The WA Liberal Party today chose to keep a self-confessed sexual harasser as their leader. Last week, the Sunday Times revealed that:
It was alleged that Mr Buswell lifted her chair and started sniffing it in front of her after she had finished interviewing a constituent. He then allegedly repeated the act moments later in front of several Liberal staff members.
It’s understood that the woman had warned Mr Buswell about his pranks before.
On a previous occasion, he had allegedly crawled around on his hands and knees in front of the same woman pretending to be her husband. When confronted by the allegations this week, Mr Buswell declined to comment.
After initially denying the story, a tearful confession followed a few days later.
It was reported in that article that:
Even though Liberal MPs are privately saying they are disgusted by the incident, they say there will not be a leadership change because there is no alternative to Mr Buswell as leader.
For serious – the WA Libs have decided to keep a serial sexual harasser, one who admits that there are probably more allegations to come, because they have no-one better. It’s lucky for them that there’s no truth requirement in election ads, because frankly they’d have to just throw in the towel and suggest a vote for the Nats instead. “Yeah, he sexually harasses women who work for him, and alongside him, but he’s the best we have right now” isn’t really up there with “It’s Time”, is it?
Putting on my fantasy hat for one moment, what I would love to see is for all female Liberal MPs and their allies to all announce that they are going on strike until this creepy jerk is removed, and for all the other parties to promise to support them in this. Until then, it’s lucky that I still have my Labor hack hat, so I can at least be relieved that the next election shouldn’t be too much of a fight. But then again, perhaps I’ve accidently put on my fantasy hat again. If the blokes in the Liberal Party are lacking in judgement enough to not see the problem, then perhaps they’re just reflecting a similar lack in the broader WA public.
Buswell himself appears not to get it, if statements like these are anything to go by:
“And I realise fully the requirements and obligations of … Leader of the Opposition. And I will deliver on those requirements absolutely.”
When asked whether he had a tendency to be bawdy around women, he said that was “a matter for interpretation”.
“I acknowledge that my … natural exuberance may have caused me in the past to do things or say things which have caused offence to people.”
Really it’s not about whether this is appropriate behaviour for a party leader. It’s about whether this is appropriate for anyone at all. And it certainly isn’t about being “bawdy” or “exuberant”. It’s about demonstrating that you don’t give a shit about making women feel excluded from the workplace. Women are no less capable of making jokes, even lewd ones. Chair-sniffing and bra-snapping, however, aren’t about involving women in the fun, they’re about making them the object of “fun”. In Buswell’s world, women, purely because they are women, serve as objects of ridicule so that Buswell and the people (read: men) can have a laugh. That doesn’t just make him unfit to lead a government – it makes him unfit to be an employer, and it makes him undeserving of respect from any decent person.
For more on the adventures of Buswell, see Lauredhel’s posts here.
Yay! Anna’s back!
Boo to Buswell.
Over and out.
And I thought the NSW Libs were preposterously bad in our last State election. Is there some sort of competition for worst State Opposition Leader going on?
[And I thought the NSW Libs were preposterously bad in our last State election.]
And there is a rumour that current WA Liberal Party Secretary Mark Neeham is on the shortlist for a job with the NSW Libs.
This behaviour is simply incomprehensible to me. I Do. Not. Get. It. Is there some brave bloke out there who can at least try to explain (a) why Buswell might do these things, (b) what he is trying to achieve, and (c) why these idiot activities are regarded as funny?
Askin’.
Maybe they could take the Breakfast announcer on 6 PR Beamont,Mamuil and Sattler as well,make for a better radio station,and then they could take the Editor of the West as well.
Clean out the lot in one fell swoop
To bring up a well-worn concept, I’m going to say ‘male homosociality’. That is the frame in which this kind of behaviour tends to appear. I don’t understand this particular inflection, especially since I’ve never been in a workplace with that kind of thing going on, but I suppose I could see some of my friends getting a bit closer to it in the context of hanging around with their mates. I don’t know how much this would be an achievement outside of the context of a high-spirited homosocial episode, but there are some circles in which behaving in a ridiculous fashion can help you accumulate sub-cultural capital in the long term.
For my part I’ve never really understood the attraction, and find this sort of thing laughable rather than funny, but then I prefer the company of women, so there’s only so far my particular kind of male insight can take us.
I think that’s right, Klaus, but in this case it appears to be failed homosociality, since obviously the other men in the room didn’t appreciate Buswell’s behaviour, at least if I have the reports right. I suspect it says something about his own insecurity and personality problems. I’m normally not a fan of “character” as a mode of judging politicians, but there have to be some standards of decent human being-ness!
I’ve seen this sort of behaviour often. But never from pillars of society.
It is usually a trigger for mirth.
I think it is possible to tolerate even failed attempts at ‘fun’. I’m reminded of a fellow at the local pub who occasionally lapses into some really offensive territory, but there’s a sense that ‘Oh, that’s just x: sometimes he acts that way, but he’s usually good fun’. The homosocial bubble stretches a long way before it pops, which is part of the reason why the less well adjusted don’t always judge the limits correctly.
This is a particularly disgusting act and if Buswell and the woman had been alone it would have been a particularly predatory and threatening, disgusting act. Imagine if you were alone with a man who was your ’superior’ and he did this.
I agree Anna, this person is not fit to be either a leader or an employer and probably not even a husband or a father. Indeed its hard to imagine what he’s possibly fit for. What makes this unsavoury event funny is that it has been made public, that the idiot man denied it then tearfully admitted it, that the members of his party support him and that he enjoys the full confidence of Brendon Nelson. What a pack of wolves. it speaks volumes about the Liberals, ‘homosociality’ and the underlying reality of gender relations in Australia.
[I think it is possible to tolerate even failed attempts at ‘fun’. I’m reminded of a fellow at the local pub who occasionally lapses into some really offensive territory, but there’s a sense that ‘Oh, that’s just x: sometimes he acts that way, but he’s usually good fun’. The homosocial bubble stretches a long way before it pops, which is part of the reason why the less well adjusted don’t always judge the limits correctly.]
But what the Libs don’t realise is that both incidents took place in the offices of State Pariament, the Bra Snapping in the Speakers Office, while the Chair sniffing in the Leader’s office (or was it his own deputy leader’s office). I thunk that is a prima facie case of Sexual Harrassment in the Workplace.
And to make it worse he blubs about it.
I have no doubt this is sexual harassment. I don’t take ‘homosociality’ as anything other than a useful term for understanding the conditions under which this behaviour can emerge: they are most certainly not the product of an individual in isolation. There are largely benign, (and maybe even non-patriarchal, though this might be harder to locate) forms of homosociality, including between females. It certainly isn’t ever an excuse for sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sex-based exclusion etc. I am merely trying to answer Dr Cat’s question with a framework within which is might be possible to ‘get it’, or to begin to understand it. It may be the fiction writer (or even the ethnographer) in me, but I find the effort to understand morally repugnant characters a worthwhile pursuit in itself, and it also makes sense in terms of deciding on how to intervene.
Welcome back Anna!
For serious – the WA Libs have decided to keep a serial sexual harasser, one who admits that there are probably more allegations to come, because they have no-one better.
Yes, it’s the same all over – remember this guy ?!
Oh I admit it, I’m a horrible, horrible person.
Oh come on, it was just a failed, tasteless and probably drunken attempt at humour. The sort of thing that other people in the room should responded to with “steady on, mate” and perhaps call a cab to take him home. If the lady was offended he should apologise, and that should be the end of it.
Klaus K sounds to me like someone who doesn’t understand how to be social at all, whether hetero or homo. Either that or he’s being a hypocrite.
What about a little bit of tolerance – most of us have done things at parties which on sober reflection we’d rather not have. Do you really want to be ruled by plaster saints who never step out of line? That’s how you end up with the narrowminded Rudds and Howards. And in any case I reckon the bra snapping sounds more serious – like actual assault.
It was in an office during work time, Derrida. Not at a party.
I don’t see that pollies get a free pass for acting like dickheads and being drunk at work. No one else does these days.
PC:
Because he’s never been socialised to regard women as people.
To show how much of a sense of humour he has(n’t).
See the answer to part (a), adding that it seems at least just over half of the parliamentary Liberal Party in WA hasn’t either.
Oh, and one more thing.
Just in case anyone actually thought it’d be plain sailing from here…
The idea of ‘homosociality’ is an interesting one. Another case in the past week was Sam Newman and the blokey culture at Nine. Similar sort of thing – a female professional being demeaned so a bunch of blokes can have a laugh at her expense.
It’s actually got a lot of explanatory power imho. There’s a good article about it here:
http://www.xyonline.net/Homosociality.shtml
Incidentally, the wikipedia entry on homosociality is shite.
“Klaus K sounds to me like someone who doesn’t understand how to be social at all, whether hetero or homo. Either that or he’s being a hypocrite.”
I don’t really understand why this side-swipe needed to be taken, frankly. If you don’t like the concept, that’s fine by me. There are other ways of thinking about it I’m sure. I don’t understand why you’re suggesting I’m a hypocrite, but I’d like to, so can you elaborate?
Yes I also thought it was an unnecessary side-swipe.
An act of such crass rudeness doesn’t deserve any label except crass rudeness.
Has the man no discretion?
Has Buswell’s sniffing of the seats of Lib Caucus members revealed secrets which compel political support to this imbecile?
That is the only possible explanation for his continued leadership of what must be a rabble who share the vice of concealing jack-fruit up their anuses.
Truely, the cupboard must be bare in Western Australia.
Theres not even a Nat who can lead them?
They’re not in coalition? Or are they now?
Derider said: “What about a little bit of tolerance – most of us have done things at parties which on sober reflection we’d rather not have. Do you really want to be ruled by plaster saints who never step out of line? That’s how you end up with the narrowminded Rudds and Howards. And in any case I reckon the bra snapping sounds more serious – like actual assault.”
Tolerance for what though? Developmental delays expressed through infantile performances of hypermasculinity? Mysoginist intent in the sniffing of a chair? What did he smell exactly that brought him such satisfaction in doing it??? Sexual harrassment resulting from suggestive jokes or taunts? What about a little reality instead of minimisation?. Sniffing a chair is a particularly sadistic and shameful way of putting a woman in her place. Dogs sniff arses. Humans do not. It is sexual harrassment. He is sniffing the site where the woman sat. Its sexual harrassment. And this by the leader of the opposition in Perth. I am sick and tired of “the joke gone too far” “boys will be boys” routine – insidious bullshit. This guy should have been sacked.
Here are part of the new draft laws which will be introduced as a result of this cretin’s behaviour:
Sexual harassment can take numerous forms including but not limited to:
*Unwelcome physical touching, hugging or kissing
*Staring or leering at someone, or at parts of their body
*Suggestive comments or jokes
*Insults or taunts based on sex
*Sexually explicit pictures, e-mails or text messages
*Intrusive questions about an employee’s private life or body.
You will note the chair sniffing incident falls into this category.
What this person’s shameful behaviour revealed is that women in the Perth state parliament were not protected from sexual harrassment under the equal opportunities act. The bra snapping incident revealed that women who did not work for the harrasser in question were not protected by eo laws. New legislation has been drafted to deal with this. But BOTH incidents fall into the category of sexual harrassment within this legislation.
Good post Anna.
Yeah, but, see, that’s what I don’t get; what is it, exactly, that Buswell thinks is funny about these things? That a snapped bra hurts? (Note to blokes: it does.) That a sniffed chair makes the woman feel both vulnerable and somehow repulsive? (Note to blokes: it would.) Given that, is it basically about hurting, threatening and belittling the women, at some very low, indirect level, in order to court the approval of other blokes?
What kind of man thinks hurting a woman will impress other men? What kind of man is impressed?
In that respect, thanks to Klaus K in particular for confirming what I thought Buswell’s social motives probably were, but there’s something else going on here as well. I understand the Sam Newman thing, for example: that too was partly about homosocial bonding but a man who inflicts that kind of symbolic violence is (also) directly expressing hatred and contempt for women. Newman is, God help us all, an adult, and the enemy. I get him.
But bra snapping? Chair sniffing? Is this some kind of eight-year-old ‘Ooooh, t*ts! Ooooooh, c*nts!! Ha ha ha ha!’ thingy? Or what?
[They’re not in coalition? Or are they now?]
Nope, and never will be – State Election will be 3 cornered contest in rural seats, so Buswell may well lose his own seat to a National.
Oh and Derrida Derider, regarding the notion that the chair sniffing would be less painful than the bra snapping, let me quote you something:
“a man who inflicts that kind of symbolic violence is (also) directly expressing hatred and contempt for women”
With bra-snapping at least I wonder if it is being seen by the perpetrator as a ‘playful’ adolescent act: the kind of thing that is almost justified amongst adolescents as ‘picking on’ members of the opposite sex. The consequences of that activity even in adolescence – which popular discourse tends to frame as innocent, as a sign of suppressed affection even – can be easily imagined as causing humiliation, creating a sense of vulnerability or exposure, and pain. Perhaps part of the particular outrage is that we feel at some level that this is something that happens to girls, but shouldn’t happen to women? (Presumably for Buswell, all women are ‘girls’).
How old is this guy? 43? Is that right?
I do think it does prove something about the infantile mentality that regards women as “girls”. Mind you, I think we should think a lot about whether adolescent boys should be doing this as well! (But I recognise you’re talking about prevailing attitudes, not your own view, Klaus).
Or rather, perhaps the reason this can and has upset non-feminists as well is that Buswell has shown that he is not attentive to the age-specificity of forums for harassment.
I agree: they really shouldn’t be doing it either. Given that the young probably always will go too far when it comes to interpersonal interaction, I guess we have to be careful not to continue to justify it, and to recognise that some of the awkwardness and humiliation experienced in adolescence is less than innocent when it happens to confirm all of the other experiences that humiliate women, and limit women’s freedom, throughout their lives.
[How old is this guy? 43? Is that right?]
42, married with 2 teenage boys, 1 of whom has just started High School.
Actually, Klaus K, it’s crap when you’re a girl as well. Particularly if you’re a well-endowed girl and particularly in the pre- (2nd wave) feminist days when I was a girl and had had it drummed into me that I must never hit anyone, especially not boys, who would lose their temper and pulverise me, quite apart from it being unladylike to hit them. The line spun to us was that boys could control neither their anger nor their sexuality, and that the onus was therefore on us girls not to inflame either. And that if either of those things were inflicted on us, then it must have been our fault. QED.
If I’d ever had a daughter, the first thing I would have taught her the day I bought her her first bra would have been that the correct response to a snapped bra is a swift knee in the goolies, and that a swift knee in the goolies is rooly rooly funny and all the other girls will laugh and let you play with their Barbies.
Thanks, Frank.
(Sorry, Kim and KK, comments crossed there.)
No probs, Dr Cat.
I can understand homosociality in the context of very young adults but I think it is infantilising to say that a 42 year old is unable to generate the tiny amount of empathy and awareness required to see that behaviour like this is degrading and to control himself appropriately.
I think he is perfectly aware and this kind of thing is a demonstration of dominance backed up by an unassailable sense of his own entitlement. Boy will I enjoy watching Buswell’s career come to a screeching halt.
Actually:
[But her 12 and 14-year-old sons were only told about the latest reports last weekend.]
from:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23639866-5016964,00.html
And note that they don’t say “their 12 & 14 Yr old sons”
As I said, homosociality is not a justification, but (and thanks to Dr Cat for clarifying) a way of understanding the immediate social context and possible motives. I absolutely believe that he has to take responsibility for his actions
I don’t think it’s infantilising to suggest the homosocial dimensions of adult sociality. For one thing the notion of ’self-control’ implies an individualist account of misogynist behaviour: pathologising the individual does little to highlight the patriarchal dimension of his actions. It may be useful at the level of removing him from office – and undoubtedly this should be happening – but the next step is to keep a recognition of the collective dimensions of the problem alive. If the conditions remain the same, then there is no reason that the next man in Buswell’s position will end up any different.
Also, delimiting homosociality to the infantile simply confirms our assumptions that some kinds of behaviour are more acceptable in the young.
I agree with all that, Klaus.
You can also observe homosociality at work in professional settings where 40, 50 and 60 something men patronise, harrass and diss their female colleagues. Looking at any of the high profile sexual harrassment cases in banks, law firms, etc, gives us a good idea of how that goes on. It may manifest itself differently in young men and boys, but it’s definitely there among (some) older men.
I think it is the social justification that facilitates this kind of harassment, and that feminist activity that attempts to influence and redefine homosociality, to shift it away from using women as mediating objects, will be most effective.
One reason that women are drawn in as mediating objects is that homosociality is always haunted by the ’spectre’ of homosexuality: men together use women to confirm their intimacy with each other is of a non-sexual variety. Which is why working against homophobia may help initiate these changes as well, and turn out to be consonant with feminist goals.
Yes, and understanding that all this stuff works on a sex/gender/sexuality continuum is a good way to start!
I think the pain aspect of bra snapping is a red herring – I think the point of Troy’s bra snap was what we doggy owners call “dominance” behaviour. That’s what is wrong with it.
I was having my cake and eating it too, Klaus. Being of the multitasking gender (I am frequently told) I can understand and Denounce! all at once.
I get the homosocial angle, I know it is not a justification. FWIW though, I think the reaction of his male peers shows that this is indeed pathologic behaviour.
If only pollies were more like dogs, Helen, then they could bond by sniffing each others arses instead of women’s chairs.
“FWIW though, I think the reaction of his male peers shows that this is indeed pathologic behaviour.”
Fair enough. On the other hand, how did we get to this point and why is he still in office? Negative reactions aren’t necessarily indicative of anything if they’re of the ‘there’s a place and a time, and this ain’t it’ variety. That’s just business as usual.
“If only pollies were more like dogs, Helen, then they could bond by sniffing each others arses instead of women’s chairs.”
Lol.
The etiology of Buswell’s behaviour is to be understood as the fag-end of the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s.
That revolution expressed for the first time since the Middle Ages the then disturbing possibility that women were sexual beings.
This sexual revolution also expressed the subversive notion that sex was enjoyable in its own right and that it needed no justification beyond gratification.
Eventually (indeed very quickly), these two notions became mainstream. The question then arose as to how men should go about encouraging women to do what they really wanted to do.
Various attempted solutions to this problem have excited all sorts of pathetic male behaviour since the 1960s. Buswell’s bra-snapping is toward the normal end of this continuum. Buswell’s olfactory exhibitionism is toward the gross-out end of this continuum.
The problem with freedom is that it must be shared with idiots, frotteurs, flashers, and consumers of alcopop.
Aha.
Yes, the pain thing was just one of a series of hypothetical questions about motive — which I still don’t think we’re quite at the bottom of, though now a lot closer. Because if it’s only dominance behaviour, why doesn’t he do the equivalent to men as well? Or perhaps he does? There must be some male-to-male dominance equivalent of bra snapping and chair sniffing; I wonder if he does that.
Given how much these kinds of blokes loathe being forced to talk about their own behaviour (“Troy, we need to talk”), I would like to sit the bloke down and not let him get up until he has been forced to articulate exactly why he does this stuff. ‘Natural exuberance’ isn’t good enough. I don’t want a ‘reason’; I want a motive, and one that is gender-specific, like the behaviour.
The other thing about all this is that given the prodigious fuss made about Hillary Clinton’s alleged ‘tears’ (I could never see any tears no matter how hard I looked), I’m astonished that this bloke has been given an almost totally free pass in the press about the classic bully behaviour of collapsing like wet fruit and blubbering in public. It’s always the word ‘family’ that makes harassers and the unfaithful cry, have you noticed that? The family they have irretrievably humiliated and are now begging other people to have pity on.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to John Brogden?
I’ve always felt there was something in Doris Lessing’s observation that all of our tears are tears of self-pity. Remorse is expressed differently, I think, but tears are frequently taken to signify something like that when men shed them (and something else again when women do).
Word Anna, word.
Thank you, world of employment, for bringing the Eye of Winter back to LP, with its steel gaze that searches our souls.
…
You might be curious about motive, PC, but if there was an absolute opposite of curiosity, it’d be what I feel about Buswell. The mentality of a public chair-sniffer is just one of those places that I’ll be happy if I never hear about again, let alone understand. We don’t need to talk to Troy to understand him. The Liberal Party needs to dispatch him quickly, send him to the shamed obscurity of failed leaders everywhere, and stick his metaphorical head on a pike outside the party room as an example to any others who’d think to bra-strap-snap or chair-sniff.
To their credit, the NSW Liberals did just that to racist joke-teller John Brogden.
…
Katz: frotteurs? I always assumed the verb to ‘frot’ was a decent Germanism, not one of those vile Norman imports to English. Not that I’ve spent a great deal of time looking for the etymology of frotterheit.
Katz @ 48: “The problem with freedom is that it must be shared with idiots, frotteurs, flashers, and consumers of alcopop.”
Yes, but they should not be elevated to or maintained at positions of leadership, where their behaviour might be construed as example and role model.
Agree with Caroline at 10. How the rest of the associated party jump to understand or excuse this depressing .I also can’t understand why the guy doesn’t comprehend he should resign.
Continuing on benefits what or who exactly?
Not to be outdone, it seems Premier Carpenter has been in on the act too:
The Liberal Party needs to dispatch him quickly, send him to the shamed obscurity of failed leaders everywhere, and stick his metaphorical head on a pike outside the party room as an example to any others who’d think to bra-strap-snap or chair-sniff.
Sadly, I heard the Julie Bishop excusing and enabling him on RN this morning. She was spinning so much you could hear the hum.
No chance of a teachable moment there, I’m afraid.
Did you hear it Caroline? were your teeth grinding as much as mine? Fortunately for the enamel, they did have a crumpet between them, although Julie’s semantic twists and turns did put me off my breakfast a bit.
…
Katz: frotteurs? I always assumed the verb to ‘frot’ was a decent Germanism
I thought it was from the French, Frottage. or is that just an invented word? (Pav?)
“The Julie Bishop”?? Must make better use of the preview.
I’m pretty sure it’s from frottage. There was a big frottage craze in lefty circles at UQ in about 1992.
Well that’s it then. Can’t trust the French or the Queenslanders.
Dr Cat – One dominance thing that (some) blokes do to each other is the handshake manouvre. The intending dominator grasps the other bloke’s hand with a bone-crushing grip and twists so his own hand is on top of the other.
I’ve seen some behaviour a bit like the chair-sniff occaisonally (but not recently) in male-dominated Army boozers. Even in what was once an extremely misogynistic environment like the Army, though, this sort of behaviour is not acceptable. (This is not to say it doesn’t still happen, but it’s rare.)
“And I thought the NSW Libs were preposterously bad in our last State election. Is there some sort of competition for worst State Opposition Leader going on?”
There’s a concurrent Worst Premier comp running too.
Apparently everybody is winning except Anna Bligh.
Ah yes — the manouevre also known as Latham’s Downfall.
Since someone’s asked, I’ve looked it up in French and English dictionaries and can report that ‘frot’ is indeed a word in English dating from the Middle English derived from the Old French ‘froter’, now evolved into modern Franch ‘frotter’, the infinitive form of a perfectly cromulent verb meaning, not surprisingly, ‘to rub’. Its specialist slang/sexual meaning — “frottage” is a French construction — doesn’t appear (judging from my rather detailed French dictionary) to actually exist in French. Go figure.
Nah. I am no particular fan of our Mike Rann, who uses his attack-dog Treasurer to keep everyone in line and who is making the classic mistake of arrogant overconfidence based on a 70% approval rating (though I think it’s a lot lower than that these days), but the bloke is an unquestionably competent and highly civilised intellectual. You don’t get to be a speechwriter for Don Dunstan at 25 unless you’ve got a lot of good smarts going on.
I should write a post about this some time (or not). When a few women in the aforesaid UQ lefty circles started propagandising frottage in 92, the idea immediately struck everyone as much more sexually exciting than sex. But then, we may have been weird.
Couple of observations. What happened with the ALP at Bunbury. Probably foolish because they were pollies, but from all accounts completely consensual. So I have no problems with whatever went on at the kareoke night(never been to one, y’know) on the present information.
Interestingly, I have not registered any reporting in the MSM that even considers Buswell’s behaviour as a form of sexual harassment, which it obviously is.(Not that I’ve taken a lot of notice.) Though the connection is clearly made in that other public incident of Sam Newman on the AFL Footy Show.This has set me wondering why, assuming my observation is right. I haven’t come up with an answer.
For the record, when I first heard of the story I thought it was both hilariously funny and pretty disgusting. But the clearest mental image I had was of how outraged the woman he did it to must’ve been.
Wierd maybe. If I correctly recall the fashion for lycra and polyester, statically charged definitely.
You lot must have crackled and sparked like equipment in a B-movie mad scientist’s laboratory.
Heh!
Well we won the 92 student election by a record margin anyway!
SEA – the tide is turning. Cool octopus graphics on the posters.
Frottage is ineffably francaise.
It was an entirely respectable word until the invention of public transport.
Since then it has kept bad company.
Mot, Katz.
I wish to point out that we practiced frottage in the privacy of our own homes (well maybe in the student union building or rented dumps) and between consensual adults only – not as a random act of public transport.
C’etait l’excitement!
“student union building”
We used to have a designated area specifically for such things (bucket bongs and frottage). Officially, the Guild of Undergraduates Social Club Committee Room. What filthy little shits we were. Oh, memories…
I was also interested in his assertion that he originally denied the chair sniffing to protect the woman involved.
Excuse me? How do you protect her by denying it occurred – surely it is too late to protect her if you are being asked publicly about the incident? Big BS to that one, IMO. The only person he was trying to protect was himself.
As to frotteurism Wiki says “In psychiatry, the clinical term frotteurism (no longer called frottage)” You lot at UQ were weird.
“What happened with the ALP at Bunbury…”
Are they, perhaps, Bunburyists? Surely we’ve learned by now where that leads…
Andy says: “they should not be elevated to or maintained at positions of leadership” which is, of course true. But the problem is, this isn’t just about ‘leadership behaviour, it is about general behaviour – nobody should do this stuff, leader, politician or bloke in the street. In relation to this behaviour as an expression of immaturity, it is worth considering how you would deal with your (real or imaginary) 12 year old son if they did that? Surely we wouldn’t accept it from them and would give them a good telling off (at least) if we saw them – the message is, it is totally unacceptable to treat a woman like that.
Carpenter’s behaviour is actually different – it was consensual and it didn’t have the absolute ‘yuk’ factor that Buswell’s behaviour has. Radisich has now come out apparently and said that “nothing happened that caused me offence”.
Peter Van Oslen – Howard’s Biographer – was on Radio National this morning talking about how this action – and the Liberal party’s support of Buswell – has damaged the Liberal brand to the point of losing them the next election – not due until next February
Mais oui, PC.
Un petit mot peutetre?
Gather its got worse. Buswell was apparently making sexual noises while he was sniffing. This has got to be utter madness. Any sane bloke knows that’s not the way to impress women. Don’t they? Or, for the most part, unless you’re a cretin on The Footy Show, other men.
Here is what Jaye Said.
[Labor MP Jaye Radisich today again refused to publicly deny claims that Mr Carpenter exposed her bra at the karaoke party, held at Bunbury’s Sanctuary Golf Resort in 2004.
As state parliament prepared to resume sittings, Ms Radisich said nothing had happened on the night to cause her offence.
But she did not deny the specific allegation that Mr Carpenter lifted her top and exposed her bra.
“At the event in 2004, nothing happened to cause either (then Labor MP) Louise (Pratt), nor I, any kind of offence,” Ms Radisich said as she arrived at parliament house.
“And, as I said, I don’t intend to further edify the spectacle.
“It’s about time that all of us as politicians raised the standard in WA because the people that elected us deserve better than this.”]
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=145&ContentID=71490
At the very least to an unedifying spectacle of one nonchalantly scoffing all the cucumber sandwiches…
tigtog, precisely the sort of thing I’m referring to, not to mention hogging the muffins and serving tea-cake to guests
Further to Paul Burns at #76:
I think she means ’sexually satisfied’.
Source here.
Perhaps Noel Crichton-Browne is Buswell’s mentor. Frank?
Helen I did hear Julie Bishop on the radio ala Kevin Rudd’s TAXPAYER funded trip to a stripclub where he was so drunk he couldn’t even remember what he’d done.
That they even try to support this tosser is both pathetic and telling of an underlying lack of any scruples that seem to characterise this party. It reminds me of pack rape, where the pack mentality prevails and individual judgement goes awol.
Dr Kat, motive must tie in with reason. Reasons seem to be an obvious lack of intelligence, woeful parental rolemodel, (I’d hazard a guess that Buswell Snr has been a major influence for better or worse in Troy’s, (Troy–Geezus wept) life and obviously a generalised hatred of women, (undoubtedly due to a series of knockbacks).
He should be thrown out of the party. Yet I cannot see anywhere in society where a man of this calibre fits. Perhaps there’s a need for re-education camps or something?
A new policy of sincerity perhaps?
[Reasons seem to be an obvious lack of intelligence, woeful parental rolemodel, (I’d hazard a guess that Buswell Snr has been a major influence for better or worse in Troy’s, (Troy–Geezus wept) life ]
Buswell Snr died when Troy was either in his teens or early 20’s.
Perhaps a more constructive way forward than re-education camps was offered by a commenter at Eureka Street:
“Wouldn’t the problem be better addressed by Troy Buswell remaining as leader and leading by example in a change of culture?”
Caroline I wouldn’t hazard too many guesses if I were you – Troy’s father died when he was quite young, so you might guess that his mother had a bigger influence.
Frank, he was 8 when his father died.
Wouldn’t the problem be better addressed by Troy Buswell resigning completely. Then publicly stating that his behaviour has shown that he deserves no leadership position in any organisation trying to influence public policy?
On the redemption theme – I was just looking at imbd in order to remind myself of heart throb Troy Donahue. (Caroline, Troy B was named after Troy D – his mother was inspired by a Fantale wrapper), and it says:
“Starting drinking alcohol in seventh grade (age 13). After being dropped by Warner Brothers in 1966 (age 30) he became an alcoholic. Admitted that he was addicted to pain killers, amphetamines, & cocaine, and used marijuana daily. Joined AA in 1982 (age 46) and turned his life around with his sobriety.”
If you had seen the film A Summer Place you just couldn’t think badly of the name! (Now we’re getting into Darlene’s territory)
Darin that would be one way to go – but the commenter at Eureka Street has a good point: a man in a leadership position who says that he didn’t realise how offensive his behaviour was, who apologises, and then changes his behaviour is quite a good lesson.
As Frank will have noticed through his close reading of the press, even Troy’s opposition think that he is an intelligent and likeable person, so there’s something lost for all of us if he’s made to disappear from public life.
[Frank, he was 8 when his father died.]
Thank’s for the clarification – I was going from memory from the West Magazine write up.
Oh, I don’t think he should disappear. Passing a caucus to remain leader does not make it ok. Perhaps, at minimum, a stint on the shadow back bench with a concerted effort to learn more about why the thing he did was wrong?
The fact that it’s taken this long to work its way into the public eye is damning for most of the people involved.
If they are looking for a new leader, they should be talking to the person who told him to stop acting like a childish fuckwit.
But, it looks like that did not happen either.
Anna: I would love to see is for all female Liberal MPs and their allies to all announce that they are going on strike until this creepy jerk is removed.
Actually this is pretty much what has happened, in an uncoordinated way. One woman has resigned from the party to stand as an independent because of Buswell. A couple of others have said they won’t recontest (one slamming him I think while the other hasn’t made her reasons clear). Another resigned her upper house seat not long ago so there was a countback. The Libs didn’t start with many women in the first place, so virtually all of them have, in one way or another, indicated they won’t be going on as Lib MPs and many have made clear he’s the reason.
I think the bra snapping is open to a lot of interpretations: It might have been about causing pain, it might have been about dominance, or it could have been part of an inept flirtation attempt. You’d need to know more about the context and how hard he snapped it to know. None of these interpretations make him look good, but the latter might not be a hanging offense if it was in circumstances where it was reasonable for him to think that flirtation was not unwelcome.
On the other hand, I cannot imagine any circumstance where any man saw the chair sniffing as anything other than a way to humiliate the woman concerned by reducing her to nothing more than her genital odours. It may have been done deliberately as an attack on all women, or just targeted at one individual (without consider that it would be pretty brutal to any other women who witnessed it), but I really can’t get round it being sexual harassment of one form or another.
“a man in a leadership position who says that he didn’t realise how offensive his behaviour was, who apologises, and then changes his behaviour is quite a good lesson.”
Russell, he shouldn’t have ever been in position of leadership as a serial offender. This says more about the Liberal Party of WA, than it does about Buswell.
The chair-sniffing incident, now fully detailed, is so far beyond the pale that a simple apology and promise to change his behaviour is far from adequate by normal standards of redress.
The only lesson that the people of WA are learning from this incident is that 1) a serial sexual harasser of women has been supported by his colleagues and remains the Leader of the Opposition. And 2) you can rise to become a leader in WA apparently entirely unaware of appropriate standards of behaviour in workplaces (and beyond, one can also presume).
And for West Australian women to have this disgraceful oaf either reformed or reconstructed as the potential Premier of their state, and currently as the Opp. Leader, could not be a worse message and dog whistle to all the other chair-sniffers, bra-snappers and assorted sexual harassers in the West.
I just think some people are not getting the severity of his actions because chair-sniffing is so coarse and immature that it’s seen as comical. It’s as if his base stupidity counts for something, when it shouldn’t.
I can only hope his due punishment will be a crushing defeat and that his polling amongst women remains as low as his behaviour.
I agree, Jo.
Well said, jo, top comment.
What does change mean in this context? Surely, we would be right to be cynical about any ‘mea culpas’. Any change in attitude would take him a long time and involve much thinking, talking and reading. Tell him to come back in a couple of years as a ‘changed man.’ Immediate expressions of remorse and change are just self-serving.
The Simpson’s Troy McClure, perennial show biz has-been/never woz, is said to have been based in part on Troy Donahue.
Perhaps that snippet offers a clue to the future of Sniffer Buswell.
What is most worrying about these actions is not that they occurred (as bad as that is), but that they were engaged in by a person who is the alternative Premier of an Australian state with the indulgence of people who are the alternative government of an Australian state.
To invoke a line from a cultural controversy of the 1990s, a nerdish pass in a bar ceases to be a nerdish pass in a bar when the pass is made, not by a nerd in a bar towards a random acquaintance, but by a College Master in his office to a student in his care.
I was going to say something but jo goned and doned it already.
Following on from Paul’s comment – I do wish that Garner had reread the piece PC quoted before she decided to try to ruin the lives of women who had stood up to similar behaviour.
Strewth, I wouldn’t want to ever face a jury of LP commenters. Helen Garner ‘decided to try to ruin the lives of women’ and ‘for West Australian women to have this disgraceful oaf either reformed or reconstructed …’ so there is no forgiveness – you may have reformed but, sorry, it’s a life sentence. What did Pope say “To err is human, forgive divine”?
One other thing to consider if you live outside WA – we have 1 daily newspaper which basically sets the news agenda for radio & TV as well, and it isn’t known as the world’s greatest newspaper. When The West Australian takes against something or someone, God help them. There may be a lot more context and subtlety to this incident than you’ll hear about from the mass media. Maybe we should get Garner on the job.
There’s a thought!
Imagine the context in which it could be said, after Sniffer Buswell had removed his nose from the famous chair, “Now, there’s a really decent bloke!”
Perhaps Sniffer may have adapted his olfactory skills to the science of early detection of ovarian cancer…
“I know it may sound a little alarmist, my dear, but I recommend that you get yourself to an oncologist pronto.”
Russell, what part of “completely lacking in maturity, gravitas and self control” do you not understand? Can you understand that this could feed into someone’s behaviour as a government minister, in general? can you understand what that says about their view of the place of women in government and in workplaces generally?
Maybe we should get Garner on the job.
…and to call Troy on his chair-sniffing and other schoolboy behaviours is to leave cupid on the ground with his wings all bloody and torn, eh?
No, that didn’t really work the first time around, either.
Helen – do you know what was going on in that room, between ALL the people in that room, just before the infamous chair sniffing gag?
This is a bit like finding a woman standing, gun in hand, over a dead husband. Facts speak for themselves, she should swing. But maybe there’s a story there, a context to that horrible crime. There’s more that could come out about this incident, and perhaps will – but you can’t blame people for wanting to stay clear of this hideous media circus.
I just wonder at this ‘no forgiveness’ policy, even if the culprit admits the mistake and changes his behaviour. Troy is perhaps a bit like Hawke – both got to the leadership of their parties quickly because of ability, even if some of their personal qualities weren’t entirely to be admired. State politics everywhere seems to be terribly short of people with ability – if Troy has matured since this incident of some years ago, I think we would do well to keep him.
Russell, my point, and I think that of most people on this thread, is that Buswell doesn’t actually seem to have reformed, in the sense that he understands why what he did was wrong.
He thinks it’s because it’s unbecoming of a Leader. That’s the least of his problems. As Helen says, it’s about what it says about his view of women in the workplace, women who work for him, with him and the women he will make laws for should he become Premier.
Also, luckily, the woman involved isn’t dead as the husband in your analogy is, so we get this:
- you know, for context.
Anna that’s the one account you’ve heard. I think there’s a lot more context than that – for a start just think about where the story is coming from. But I’m glad to hear the reason there’s no forgiveness – that he may have apologised and changed his behaviour, but he hasn’t had a change of heart. You might be right, but I’m assuming differently.
Seriously, Russell. You can’t change your character that quickly and that much. It’s astonishing that he’s still the leader.
I’ve worked with plenty of people like him – I’m not saying he’s Uday Hussein – but none were running for anything.
He has to crawl away sooner or later. There’s no future in it.
Was just about to post the same, Anna. Context indeed.
Russell, are you saying that you know something about this incident, other than what the woman involved has reported? Or are you just mitigating his actions, by pointing to agendas possibly being run for internal party partisan purposes?
As to forgiveness, it is not for you or others to dispense, only the woman who has stated that she was humiliated and disgusted by his actions, and the other staff who witnessed Buswell’s behaviour, are entitled to such.
In terms of redress, different workplaces have different disciplinary procedures, and I wouldn’t be surprised that the woman involved would be within her rights to launch a sexual harassment action against Buswell, and win damages.
It would have been appropriate for this matter to be heard before a competent tribunal, rather than the incident being hushed up, then leaked for internal party political advantage, with the perpetrator first denying the incident, then fessing up, with a only a promise to do better next time.
In short to date, Buswell has only lied and then cried.
And FTR, what most posters on this thread suggested was appropriate redress, was for Buswell to either head to the backbench to quietly undertake his rehab/reconstruction/reformation, or to resign from parliament. Not exactly a vigilante mob… just people keen to see workers properly protected from predatory behaviour in the workplace.
There was also a report on possibly another occasion, of Buswell crawling on the ground in front this woman pretending to be her husband, besides the bra-snapping incident. This sort of extreme behaviour would suggest these incidents aren’t isolated, and I would place a bet on more unsavoury facts emerging.
The hardheads at Subiaco finally understood there was something terribly wrong at their club, and in time, the WA Liberals will see that Troy Buswell like Ben Cousins, needs to be dropped from the team.
Russell, the point you are totally missing is that regardless of what went on in the meeting, there are some things you do in a professional context and some things you don’t.
Let’s suppose I am in on a Board meeting and someone does something that puts them absolutely in the wrong – no question! I am entitled to feel angry, put out, maybe betrayed.
Am I then entitled to:
Drop my pants in front of him in the boardroom?
Stand on the boardroom table swinging a feather boa?
Make rude remarks about his mother while making obscene finger gestures?
Get a horsewhip out and start cracking it?
…etc…
No, I am expected to abide by basic rules of human behaviour while in a workplace.
Whatever the context was that prompted me to get out the horsewhip, it wouldn’t be any help to me as I have clearly transgressed professional behaviour. Also, if I do something like chair-sniffing which marks me as being a bit batshit crazy, it wouldn’t help my career, either. But the Liberals are a different country. They do things differently there.
Following on from the last sentence of Helen’s last comment, the question of whether all we cruel, punitive people are advocating justice without mercy for Buswell misses the point that there is obviously a massive institutional and political malaise in the WA Liberal Party when Buswell’s behaviour over a protracted period has not been any barrier to his rise through the ranks to the highest office in the party.
I think what’s worrying me about Russell’s defence of Boswell is that he seems to think that Boswell’s behaviour is somehow a separate thing from Boswell-the-person. It’s not so much that he did these (indeed, batshit crazy) things. It’s that he’s someone who can even conceive of doing them, who apparently thinks that doing them is okay, and who, having apparently weaselled his way into the leadership in the first place, thinks that his leadership will not be endangered by doing them. He can say he’s sorry till he’s blue in the face, but he will still be that person whose judgement is so appalling that he believes those things.
And if all the reports of his behaviour are true, and we have no reason to think that they are not, then he’s a person in need of professional help and, erm, re-education. Which is very sad for him, but still makes him an unfit person to lead his way out of paper bag.
I mean, of course, Buswell. Boswell had a bit of a problem with his behaviour around Teh Laydeez too, so I keep getting them mixed up.
Ron Boswell? As in Senator from Queensland?
Or teh literary Boswell?
I have not had the pleasure of Senator Boswell’s acquaintance, so I was indeed thinking of the one who used to follow Dr Johnson around asking stupid questions so that he could write down the witty answers.
Senator Boswell probably doesn’t meet many professional women, being in the National Party n all, Dr Cat, but I just thought I should clarify in case someone took it the wrong way!
Mind you, James Boswell was somewhat lacking in commonsense, IMHO, falling for a poser like Johnson.
Clearly the skanky ho was asking for it.
I’ll say. What these Liberal women need is a bit more rough handling than other women. Give her a good thumping and steal her booze. She’s gagging for it.
Careful, boys. Fly a bit lower under the defo radar, would be my advice.
Then again, why should I care what happens to either of you?
“Context indeed”, well yes, what Anna quoted was the account in the press, not the context. I assume most commenters here are used to giving ‘texts’ a close reading? Starting with, where am I reading this, who is being quoted, what is their background, who benefits etc? You know this is all happening within an explosive political context, in a party tearing itself apart. Read it again – here’s just the first bit:
““We finished the meeting (with a constituent), I walked the bloke downstairs and out of parliament, and when I got back I walked into the room to pick up my notepad from the desk and Buswell started grabbing the chairs going ‘aahww, which one did you sit in? I’ll be able to tell’,” she said.
“And then he picked them up and started sniffing them and groaning and making sexually satisfying noises. I went, ‘you’re sick, knock it off’, and grabbed my staff and walked out, but he didn’t pay attention to a word I said.”
Really, just out of the blue, he does that – sounds almost incredible to me, the guy must be mad or a monster. But most of us aren’t perfect (including the woman giving the account? – could she be giving an account that more and more accords with her feelings about the incident, so long after the event?), and most of us aren’t monsters either. The West Australian, obviously campaigning against Troy, tells us that he is regarded around parliament as one of the most intelligent and likeable members – that’s among people who have worked, and certainly socialised!, with him for years.
So this is really Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde stuff – but hang on that’s fiction, and this is reality. What we can reasonably assume, I think, is that there is a lot more that we don’t know about this episode. It happened years ago, which makes it difficult to punish the guy now, for whatever happened then, if his behaviour has changed. I’m willing to settle for less than Anna – she’s looking for the trifecta: change of heart, apology, change of behaviour. I’ll take the apology and change of behaviour.
could she be giving an account that more and more accords with her feelings about the incident, so long after the event?
feelings….wo, wo, wo, feelings
Isn’t being leader of the WA Libs punishment enough?
Oh, the humanity…
“Wo wo wo” is right.
Russell, I can’t quite work out what you’re implying. You seem to be hinting that the object of Buswell’s behaviour was somehow complicit in it. Or, as Mark up there has put it, to be implying that ‘clearly the skanky ho was asking for it’.
Is that what you’re implying?
Russell, the trouble with your very kind reading is that no-one, especially Buswell, has suggested that there is a different context for it, whatever it might be. No-one’s said, “well, it’ s understandable, because we’d all been standing around telling dirty jokes and Troy took it a bit too far”, for instance. No-one’s suggested that the woman in question has a political or personal axe to grind, or has been put up to it, or his weird or crazy, or anything else.
So, it really is hard to see what another context for this behaviour might be.
It seems he’s implying that emotional baggage (that of feeling personally and sexually violated) has induced her to give a version of the story wherein she is made to feel personally and sexually violated.
I’m not sure that amounts to much of a criticism, personally.
I’ve been pondering on what I would do if one of my senior staff did something similar having previously been warned about his behaviour. Frankly, it seems pretty straightforward – he would be out the door at warp speed. And that’s regardless of context, previous work performance, expressions of remorse, anything.
Katz,
Is being the Premier enough punishment for lifting up a certain MLA’s top?
Jenny – of course.
If, heaven forfend, I ever did anything like that, I’d preemptively start cleaning out my drawers forthwith.
Except that to have done anything like this I’d be a certifiable sociopath or pro footy player (tautology?).
I was discussing this with some friends in Brississippi – and we had to conclude that no, an average 14yo boy wouldn’t have done the same as Bussers.
An especially immature, and clinically socially retarded 12 yo boy was considered the other likely candidate.
I can’t believe those no-hopers didnt dump him. As Ive often said, because of the lure of big money, the Tories really struggle below federal level for talent. All the smart ones are doing something else. So, its really just the dregs. I mean, seriously, Bussers wouldnt make the short list for any federal seat.
This might change if one state opposition gets elected – there will be a talent shift from Canberra to whichever capital they hold.
I’m saying that, as presented to us, the story isn’t quite credible. That Troy is a person capable of changing his previous offensive behaviour – you’ll recall that the Liberal MP who accused Troy of making inappropriate remarks to her, said that he apologised and has never repeated such behaviour to her. That it’s too harsh to destroy someone’s career over something that happened (and we’re not sure what the background was) years ago, if his behaviour has changed. That Troy may have faults but his talents are needed – and therefore, on balance, given his apology and commitment to better behaviour, I’d give him another go.
Paul Norton says that “there is obviously a massive institutional and political malaise in the WA Liberal Party”. Has nobody noticed the Premier’s situation – a Labor MP is refusing to deny that he lifted her top at some sort of ALP karaoke party. He says it might all have to do with pre-selection argy-bargy. A now independent, was ALP, MLC was presented with a “best boobs in the House” award from her colleagues, in Parliament House. And so it goes. It isn’t just one side of politics.
Russell, why do you think the story isn’t quite credible?
Russel – the event was a drunken karaoke party, and everyone was getting jiggy. The woman involved (Jaye Radisich) has said that nothing occurred to make her feel uncomfortable.
There’s a VERY BLOODY BIG difference between bawdy hijinks between consenting adults and what Buswell did.
The problem here is that he (and apparently you) can’t see that difference.
Or, in other words, you’re saying that the woman is lying. This just gets worse and worse.
I note you keep referring to Buswell as “Troy”. Do you know him personally?
As for the Carpenter thing, “refusing to deny” when you’ve got press jackals shoving mics under your nose asking you when you stopped beating your wife isn’t quite the same thing. And besides, “The other side are worse” doesn’t constitute an argument.
Russell,
O’m a bloke who steps very warily into any debate about sexual haeassment/feminism etc, because as far as I’m concerned its almost always a lose/lose situation. And as my Apologetics teacher taught me at De La Salle kingsgrove when I was about 14, you can’t argue against prejudice, whichever gender the prejuduce is coming from. BUT I reckon therer’s a huge difference from getting an awatd for having the best boobs in Parliament, (presumably made by male and female parliamentarians, unleess you’re under the misapprehension women don’t sometimes participate in these things AND (if your’re a woman, or man for that matter) some creep sniffing your chair while making orgasmic noises just after you’ve stood up.
Note: Apologetics : Art of defending one’s Catholoc faith from attack by non-believers – including Protestants – stranger things in heaven and earth …
Well, I’m sure that Sniffer Buswell will be able to present himself as a model of probity and dignity. With a record like Buswell’s the good folk of WA are certain to come to the correct decision in a political contest between a sniffer and a lifter.
Good is bound to prevail.
Pavlov’s Cat,
No, you are right. At least Buswell admitted to it when asked about it. Someone else does not seem to want to do that. A simple denial, backed up by the MLA in question, would have killed the story stone dead. The failure to do so speaks volumes.
In any case, you seem to have misunderstood the case here. He was asked a direct question about an alleged event. It was not a “do you still beat your wife” type question. Either it happened or it did not.
As I said before, it’s surprising me, given what text analysers you are, that on the basis of a newspaper report (and The West Australian at that), and in the context it’s been made, you are so confident that this is a black and white issue.
Fine, I said what I didn’t find credible about the account. PC I didn’t say the woman is lying, I specifically mentioned how recollections of events can change over time.
FDB – so as long as she said, after the event, “I wasn’t offended”
that’s OK then? Don’t you think there could be pressure to say that – she is in the ALP after all.
I didn’t mention the ALP’s problems in order to say any side was worse – on the contrary I was answering Paul Norton who was only accusing the Libs of having a problem. Clearly, it’s both sides.
Russell – where did you get the idea that the West Australian can be relied on to support the ALP? Or bash the Libs? Didn’t this all come from the Sunday Times?
And Russell, I repeat:
“There’s a VERY BLOODY BIG difference between bawdy hijinks between consenting adults and what Buswell did.
The problem here is that he (and apparently you) can’t see that difference.”
Except, Russell you’ve presented no evidence to back your position up. It just doesn’t seem right to you. No-one has suggested that the woman’s account is in any way inaccurate. Given your thesis, presumably there’d be differing, contesting memories of this event. But, that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.
Fine, you’re right, I don’t have evidence, it just seems to me an incredible story the way it is told – the serious meeting, and then, out of the blue, this extraordinary behaviour, weird enough to go all the way around the world.
FDB – I can imagine what kind of discussion of the word ‘consent’ might ensue if it were a Lib politician.
Russell, clutching at straws is all very well, but there comes a time when you either have to let go, or grasp on to something rather more substantial.
Personally I find Julie Bishop’s defence of Buswell (Rudd attended a strip joint and was too drunk to remember and he got elected PM, so a bit of chair sniffing is OK) almost as offensive as the original incident.
So, in sum: voters now know that behaving like a dog is no barrier to leadership of the WA libs.
I would suggest looking eastward for the next Liberal Government, punters.
Probably not the best of roads to wander down, Lefty E as a former Qlder. Exhibit A – Keith Wright.
The Right has always had problems accepting the credibility of consensuality in relationships between adult human beings in full possession of their faculties.
I imagine that this ongoing problem is caused by the adherence of large parts of the Right to canons of religious orthodoxy.
Even though many of the Right are godless, nevertheless the shibboleth religious culture still imposes stern but atavistic strictures upon moral openness.
I see where you’re going with that, Katz, but I feel Bussers may be a special case, even among our RWDB brethren. Chair sniffing actually suggests an individualised, pre-ideological level of social retardation.
Queen of hearts
Edwina Currie
The Rose of Martinique: a life of Napoleon’s Josephine
Andrea Stuart Macmillan, 455pp, £20
“He can talk of nothing but kisses, kisses, everywhere and upon portions of the anatomy not to be found in any dictionary of the Academie Francaise.” “I am coming – do not wash!” was his cry as he sped from one battlefield. What woman could resist?”
http://www.newstatesman.com/200309290044
Dauphin of devilish desires
Clive James
Politicians and Pheromones: cassoulet de la chaise, an historical perspective
Troy Buswell Random House, 5pp, 5 bucks
“Geez she was a grouse sheila, but the way she got me on the sniff, fair dinkum, mate, I always knew she’d bring me undone.”
Latest development in Troy’s bizarre career
Holy crap, but what did he do to the quokka? and what is a quokka the poor bloody thing? err, maybe I dont think I want to know what he did. He didn’t sexually harrass it or even worse did he?
and then these minimisations:
“I’m not being backward in saying that I’m not a perfect individual”
(Was this a freudian on purpose? cause, like, thats, like, hilarious)
” and you know I’ve had a robust past and there may be elements of that that have proved offensive to people.”
Check that! sexual harrassment becomes ‘robust’ and this has ‘proved offensive to people’ (noice distancing).
“I don’t shy away away from that at all, but I’m not aware that I’ve caused any offence to a quokka.”
He is not aware? of being offensive to a quokka? um, how could you miss it?
Say, whats gone wrong with the Liberals exactly????
It’s a small furry animal
Sheesh!
I was just wondering why Perth seemed such a quiet town when I visited there in 05. Perhaps it was outside Quokka mating season?
Sometimes you can see why being a subbie is a rewarding profession:
Probably the quokka’s just a factional opponent.
Does it have a blog “Westralians against Troy”?
I don’t think the internet tubes go all the way to Rottnest. Maybe they just have an old riso running off shit sheets.
Chair sniffer and now quokka fokka. Regardless of the truth, this guy’s now labeled for life as a laughing stock. It’s either Big Brother or the US Congress for him now.
Russell:
That Troy may have faults but his talents are needed – and therefore, on balance, given his apology and commitment to better behaviour, I’d give him another go.
AKA: lack of talent in Liberal ranks which is painfully evident in every State.
Lefty E:
I would suggest looking eastward for the next Liberal Government, punters.
Not in Victoria, Russell! I’m still sitting here, popcorn in hand, chuckling at the antics of our Liberal friends here (well, some of it isn’t even funny, I should say.)
I’d pat it
Look on the bright side.
Troy has never been accused of sniffing quokkas.
This alone makes him the most suitable chap to lead the WA Libs.
O’m a bloke who steps very warily into any debate about sexual haeassment/feminism etc, because as far as I’m concerned its almost always a lose/lose situation. And as my Apologetics teacher taught me at De La Salle kingsgrove when I was about 14, you can’t argue against prejudice, whichever gender the prejuduce is coming from.
Paul, you’re a great guy but you might like to consider a few sources more up to date than your old Catlick school teachers. We all step very warily into such debates (as women, it’s because we’re often slapped down and insulted if we do); but as the Shapely Prose blogger Kate Harding pointed out once in a post that has become deservedly famous, it is incumbent on men to point it out once in a while if they don’t want to be enablers. She points out that some of the men making with the “hurh, hurh” creepy jokes really are creepy. “And that guy? thought you were on his side.” Sorry, can’t find the reference via Google.
BUT I reckon therer’s a huge difference from getting an awatd for having the best boobs in Parliament, (presumably made by male and female parliamentarians, unleess you’re under the misapprehension women don’t sometimes participate in these things AND (if your’re a woman, or man for that matter) some creep sniffing your chair while making orgasmic noises just after you’ve stood up.
It’s a matter of degree, but not of kind. Imagine you’re working under a regional manager of something or other, a suited bloke; would you organise a competition and declare him the Man with the Lowest Hanging Testicles at the Christmas party or Karaoke night? I think not. It’s not as severe as the chair sniffing incident but it does illustrate how women have to work constantly as being seen as legitimate authority figures where the male culture constantly tries to set them up as people to whom it would be OK to do that.
“I’d pat it”
LOLZ!!!1!
Poor little blighters, those quokkas. Always getting the rough end of the stick, whether it’s leavers’ week or a Libs getaway.
“Quokka soccer”, for the uninitiated, is precisely what it sounds like. Kick it until it’s dead or not fun any more, or until someone else comes and kicks the shit out of you.
*whistles nonchalantly*
*Volunteers*
If Buswell were not in strife already for bizarre and repulsive behaviour indicating a total disregard for other human beings (look at that photo, I mean, just look at it — you’re not born looking like that, it has to be earned), would this rumour ever have even got off the ground? Given that the chair-sniffing and all that that implies seems to be true beyond doubt, I (for one) now regard this dude as capable of truly anything.
Has anyone mentioned Richard Gere yet?
PC – that was the one and only time (off the sporting field) I’ve ever initiated physical aggression against another person. I wouldn’t say say I’m proud, but I will say I’ve never regretted bruised knuckles so little.
FDB – who knows, the quokka may have initiated the business – they are awfully cute. Anyway if the quokka wasn’t offended, it was just consensual hijinks, wasn’t it? (wouldn’t expect to find any speciesism at LP).
When I first heard the quokka story I thought it was brilliant, but then the Libs aren’t THAT clever: when you can’t back away or get around from a story like the chair sniffing, release a few more stories, increasingly ridiculous, so that then ALL the stories become just funny, ie it’s the stories that are laughable, a running gag, not the bloke. Genius.
It would be sad that if after all his sexist actions towards women, Buswell is finally brought down by a quokka. I can see the ‘Quokka Shocker!’ headlines now.
Russell:
Funny as Buswell’s slo-mo demise is, unfortunately the comically absurd quokka sex angle is the result of subbies’ “unfortunate” choice of wording. What he’s actually been “linked to” is the bashing of a quokka by means of booting it from WA Lib pollie to WA Lib pollie.
So I’d argue that consent is unlikely to pertain as mitigation in this case.
And as much as I’d like to dismiss the whole thing – it’s disgusting to think about, for a start – after the chair-sniffing I really don’t know any more. There is allegedly video of the incident. Is he a first year engineering student at UWA, or an ambitious politician?
Helen @163,
I couldn’t agree more. In my late 20s I had my run-ins with feminists before I was reconstructed so to speak.
I won’t boast about how successful that reconstruction was, except to mention that as a tutor teaching the 60s/70s social revolution I recommended people read The Female Eunuch as a primary sources. (And had some blokes tell me they’d never read that!)And, yes, if men are making obviuos sexist comments, I do vociferously objecr, the same way I object to, and have ended friendships over people being racist. This is not to say that as a bloke I’m not occasionally unconsciously sexist.But I try not to be.
Everyone,
Re the quokka. Apart from the cruelty to animals, the point that really distressed me was that this was believeable because men were using it to play football and what it said about the football mentality.
When it come to the gratuitous torture of small animals, should we care?
No, quite.
At least, we shouldn’t – I’d imagine the difference is pretty important for the WA Libs though!
Oh, but it’s just his natural exuberance
Ooh look, it was made up, by a blogger:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23702432-12377,00.html
and here I was doing research on th homicidal triangle and whether Troy had the other requirements necessary.for the FBI profile on such people….
loved this quote:
“I also take this opportunity to place on the record that I am a big fan of quokkas and wish no ill towards them”
I wish he’d stop taking these opportunities.
And Helen, please, pass the popcorn over…
Robust, Fine @ #173, he’s robust.