 2023 – Thornbury

The weird thing about the Australian news is that everything seems filtered, muffled, refracted through politics of politeness and prime time manners. Brittany Higgins, Grace Tame, Christian Porter and the other stories that have floated off and on our screens in between COVID news — those who we marched for, have seemed frankly so thinly reported that their stories have been just enough to evoke discussion and doubts.

Not after reading this.

This evokes rage.

Jess Hill rips the bandaid off the forces you to stare at the festering wound.

Do not think you will escape any of the details of Tame's horrific story or the nightmarish full account of Christian Porter's abuse from Kate Thornton, who killed herself after police refused to pursue her complaint in 2020.

Australia's specific #MeToo unfolding has been made particularly fucked up by our culture of secrecy and protection of abusers with aggressive NDAs preventing victim disclosure, as well as the swamp of misogyny that we brew up in our private boys schools.

Learning about the legal loophole that prevents Australian university students from being protected under either OHS or child safety laws (where abusers are simply moved from campus to campus) and the strange belief that we continue to hold that women for some reason would falsely accuse men (despite the absolute horror of being a victim in the public eye) truly had me feeling ashamed of this country.

Jess Hill pulls no punches here. We need to hear it. Please read this essay if you perhaps let some of these stories pass you by amidst the pandemic, and understand what is happening in Australia, where we would rather let him keep his career than let his victim survive.