Desire for balance, fairness can’t be just men-only trait

It is abominable to shame a victim in order to dodge the truth about an abuser. But that’s not what happened to Rachelle Miller.

Sad fling: Federal MP Alan Tudge arrives at the 2017 Mid-Winter Ball in the company of Liberal staffer Rachelle Miller, with whom he was having an affair.

A curious, but predictable, reaction unfolded last week after I presented another side to the messy sexual imbroglio between Alan Tudge and his former staffer, Rachelle Miller. Predictably, some critics, mostly on Twitter, and mostly women, labelled my reporting of Tudge’s submission to the Thom Inquiry, where he lays out his side to the story, as victim-shaming. They said I should never have reported Tudge’s version of events, or any of the emails and texts Miller sent him over a four-year period where a woman in her 40s pursues Tudge. Some critics added that a woman should never have told Tudge’s side of this story.

Why the heck not? Are women not able to wonder about both sides to a story? Is seeking balance, being inquisitive, a male-only trait?

Here then is the curious side. It is not logical, let alone fair, to claim that Miller is entitled to make accusations against a former boss in front of a heaving media throng at Parliament House, and then label it as victim-shaming when other sections of the media report Tudge’s side of the story.

The dangers of this illogical position are twofold. Firstly, for women. When women make accusations of victim-shaming to stymie a fuller story being told, they play a perilous game of pandering to a stereotype where women are seen as overly emotional, irrational, uninterested in logic, balance, fairness. Is this how they want to present women?

Victim-shaming has become one of those ubiquitous phrases, like ghosting and mansplaining, that get thrown around so often they will eventually lose their power to land a blow.

It is abominable to shame a victim in order to dodge the truth about a perpetrator of abuse. But that’s not what happened here. In this case, a group of mostly women were not interested in hearing another side to a story. That is their prerogative, of course.

The bigger danger is to our precariously positioned liberal society. When women fling unfounded accusations of victim-shaming, they are effectively saying they have no time for the presumption of innocence.

This worrying trend can only undermine the health of liberal democracies. Liberalism can only survive when its core tenets are defended. When a society becomes complacent about those values, and refuses to defend them, those values can be more easily dismantled by those who want them gone.

Writing in the Financial Times last weekend about the war of liberalism, Francis Fukuyama explained how liberalism emerged in the 17th century to control violence by lowering the sights of politics.

“It recognises that people will not agree on the most important things – such as which religion to follow – but that they need to tolerate fellow citizens with views different from their own. It does this by respecting the equal rights and dignity of individuals, through a rule of law and constitutional government that checks and balances the powers of modern states.”

Fukuyama explored the challenges to liberalism, not just from external forces like brutal dictators such as Vladimir Putin, but from within our liberal societies, on both the left and the right. Free marketeers on the right have advocated a form of neoliberalism that has increased inequality over the past two generations, Fukuyama wrote. And on the left, so-called progressives are increasingly turning away from the core tenets of liberalism when those values get in the way of them pursuing social justice agendas. As Fukuyama says: “Progressives have shown themselves willing to limit free speech and due process in the name of social justice.”

Those who eschew liberal ideas do so in the mistaken belief they are pursuing a higher good; in this case, treating allegations by women against men as reason enough to ditch the presumption of innocence to wreck the careers, reputations and lives of men. They seek a reckoning and are willing to discard values that sit at the centre of our justice system, such as presumption of innocence and due process to get there.

That gets to the heart of the left’s confused relationship with liberalism’s foundational values. You can bet your last dollar that if they were the subject of serious allegations, they would be strident defenders of their innocence until proven guilty by sound evidence, whether in a court of law, in a workplace investigation or in the messy court of public opinion.

Hence, it is selfish, hypocritical and illogical for some women to argue that their agenda is more important than the foundational values of liberalism. If we follow their path, the result is not just more hypocrisy. It would promise far greater injustices than those we are witnessing now.

In a healthy democracy, the media has an important role in defending the core values of liberalism. It’s a shame then that some sections of the taxpayer-funded ABC do such a dismal job. The poorly managed ABC has allowed one-sided campaigning battalions to flourish, and these units provide a buttress to those who treat the presumption of innocence, fairness, due process and other core values as relics to be discarded when they get in the way of telling a one-sided story.

Francis Fukuyama: “Progressives have shown themselves willing to limit free speech and due process in the name of social justice.”

For example, after The Weekend Australian reported extensive details of Tudge’s side last weekend, the ABC news division chose not to make any mention of his detailed defence to Miller’s very serious accusations of emotional and physical abuse and bullying.

It is extraordinary that a media organisation charged with fairness in return for receiving more than a billion dollars a year from taxpayers couldn’t find a single reporter to update readers and viewers with a new side to a story it started.

The ABC ran Miller’s early accusations against Tudge in its November 2020 Four Corners program, Inside the Canberra Bubble. Reporter Louise Milligan was nominated for a Walkley Award for a story that, from the start, was a grab bag of gossip, spooky music and grandstanding female politicians with gripes. Thrown in was a sad case of a short fling between two consenting adults – Miller and Tudge. Even at that early stage, curious viewers would have wondered whether this just a case of mismatched affections.

Throwing curiosity to the wind, Four Corners was determined to present Miller as a victim. Even after Tudge presented his side, the national broadcaster ignored a previously untold side to a story it started. Four Corners is becoming the tail that wags the ABC dog.

The poor attitude of some at the ABC to fairness makes it easier for other people who think they are progressive to follow a similarly perilous path.

Take Sally Rugg, the LGBTQI activist and former boss of Change.org. Last week, Rugg tweeted about the looming court battle involving journalist Tegan George’s allegations against former co-workers at Network Ten, including my colleague, Peter van Onselen.

“PVO is obviously innocent until proven guilty,” Rugg wrote. Then she added: “Genuine Q: is there precedent of senior journalists with untested allegations of bullying against them still joining Insiders.”

Note the confusion in Rugg’s mind. She says she believes in the presumption of innocence. But really, isn’t it a bit rich that Van Onselen would appear on Insiders while allegations hang over his head. Rugg seems to be suggesting that parts of Van Onselen’s career ought to be put on hold until innocence is proven. This illogical position defeats the presumption of innocence.

Rugg tied herself in further knots: “To be clear, I don’t think someone’s employment should be at risk while allegations are before a court … But I’ve certainly been bewildered by how little they (the allegations) seem to matter.”

Twitter talk is often full of kneejerk, absurd commentary. It’s a quick-fire platform where many people go not to think. And yet Rugg’s tweets deserve exposure because this same twisted, illogical thinking is shared by an increasing number of people. That doesn’t make it right. It makes it dangerously wrong in my view.

Those of us who value genuine progress in a liberal democracy can rail against the regressive madness of Twitter. And that will get us precisely nowhere. Alternatively, sensible people could stand up to the non-thinkers who are dragging us down a regressive path.

When reason snowballs, when more and more people choose to stand up to irrational, illiberal voices, two things will follow. First, it won’t be so lonely defending liberal values. And, most importantly, the liberal project will have a greater chance of remaining intact for the next generation.