Eva Lawler bullying claim just confected outrage

All this confected outrage is detracting from the actual outrage we should feel over real acts of violence, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM

THE joke is over. Humour is dead. Banter is banned. The last chuckles have given way to the thought police determined to construe every off-the-cuff remark, good-natured sledge or poorly-worded joke as a genuine threat to the safety of others.

We’ve seen this play out in recent days all the way from Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium to the elevators of the Northern Territory’s Parliament House.

‘SHE should be sacked’: Bullying claims rock NT parliament

WHAT Eva Lawler said to the Opposition staffer

In Melbourne, a Carlton supporter leaned over the fence on Saturday afternoon and called the umpire a “bald-headed flog”.

It’s the kind of insult footy fans have been hurling at officials and opposition supporters for more than a century.

But this fan’s sledge – devoid of even a swear word – was enough to see him escorted from the ground by police and security guards.

“I actually chose my words and made sure I didn’t swear because there’s kids around so it’s pretty embarrassing from the AFL,” the fan told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

“They’ve made me wait half an hour for an AFL integrity officer to come and take a photo of myself and my membership then I got escorted from the ground by the police and security. I was pretty annoyed.”

The AFL even launched an investigation into the incident before the fan was issued a warning.

It’s bizarre that the AFL still allows a player who commits an actual act of violence on the field to stay on and play the rest of the game, but a few naughty words from a fan can see him ejected from the stadium.

Here in Darwin Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler has been in the firing line over an off-the-cuff remark she made to Opposition staffer Sharon Mulholland in a Parliament House lift.

In March Lawler walked into the lift with Resources Minister Paul Kirby and a Labor staffer and said “Quick grab her and bash her”.

The incident became public this week when the Opposition raised it in Estimates. Now the CLP is calling for Lawler to resign for “inciting violence” and breaching the Ministerial Code of Conduct.

Really? Does anyone actually think Lawler intended to bounce one off Mulholland’s nose?

As the Minister said this week while being subjected to the sort of scrutiny one might expect if she’d had her hands in a major corruption scandal, this was a joke.

We can argue about whether it was a poorly-worded one, but there can be no doubt Lawler’s comments were made in jest to someone she knows well.

When she was informed Mulholland was upset by what she had said she apologised, as she’s been forced to do again several times this week.

While Lawler deserves sympathy for the ridiculous level of publicity this incident has now attracted, her party deserves none.

Labor has been the master of pretending to take offence at a poorly chosen word or off-the-cuff remark.

Remember the furore when former Attorney General John Elferink referred to Labor MLA Natasha Fyles and said: “I am really tempted to give her a slap right now, figuratively speaking”?

Of course he was speaking figuratively. During his colourful political career Elferink was often guilty of putting his foot in his mouth, but even Labor people will say he was a man who always acted with the best of intentions. Did anyone actually think he was about to leap across the chamber and assault the Member for Nightcliff? Of course not.

But that didn’t stop Labor dialing up the confected outrage to a 10.

It even convinced female crossbench MLAs to stand united with Labor’s female members, stony-faced, as they demanded Elferink – who had already apologised - be sacked. “When a perpetrator says sorry it doesn’t erase their actions,” Fyles said.

The CLP is right to point out Labor’s hypocrisy on this issue as it calls for Lawler’s resignation, but the reality is neither Elferink or Lawler should have been required to do any more than say sorry, if indeed, their words did cause offence.

The problem with all of this confected outrage is that it detracts from the actual outrage we should all feel over real acts of violence.

The NT has some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world.

In 2016 Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw revealed NT police had responded to 75,000 reports of domestic violence in just three years.

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But I don’t remember our female MLAs standing united out the front of Parliament House to take a united stand back then.

The same study Kershaw referred to in 2016 found one child in the NT was subjected to domestic violence every day, and three children witnessed domestic violence each day, usually in their own home.

In the three years since there’s been little evidence that those numbers are declining.

Perhaps it’s time for our politicians to spend more time addressing real issues of violence, than concocting faux outrage about a few poorly chosen words.