In Albany New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has hit the trenches amid allegations of sexual harassment. The 56th Governor of New York who celebrated a decade in the job earlier this year and was presumed to run for a fourth term in 2022 may not now complete his third.
Three women have come forward telling stories of unwanted advances. Lindsey Boylan, a 36-year-old former Cuomo aide alleged the governor had sexually harassed her on numerous occasions over many years.
“Many saw it and watched,” she said.
Boylan further alleged that Cuomo “exists without ethics,” “takes advantage of people, including me” and oversaw a “toxic team environment”.
Charlotte Bennett, 25, an executive assistant and health policy adviser to Cuomo, accused him of sexual harassment, saying that he asked her about her sex life on several occasions and if she had been in sexual relationships with older men.
Boylan came out with allegations of sexual harassment last year, but her claims were largely ignored by the media. Last week, Boylan penned an essay in Medium which provided extensive details, including allegations that the Governor kissed her on the lips without warning and that Cuomo proposed a game of strip poker with the young woman on a plane trip between New York City and Albany.
And three days ago, a third woman, Anna Ruch, 33, came forward claiming Cuomo had touched her without her consent at a wedding they had both attended. The claims are supported by a photograph published in the New York Times showing Cuomo with his hands on her face.
Cuomo began with denials and then moved on to the well-worn response of the “just foolin’ around” type. He strangled out a backhanded apology of the “sorry if my behaviour had caused offence” kind.
His ratings showed that while 56 per cent of voters approved of the job he was doing a month ago only 38 per cent do now with 45 per cent saying he should resign. Back in April last year when New York was hit hard by Covid, Cuomo’s personal approval rating stood at 71 per cent.
Cuomo has gone to ground attempting to fight off calls for an independent investigation, a move that has the support of President Biden.
This shows how quickly things can change in any political environment where sexual impropriety becomes the sole talking point associated with any administration.
The Morrison government finds itself mired in different circumstances that have the same destructive potential.
To be certain, matters arising from Brittany Higgins allegations are far more serious than those arising in the New York State Capitol.
Higgins alleges she was raped in a ministerial office by a colleague who has had his employment terminated reportedly for a security breach. Three more women have come forward to make similar claims of rape and sexual assault by the same person.
Those allegations are now the subject of a police investigation. That must now be allowed to run its course.
Still, those who say they offered Higgins their wholehearted support now face claims they acted with hostility towards her. There have been accounts of backgrounding against Ms Higgins’ partner from the PMO.
In a report in The Australian today the Minister for Defence, Linda Reynolds, is said to have referred openly to Ms Higgins as “a lying cow” in her ministerial office on February 15 this year. That claim is not denied by the Minister who offered apologies to her staff shortly thereafter.
Minister Reynolds is due to resume her ministerial duties on March 8. One wonders how long Minister Reynolds can remain in the job. Or perhaps more pertinently, what a minister in the Morrison government might have to do to have their jobs taken away.
The Porter allegations relate to an historic allegation of a criminal offence, one that sits high up in the New South Wales Crimes Act in terms of seriousness and by the scope of penalties available to a judge to impose on those convicted.
The Attorney-General has vigorously denied the allegations.
With the complainant now deceased, the allegations can go nowhere. This was confirmed by NSW Police two days ago. The complainant withdrew her complaint on the eve of her death. That in itself does not end an investigation, it merely suspends it. But the complainant’s death by suicide the following day, for all practical purposes put an end to any further action by police.
Talk of a judicial inquiry held in camera, a means suggested by friends of the deceased woman to establish a finding, cannot be seriously countenanced. The oft repeated parallel of former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon’s misbehaviour being determined in this manner actually reveals why such a mechanism cannot provide satisfactory outcomes.
A coronial inquest in South Australia at a date yet to be fixed can only investigate the circumstances of death.
There is no satisfactory means of making a finding of any substance. Processes become circular. The pressure simply builds up. There is no release valve. And in this manner, the gravest threats arise from trial by media and/or an abuse of parliamentary privilege.
About the only predictable element of this case is that it will necessarily lead to a diminution of public confidence in the parliament, in the government and in public administration generally.
The situation is not helped by the absurd notion the government holds of reporting instances of sexual assault to the Australian Federal Police who would only have jurisdictional authority over an investigation where an alleged offence occurred within the ACT. If nothing else, using the AFP as a postal service to pass on allegations to state police seems a waste of time and resources.
Andrew Cuomo’s political career is all but dead and buried. A third term will not become a fourth.
Meanwhile in Australia, we are on untrampled political ground. Where it might go is simply unknowable. But a sense of rage is palpable in the community, driven by women whose memories are stained by the misbehaviour of men in their own orbits whereas in the Canberra vortex there is only politics and with each breaking story, only a political response.
For the Prime Minister and his government, going to ground or putting up the shutters solves only one day’s problems. The greater threat is the government will lapse into paralysis at a time where messaging is critical and struggles on bereft to the ballot box at some time over the next 14 months
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