It seems that many of our Federal public servants can’t cope with pressure and bullying. This is great – the taxpayer pays the salary, is dissatisfied with the service but apparently we can’t complain because that amounts to bullying. This is the future for the Australian Public Service – work is optional. Whether it be the boss or the client, if you don’t like what they are saying or asking – that’s bullying. Hopefully this attitude won’t infiltrate our military – imagine them complaining that the enemy is being a bully. Of course Aunty Nicola is trying to make sure that you won’t be offended. Australia – no risk, no offense, no bullying, no fun. Utopia.
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So it is ok for handout recipients to abuse those handing out the cash. This could cause the costs of giving the handouts to rise and I pay taxes. An interested trend could be established here. My personal opinion is not on the welfare recipients side (which is probably the most common area of the abuse) they can wait or just not accept the handouts. Maybe have a penalty system that makes them wait longer for their dosh.
Don’t pay welfare, abolish the labour floor price and subsidise low productivity workers, abolish payroll and other taxes on the poor, kill the unfair dismissal laws that reduce the risks on employers giving a poor person a chance.
Introducing competition between Trade Unions who would have to compete for members by offering services that members actually want including new job and promotion prospect.
The ability to deal with difficult customers is a valuable skill in high demand.
Removing the costs of changing jobs for both employee and employer would soon compete away bad bosses and improve the wages of employees who don’t care if the employer wants to waste his own money wasting the time of their employees with childish bullying tactics.
I disagree. I work 10% of my time in the public sector and the bad behaviour of the public, in a setting where normal rules of commerce are suspended, is sometimes unbelievable. We know people don’t value that which is given away…I see it every week. The punters don’t even understand when I tell them they are about to be forcibly removed from the institution due to their threatening to harm our staff. It’s their Yuman Rights you understand.
Let’s hope they privatise everything, before I am driven crazy.
Yes. Privatise the current Federal Cabinet ministers. Surely there are some slavers somewhere who are sufficiently desperate to take them on as private property.
I’m not saying there is no abuse – certainly this can be observed at the ER wards of public hospitals. Those who are genuinly abusive and in receipt of public money should be denied money for a period until they cool down. But the proportion of public servants claiming bullying seems way too high to be credible.
It’s the Macquarie Syndrome, and it’s been going on for some time. Words are redefined to suit an agenda.
It started with “free love” and “make love not war” in the sixties, as euphemisms for fornication, “revolution” was really rebellion, and now “the gay lifestyle” hides what really happens between homosexuals.
If one opposes another’s views that’s “intolerance” and to abandon Australian culture and the founding values of Western civilization is called “multiculturalism” (thank you Paul Keating!)
To say, “hang on a minute, are you sure that’s a good idea?” one is labelled a reactionary conservative, and “diversion programmes for drug users” means we condone and support their chemically-induced wasted lifestyle.
Earlier a rather prescient gentleman called it Newspeak.
Where’s Chopper when you need him?
I think you’re stretching it here Samuel. Of course complaining about poor service is legitimate but when I worked in the welfare sector 25 years ago it was common for public servants to be verbally abused and not unknown for them to be physically assaulted. I can only imagine what it’s like now. Rather than cast aspersions on the public servants, most of whom at the coalface in my experience work hard for little reward or thanks, highlight the real issue – the rising lack of civility in our society, particularly at the lower socio-economic end of the spectrum. What is to be done about that?
What’s happened here is that bullying, in the public sector context, has been redefined, with what motive is unclear.
Bullying used to be an internal employment issue, supervisors making life difficult for their staff. There’s always been a fair bit of it in the public sector, as there is in any hierarchical organistion.
Extending the definition to cover client service relationships – also an historical but separate cause of angst and stress in the public sector – very considerably shifts the goal posts. One speculates that it’s the APS Commission looking once again for a raison d’etre, something it’s been trying to find since 1987!!
You are a moron Kelly. As if this is the premise of the article.
Samuel, do you see this a way for the APS to prevent / get compensation if the Coalition install a Kevin Rudd / Dr Death type in to make the life of the non-productive public servants hell so they want to leave?
Seriously, what happens. I assume they had homosexual intercourse, and this was well known.
This attitude has infiltrated the military but you’ve got it the wrong way around Samuel. The enemy claims that the ADF has been the bully, or called them names then the military goes all out into investigation mode.
Hard to know from that article what the reported bullying cases are. I agree with Rob that some forms of public service – working in welfare or at hospitals – can occasionally see the worst behaviour from those who are getting the service. As they occur online I suppose they’d often be examples of cyber-stalking – maybe finding out details about the person they want to bully, etc. But as very few specific details are given it’s hard to make a final judgment really.
It’s the logical outcome of an entitlement mentality. If people think they are entitled to free government cheese, they’ll get pretty aggro when the cheese is denied. For example, if there is an obligation to get out of bed by 9am for a 11am job interview, and the “client” gets drunk the night before and sleeps in, then it’s not their fault that their benefits are cut off – it’s the fault of an unfair system and they should get their cheese regardless.
Alternatively, these cases takes years to work their way through the system, and what we are seeing is merely a huge block of cases that originated when Krudd was PM.
When did the poor, precious, lazy little slobs lose the ability to growl at the offending “client” … “Oi! Behave mate or you’re out the door quick smart!” Are they so feeble that they cannot physically protect themselves while one of their lazy colleagues scones them with the heavy sticky tape dispenser?
It fair dinkum sounds as if they need to take Mummy to work with them so they can get through their difficult day … shuffling about doing not much on my dollar.
The huge increase in hurt feelinged useless public servants coincides with the discovery of a pot of gold and compliant doctors, and pretend doctor-psychologists, earning good money scribbling out creative diagnoses by the score.
Anthony, why aren’t the payments to such “clients” suspended?
Interesting that this was hidden right down at the end of the article. But it’s the key quote. I wouldn’t trust data from the APSC, mainly as they have a bad habit of telling public servants looking for assistance outside their own department to bugger off.
Different departments have different cultures and this plays out with the amount of abuse and bullying staff are subjected to (by other staff, as opposed to abuse from the public). The higher you go the worse it can get.
In one department I worked for the SES were appalling bullies and I came close to resigning many times. It was only when I worked out that to get the SES to do anything I had to bully them within an inch of their lives that my own work life started to improve. Funnily enough just before I changed over to the private sector I was told I was being fast-tracked for promotion to the SES level.
APS bullying of APS is just a malaise of a bloated public sector. Very few public servants have the autonomy to do their jobs properly, even less are ever held properly accountable for anything they do. There are plenty of good people in the APS but too much of their existence is focused on delivering some fantastical outcome (for the sake of it), and then another and then another, ever advancing up the ranks – until one day taking their place amongst the hallowed SES few.
It’s a world of inflated self worth and mission, gossip and mini-empire. No wonder they spend so much time bullying each other.
Samuel J:
Sorry but you are incorrect when you say the proportion of Govt employees claiming to have been abused by clients is too high.
I can’t count how many times I have been abused. I would think most colleagues have experienced this. Several have been subjected to severe physical assaults, and have been threatened or even attacked with weapons. No way is this mostly in ER. And these are the normal people…as for some of the murderers and rapists who come from max security for treatment…a whole other world.
In the private sector occasionally clients get a bit frustrated, but generally apologise profusely later on. Go figure.
Would just add that when staff are threatened with rape and murder by convicted criminals I can understand them not coming back even if I (and you) are “hardened” enough not to care.
That article is quite lacking in detail. I don’t understand how the cyber-bullying comes into it. The article points to Twitter and Facebook – how on earth do clients know the personal Twitter and/or Facebook account of individuals in the APS? Or are the Twitter/Facebook comments being made in general, in which case it would seem the tormented public servants are spending time looking to see if complaints are being made by their clients.
It would be interesting to learn details of number of complaints by department.
Are they mentally ill?
I’ve heard sugar farmers were at times fairly hostile to Ag Dept and Treasury or PC analysts…
Any statistics of bullying within the trade unions?
They are lacking in an understanding of how to behave in a society and a market due to welfare dependence. Or mentally ill and often drug-addled.
As for
“Are they so feeble that they cannot physically protect themselves while one of their lazy colleagues scones them with the heavy sticky tape dispenser?”
No I do a lot of martial arts. But hit the patient and I’m for civil and criminal prosecution, and unemployment while the perpetrator goes back to his Playstation in prison. Just recently a hospital guard was fired in these circumstances. You really are talking out of your $&rse. Im not sure why people are effectively blaming nurses and doctors for the failings of the public and the welfare state more generally, as for lazy try doing a 72-hour shift with no food or sleep…
Bullying is everywhere
This is a victim industry!
Link
Looks to be run by Bernadette Chirac
Well in all honesty missing-link has only itself to blame..
Hour long phone waits are just the start.
Here in WA my copper mate was called to the dole office for a bloke smashing up the place. By the time he got there the bloke had run off. He asked the staff who it was..
“Oh we cant tell you, privacy reasons”..
What did he look like
Same answer
Do you have video.
“Yes but you will have to write to Canberra to secure permission to review the footage”…
In my opinion the staff should have just gone on strike until that idiotic bit of “privacy” is removed..
So what? That will just come to bite the employer in the arse.
My Dad did have a problem with that though. His boss, was also insane due to a brain tumor that knocked him off.
The Emily Listers running this joint are mirthless wowsers.
Ashbury would have grounds to have hold Nanny Roxon, Fresh-Air Carr and Albo to account if this legislation was in place*.
* I’m sure there would be an exclusion for MPs hidden in the legislation
You can bet the guy smashing the place was quite a reasonable guy before he started going there and getting put through all the idiocy. I’m not opposed to charity, and I don’t have a problem with some sort of safety net, but what we have now reeks of systemic failure, the way it is micro-managed from on-high with volume after volume of pointless rules and regulations designed to give the appearance of fairness and efficiency (but in reality no one can fathom them so they get applied arbitrarily).
If micro management is two thirds of the way up the “bullying” scale, then all of Canberra is guilty because of the way they micro manage the rest of Australia. The wholesale replacement of common sense with managerialism, no wonder people are stressed.
So do you believe Rob laws to stop bullying will actually stop people who are criminal, mentally ill and/or drug addled for acting in the disgraceful way you note?
Comcare says (to the HOUSE STANDING COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT INQUIRY INTO MENTAL HEALTH AND WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION):
“Over the four-year period to 30 June 2010:
> around 9 per cent of accepted Australian Government premium payer claims were attributed to mental stress; and
> around 35 per cent of total claim costs related to these claims.
However, the impact of mental stress is even greater when secondary conditions are taken into consideration. There are a number of cases where the initial claim was not caused by mental stress, but the injured worker developed a mental disease as a secondary medical condition. Taking these cases into consideration, over the same period:
> around 11 per cent of all accepted claims within Australian Government premium payers involved mental disease as either a primary or secondary condition
> around 43 per cent of the total cost of accepted claims related to these claims”.
Things are clearly out of control. I look forward to some investigative reporting, especially at the ABC.
The APS is riddled with “mental disease”. The country’s in good hands.
This Stossel show notes how by some statistical miracle, bullying, injuries and mental illness seem to occur to California state employees just at a point which freezes their pay and therefore the pensions.
Crazy coincidence, eh?
“So do you believe Rob laws to stop bullying will actually stop people who are criminal, mentally ill and/or drug addled for acting in the disgraceful way you note?”
I think our society has become somewhat dysfunctional due partly to the welfare state.
I am just clarifying and responding to the people here who dont believe workers are man enough to cope with aggression from their clients.
Dan, many of us do not query the difficult nature of the job and the odious nature of the “clients” and corporate psycopaths like Dr Death.
The premise of this post is that it will have other unintended consequences, or rather the intention is known, but it does not match the noble sounding intentions of the title of the legislation.
Had occasion to ring the Office of the Disability Discrimination Commissioner to raise certain issues with which I was displeased. Well the lady on the switch must’ve just come out of a Public Service Forum that told her that anyone who has a different opinion to hers and expressed it is a bully.
Right on cue I was told I was bullying her, I just laughed told her to harden up and hung up. Precious little petals they are indeed.
Interesting to note that the Department with by far the worst reputation for employee on employee bullying – backed up, reportedly, by internal surveys and incident reports, although these are never made public – is the Department of Health and Aging.
This is also the Department with one of the highest ratios of female to male staff – around 70%.
I have no explanation for and make no comment on any connection between gender ratio and bullying, except to note that bullying may not necessarily always be a ‘blokey’ thing.
I’ve had cause to stare down, or physically chuck out of the ER about six idiots. In each case I’ve been the one who gets fronted up to the DoNs office about my ‘aggressiveness’. Once a petrol sniffing brain damaged 28 yo male who had assaulted over a dozen nurses – some to the extent of broken bones – was thrown by me to the floor and restrained by me sitting on him. Got grilled by the Aboriginal Legal Aid solicitors, and the abuse was amazing. “You Fucking White C***s think you can assault our people who are sick and get away with it? We’ll have your registration for this you dog.” Oh, admin didn’t turn up for the interview because they were too shit scared of the ALS.
Yes there’s bullying all right, just be sure the direction it comes from.
I don’t think it’s entirely the welfare state that is to blame, more our whole way of doing business. There’s lots of anecdotal evidence to suggest that employees are expected to be consistently less than honest when dealing with clients. That’s just become the norm, and now most customers of most business expects to be spun a yarn when they ask about problems.
Here’s my pet hate for today — laptop batteries. There is a “design capacity” and a “full capacity” and somehow the full capacity is typically about 90% of the design capacity. So what dickhead designed that? Imagine the “design length” of a ladder is 2 meters tall, but the actual ladders are all 1.8 meters.
The thing is, the design capacity gets used on all the theoretical maximum battery life marketing material which is exaggerated up the whazoo. The so-called “design capacity” is basically the biggest lie they think they can get away with, and every single laptop review anywhere will tell you that when they tried it the battery life was less than the manufacturer claimed. Because they are all doing it, no one feels bad about it.
The consequence is a constant background of hostility where people try to scam each other instead of achieving anything. Since most of what Australia does technology-wise is just import, you are either a buyer trying to force the vendor to deliver what they promised, or a vendor trying to wiggle out of what they promised. I’m all for a competitive industry, but there’s appropriate ways to compete, and inappropriate ways, if you get what I’m saying.
Since I’ve been looking around for work lately, you see some absolute howlers, someone was asking for the “Ability to work alone in a team.” I’m not making this up.
I saw one company asking for employees who knew how companies can get maximum impact out of social media. Yeah, well we have always known how companies can get maximum impact out of word of mouth — have a good product, give good service, and support your customers. Nothing’s changed because we have keyboards and twitter accounts, instead of talking over the back fence. Thing is, you read between the lines and IMHO these job ads are asking for a skilled, professional bullshit artist. They will probably get one, but then they have the problem of figuring out who this great artist is bullshitting to every day.
…..the rising lack of civility in our society, particularly at the lower socio-economic end of the spectrum. What is to be done about that?
Call an election
Corporal punishment in schools
Give them their very own piece of God’s green earth ?
Sammy,
my wife used to work in the Family Court. She no longer works due to suffering a relatively severe case of PTSD after numerous critical incidents which included taking bomb threats over the phone and in one incident, a suspicious package actually being found after the threat was phoned in, constant abuse by clients who weren’t following protocols, a solicitor attempting to assault her whilst lodging documents, a client after mentioning that the client was involved with OMCGs, threatening to shoot her and then reaching into her bag and after my wife ran for safety, she was berated by a supervisor. There was no support for staff when they took abusive callers and they were expected to just put up with the abuse and were not allowed to hang up on them (I have worked for nearly 10 years as an operator at SAPOL’s Comcen and we were instructed if someone abuses us over the phone we were quite entitled to hang up on them as the philosophy was we weren’t there to be abused.) My wife also raised issues about client behaviour in the client services area and management arranged for some signs stating that abusive behaviour will not be tolerated just before she left on stress leave and these signs still haven’t been put up.
So there are considerable issues with the culture of some sectors of the public service and its management.
A fascinating experience I recently had was a 80yo prickle farmer standing over me in a meeting stabbing my face with his finger as he accused me of being a “dumb, f*cking lying c*nt ar**hole” in front of a crowd of 90 people. All because I said they were no longer entitled to another couple of years of
handoutsa helping hand.The problem, of course being that the drought years gave him more living money through drought payments than 60 years of farming on his very small holding had ever delivered.
Well Entropy if the Beattie Bligh Junta had’ve left these people alone and let them dodge a few poddies, fish with sieves, grow a bit of yarndi, cut down a few trees, sell split rails, shoot dingoes and fruit bats and root and kill each other when and where necessary then you wouldn’t have to be assailed by Ray Hopper in public for cutting back their new found entitlements. Now would you?
Des Deskperson, if only you knew. My experience dealing with Health & Aging was wholly negative although gender gave no indication of incompetence or willingness to bully.
Health & Aging is a weird place. The national office in Canberra (where the majority of staff work) is run solely for the benefit of staff. Highly unionised with all the attendant problems of poor work performance, absenteeism and bullying.
Is it gender related? No idea, although you’d have to wonder based on the gender split in staff numbers. Gillard’s misogyny rant has also had a negative impact in the APS workplace.
Good for you, Rob. There is a lot of uninformed swinging dick boolsheeet posted on the cat when it comes to public servants.
Either that or a lazy self entitled total Fucking arsehole waste of oxygen who should be flogged within an inch of his life.
You can bet… Give me a fucking break.
One thing that seems to happen is that when a country moves towards the welfare state initially the “clients” are very appreciative. This can be seen currently in many developing nations for example that are providing more free healthcare to the poor and I am sure was the case initially in Australia. Australia is past this now and now everything is an entitlement. Once it becomes an entitlement it is money that you are owed or as those on welfare often say “they (the government) are not giving me my money on time”.
Spot on Kelly.
I don’t think the “Harden Up” was directed at the frontline PS that have to wade through the human sewer each day, but more at those claiming bullying because someone snipped their low fat Yogo from the staff canteen and now need 6 months bereavement leave.
Lack of civility. I’m a bus driver and when someone is polite and says please and thank you it is quite unusual. The trick is to fight the urge to be like them.
And “stress”. As Keith Miller told Andrew Denton “stress is when you’ve got a Messerschmitt up yer arse”.
And it has got to the point where a certain segment of the population travels free, just to avoid hassles. This is not condoned. lol
Australia as a whole needs a civics course.
Mandatory units:
1. Walking on a footpath or through a shopping centre and why you should keep to the fucking left you stupid window licking droolers.
2. Ordering drinks at a bar. Hey group of 10 Sheilas hogging all the real estate, why don’t you order in a round rather than each of you ordering and paying separately. Have your fucking cash ready. That’s right, cash.
3. The lost of art of please, thank you and piss off.
That’s the thing, the lazy people have a natural advantage that they can’t be bothered freaking out at the stupidity of the world.
Speaking of harden up!
Its all very well to bluster about stopping taxpayers money being given to bludgers, and I even agree in principle, but in practice I know Public Servants on that frontline who have been stalked, publicly abused and threatened, and even been “visited” at their homes by those whom they have denied benefits to for cheating, rorting etc (call it what you will). I think the problem of bullying within the Service comes from people claiming harassment etc from those who are actually directing or disciplining them. This is common in health these days because I am perfect in everything I do and if you point out that I’m not, well you’re bullying me, and I need stress leave. There’s your issue. I see it most days.
“Australia as a whole needs a civics course.” Let’s continue:
You’ve stood there five to seven minutes looking like a self-satisfied twat-ess while the cashier toted up and bagged all your groceries, do you think you could have used that time to get your damn purse out and select which out of the thirty credit, reward cards and points cards you needed to use?
Oh, and why do we now need signs to ask people to wait until the lift clears before they push their way in? That used to be taken for granted. When did that change?
I have no explanation for and make no comment on any connection between gender ratio and bullying, except to note that bullying may not necessarily always be a ‘blokey’ thing.
Thank you Mr Deskperson. I was avoiding that (self-censoring) but seeing you’ve already said it……Oh yesssss. What is it they say? A misogynist is a man who hates women almost as much as women hate women.
says Abu, followed up immediately with:
Now that was funny!
Back to poor overworked Rob:
If you’ve done that more than a couple of times then you’re the mug for so doing. It’s nowhere near representative of public service behaviour universally.
Aw gee, I never thought of that. Who knew?
Don’t initiate, react to protect yourself, act reasonably, ensure there’s evidence which speaks unequivocally, appoint an utterly ruthless solicitor, have him brief the best regarded barrister then sit back and enjoy the win.
Oh, and why do we now need signs to ask people to wait until the lift clears before they push their way in? That used to be taken for granted.
Yep. that’s a major bugaboo for me. It’s more efficient to let people exit the lift than trying to be like salmon making upstream. People are dumb.
it is the same with trains. It is quite cathartic after a long day to get off, stand in front of whichever person blocking the exit and give them a piece of my mind. I like to finish with a little ‘time to switch on your fucking brain, dickhead’.
it is the same with road traffic. Many traffic jams are caused by those in a rush sitting up someones arse who then crash causing a traffic jam slowing everyone down not to think of the carbon emissions or wasted fuel costing maybe 10 000 people more money and their time.
As far as the public sector is concerned, these things come in cycles that roughly correspond to particular decades. In the eighties, it was RSI (or OOS), in the ninenties ‘stress’, the oughties, sexual harassment and now bullying.
It’s a mild form of contagious mass hysteria, someone mentions bullying and suddenly there’s a crisis. The empire builders in ‘human resource development’, not to mention the consultants at $3,000 per day, love it!
Trains ( I know we are veering offtopic – but this is cathartic ).
The latest fashion seems to be to wait until the train is at a near standstill, or even fully stopped, and then to move from the seat to the exit in a leisurely fashion – all the while wondering why a sea of people fighting their way on is not stepping back for the special people ( who obviously are repeating the mantra in their heads ‘Don’t you know who I am !? ).
Couples seem to excel at this.
The ‘bullying’ panic is simply an industry – like the Aboriginal industry.
It’s a cottage industry, more precisely, invented to a) de-masculinise workplaces; b) bolster and phonily lend existential purpose to unions and shop stewards; and c) create employment opportunities for academics, social workers, public servants, lawyers and others in the worthless word jumbling sector of the non-economy.
Des – on:
Dick Dusseldorp who founded Civil & Civic, later Lend Lease (which incidentally built most of commercial Canberra, together with a Greek builder whose name escapes me) enjoyed the respect of his employed workforce. He used put on Friday barbeque lunches for his large workforce way back in the late ’60s and ’70s, on sites such as Australia Square and MLC Centre.
Today’s major “construction” companies, who employ no-one and couldn’t build an outside dunny, do the same now ‘cos it’s in the We-Care-for-You manual.
I recall the story of him being accompanied around one of his sites by a reporter writing a feature, who commented how popular he was with his tradies and how he seemed to know so many of their names.
“You must have a very good personnel department” ventured the reporter.
Dusseldorp’s response was to the effect “I don’t have personnel managers! They would simply create problems with the men for themselves to solve, so they could justify their salaries.”
You summarise it accurately and succinctly C.L.
I know this may sound simplistic to some but it mystifies me how adults with any sense of self esteem allow themselves to be bullied at work, on the definition as I know it.
Mate, I am so glad the irony and sarcasm I intended was not lost on you.
Will “bullying” be an eligible basis for a lifetime pension under Lard-Arse’s NDIS?
Y’ know there might be just enough elasticity in the criteria for that to be so.
So, their new ploy is now to feel bullied?
And sadly it goes both ways, Vladamir Putin 2009:
It really does come down to being able to dislodge some very strongly vested interests, who benefit from not changing the status quo. Putin is for all intents and purposes equivalent to a feudal monarch, but that also gives him the ability to speak his mind where other leaders are not in a position to admit their problems. Fabian socialism has been tried and failed, it will fail again as we try it here.
Well at least one public servant (Brendan Nelson) was cyber-bullied by another one (Marieke “Margi” Hardy):
I won’t even bother the moderators with what Margi said someone meeting him for the first time should have done to Nelson, and his wife and their children. But it makes fascinating reading at 11:25am on April 21st.
Andrew, do you have any evidence that “Margi” = Marieke Hardy? I ask because if an attribution like the one you’ve just made turned out to be erroneous, your post appears defamatory to me. If you’re just casting aspersions, that doesn’t seem like a particularly clever way to do it.
Will “bullying” be an eligible basis for a lifetime pension under Lard-Arse’s NDIS?
Leigh (or person under rock) the expansion of people on dissability pension is already exponential (in Aus and US)do you think we need another law to make that so?
Even if “Margi” is not one of Ms Hardy’s sock puppets (I don’t know, not being a regular reader of that blog), Ms Hardy remains responsible for the comment as it is her blog and by publishing and retaining the comment, she is sharing/owning responsibility for it.
Just home from a day of bus driving. Made it without being “rude ” to some moron, for which I could lose my 90K job. Can’t wait ’til my last week at work next year.
Gimme a break louis
I’m no Marieke Hardy fan, that’s for damn sure. But sliming her by misattributing a truly vile statement to her…well, even putting aside any potential legal ramifications, let’s just say that isn’t it best to leave that kind of behaviour to the Marieke Hardys of the world?
That’s the same argument Lefties make when they try to attribute every comment on Bolt’s or Blair’s blog to them personally. I like Marieke Hardy probably just as much as the average Lefty likes Bolt or Blair, but it’s really not fair attributing the words of any given anonymous commenter to the blog owner himself/herself.
And be careful with the “blog owner as sock puppet” accusations… they can be expensive.
“Reasons You Will Hate Me” was a moderated blog. There is no doubt that Marieke Hardy owns the publisher’s responsibility by permitting the offending post to appear, even if, as appears probable, she was not the composer of the post.
Didn’t Hardie accuse someone of posting or stalking her on her own and other blogs, which wasn’t true and ended up costing her around $15,000?
I don’t recall the exact story.
He then went on to sue Twitter but I don’t know the result.
See, the individualistic American in me does not agree with that concept. In the US, you are only responsible for what you yourself say or write – not what others say or write. The people who wrote those comments are responsible for them.
Click, click.
Fool’s errand.
While I personally agree that the original poster should bear full responsibility for what was posted, under Australian Law, the Publisher is also liable. cf the case referenced above.
Which explains why the major media bloggers are all moderated, and why posts are occasionally snipped here at the Cat. But then Australia and the UK have no guaranteed right to free speech.
Yes, but Twitter is (not “are” – it is actually just the one corporate entity so we use the singular) an American company and foreign laws don’t work in America.
Fascist Australians can only monster their fellow Australians. Too bad, so sad.
sdog @ 0258,
There is the Australian High Court decision of Dow Jones and Company Inc vs Joe Gutnick of 2002
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/2002/56.html
Australian law prevailed in this case
Mike
An Australian court decided that Australian law trumped US law in that case.
British courts have also declared that British law trumps US law.
Afghan courts probably reckon Afghan law trumps US law.
And?
Good luck getting a US court to enforce a foreign court’s judgment on an American citizen for something they said or wrote whilst resident in America and which is not illegal in America, though.
In Thailand, it is against the law to insult the royal family. If an American wrote on a blog, “Well, fuck the Thai royal family,” a Thai court might decide that that American is guilty of lese-majeste. What US court is going to uphold that?
Anyway, one of the few good things Obama’s done has been to help kill the Libel Tourism duck dead:
Congenitally-offended freedom-hating foreigners will just have to learn to, as the title of this post says, “harden up”. Diddums.
Eh?
Index of Economic Freedoms.
# 3 Australia 82.6
# 10 USA 76.0
How do you like them apples?
???
“Economic Freedom” ≠ Over-all Freedom. You’re smarter than that, Tokes.
When it comes to free speech, yes Australia is fascist compared to the US. Nothing to do with economics, FFS.
Are you seriously going to argue that numbers one and two on that list, where citizens are subjects of a communist regime and a dictatorship respectively, have more rights and freedoms than anyone else in the world, and that a country where you can be prosecuted for calling white people white and you will be arrested for riding a pushbike without a fucking crash-hat comes in a close third?
Come on.
LOL, I know sdog
If you meet someone once and threaten or assault them, you are threatening or assaulting them, the concept of bullying (which implies an ongoing relationship between the bully and the victim) does not come into it.
Therefore, any talk of random threats and assaults by the public on public servants has nothing to do with bullying.
FFS, can’t we even understand our own language anymore?
I blame the idiots of the left who are always placing such an emphasis on the harm that words can do but usually having a poor grasp of the lexicographical context. They are as a result often to be seen making passionate arguments that are at best tangential to the real tpic. The biggest challenge that libertarians and conservatives face is forcing the idiots of the left to stick to the point and to apply logic.
Yet they still have the stupid rules which prosecutes them in the US for breaking other countries environmental laws.
Harden up, America.
A clear case of pedophobia
Hungry lawyers smell rich school district – yum, yum.
If saying something negative about a public servant on Twitter is “bullying”, I’m pretty sure there are more than a few Liberals who could qualify as “viiiiictims”.
We are talking about a society where a public servant receives workers comp when having sex in a motel room when on a business trip.
Why not redefine bullying?
We are on a race to the bottom in this discussion where we exhaust each other with examples that just will make us sad.
I think Stossel made clear how fascist Blue State America is becoming in the Illegal Everything episode.
I am definitely a mug for doing so, but there is currently no other way to become a doctor in certain specialties in Australia. If I knew then what i know now, I probably wouldn’t do it again.
Now I’m speaking as someone who actually has experience of civil litigation…
Just what I need on top of my workload (and a mostly private practice where if I miss a week’s work I still have to pay staff and end up losing money) – a prolonged court case and public embarrassment, and (unfairly), likely unemployability in the future should I want to return to public practice. You really are spouting nonsense.
Freedom of press index is not that good in the US so I am not so sure that it is such a Utopia over there for free speech. Look at the index Australia is 30 and US 47 both pretty dismal and unless people now claim that all reporters are essentially liars then both countries have questionable free speech.
Rob, I’ve watched Interns and Registrars do those 72 hour shifts, and I’ve pulled quite a few of them as a Nursing Officer in the army. The decision making capability in the average person is shot to shit by these hours.
Myrddin, I reckon concealed carry would go a long way to to settling down, or even culling, some of the hot headed fools who don’t have the self restraint required to function in a civil manner.
and
That’s twice champ. You are wrong.
You complain about hopelessly long hours during which, in your business, you indubitably put a patients’ health and your professional future at grave risk. What are you going to do about that?
You outline abuse by clients, “severe physical assaults”, “threatened or even attacked with weapons”, “murderers and rapists who come from max security for treatment … when staff are threatened with rape and murder”. What have you done about that?
You go on to say “hit the patient and I’m for civil and criminal prosecution”. I clearly suggested you not do that, with “Don’t initiate, react to protect yourself, act reasonably, … .”
“Im not sure why people are effectively blaming nurses and doctors for the failings …” – I have not read that here.
Incidentally, if the people in the thick of it and who, by any measure, are best placed to ameliorate the environment do nothing (through an anonymous detailed camouflaged briefing to your union, your professional college, the Minister and Premier; by collectively fronting your boss and his – with objective facts, unemotively) then do please tell me what people should think. What can you do about that?
The end result? Now in private practice you don’t have the time or the inclination to do anything about these things of which you complain. Eh?
My central point stands … “The huge increase in hurt feelinged useless public servants coincides with the discovery of a pot of gold and compliant doctors …”, and the things of which you speak are “nowhere near representative of public service behaviour universally.”
I’m quite intrigued that Australia is up there with Hong Kong for economic freedom, and the US is right down for press freedom. How can that be with the First Amendment?
Mick, I fully agree that working those hours was bad for me and probably everyone around me. My point was aimed at your implication that public hospital workers are lazy, I still disagree.
You complain about hopelessly long hours during which, in your business, you indubitably put a patients’ health and your professional future at grave risk. What are you going to do about that?
The problem is universal in the health profession and it is a serious problem. It is somewhat strange that doctors of all professions should tolerate this and it probably has some tradition behind it about being resilient but long hours really do screw with complex decision making. In “The Promise of Sleep” the authors cite an anonymous survey of US doctors in which nearly 50% states that sleep deprivation has contributed to their decision making which caused patient death.
The demand for treatment is very high. What are doctors going to do when at the end of their shift a seriously ill patient comes in? Say, look, I’m tired, I’m going home. Litigation here we come. Double bind. Very difficult issue. Laws must be changed.
You outline abuse by clients, “severe physical assaults”, “threatened or even attacked with weapons”, “murderers and rapists who come from max security for treatment … when staff are threatened with rape and murder”. What have you done about that?
A friend of mine is a nursing ward manager for a dementia ward and has frequently complained to me about how near impossible it is to manage this problem. Dementia and violence are a common problem, they call it “sundowning” but it is not about circadians or sunlight, it is about the fact that dementia often creates violent behaviors, this often being a reason they placed in these wards, and as these people are cognitively impaired there is little utility in bringing forth legal action.
People often complain about the heavy use of antipsychotics in dementia behavior management but once you have seen your staff seriously injured by out of control patients you are not going to complain so much.
Where the violence is not due to cognitive impairment any person committing violence should be convicted and forever banned from that hospital or clinic. Do that and make the media spread the word.
I posted it in good faith having read the quote attributed to her by several media sources – that, and being on her blog, being allowed to stand for years despite her being well aware of it, and thee poster having effectively her name, contracted.
For what its worth, the grub did claim it wasn’t her along with a claim that in 2 years she found it to hard to moderate the comment. So if you want to take her word for that, substitute Pyne and her “raped by a dog”comment – my original point still stands. And yes, she’s said worse Abbott.