Sorry Trev, that dog don’t hunt!
When Trevor Mallard stated to the country that there was a serial rapist still walking the halls of Parliament when releasing the report on bullying, you believed that Trevor must have access to compelling evidence that would give him the confidence to state this so factually, and that while it was a shambles in terms of an announcement, the rapist threat had been removed when the staffer was stood down after the female complainant came forward again and restated her complaint, (despite the initial inquiry finding no evidence of sexual assault).
Buuuuuuut, didn’t you, like me, privately think, ‘you had best be sure of your facts here Trev, because you’ve just defamed someone as a rapist and scared the rest of the country while you were at it’.
Surely, the Speaker of the House would equip himself with all the facts before making such an astounding accusation.
Surely right?
Surely?
Right?
Now we hear the accused rapists side of the story in a ZB/Herald exclusive and you are left deeply concerned at how Trev managed to get his version of events to rape…
In a two hour sit down discussion in his home, the devastated man said “The accusation of rape has put me in a very dark place”.
“I was driving to Parliament the day after the bullying and harassment report on the place was delivered and heard on the radio that a ‘rapist’ could be stalking the corridors and it disturbed me greatly,” he said.
However early that afternoon he realised he was the so called ‘rapist’ when he was summoned into the office of the Parliamentary Service boss Rafael Gonzalez-Montero to be stood down.
A colleague at the centre of an unsubstantiated complaint against him three years earlier had come forward again after complainants were urged to do so by The Speaker.
“At no time was I spoken to by the review’s head Debbie Francis which I thought I would have been considering an alleged incident had been investigated and was found to be without merit.
“It’s ironic that the review was about bullying and harassment. I feel I’ve been bullied out of Parliament and harassed within it, particularly by the Speaker’s claim,” the teary-eyed man said.
He said his family was dumbfounded, they couldn’t believe he could be accused of sexual misconduct.
“Arriving home after being stood down I was numb. I sat stunned thinking this can’t be happening to me,” he said.
The complaint was ruled to be unsubstantiated last year, laid two years after the incident happened.
The man said it resulted from working alongside a colleague at Parliament when a clipboard was lost.
“We searched for the clipboard which was important and with great relief we finally found it. She gave me a high five but being a little old fashioned I hugged her back, that was honestly all there was to it,” the man said.
Two years later he said she laid a complaint and both of them were interviewed. In a written decision, after the investigation last year, her claim that he hugged her from behind pushing his groin into her, was found to be unsubstantiated and no further action was warranted.
However after the call from Speaker Mallard last week, the woman, who the man said he’d had a few sharp exchanges with since the hug, asked for the complaint to be reconsidered.
Immediately after that he was sent packing from Parliament with Mallard summoning the media to declare: “I don’t want to cut across any employment or possible police investigation, but I am satisfied that the Parliamentary Service has removed the threat to the safety of women working in the Parliamentary complex.”
The Speaker understood the same man was responsible for the two other claims of serious, sexual assault. He later added one of the key dangers is no longer in the building.
The man said he’s dumbfounded but the same woman was involved in one of the other complaints. He said he passed a comment about another woman’s hair looking nice, with the original complainant telling her he was looking at her breasts.
The third complaint came following a platonic friendship he had with another colleague, who on one occasion came around to his house with her son for a cup of tea with his wife. He says he kissed her on the cheek once as he was farewelling her and he suspects she was put up to the complaint by someone else.
After talking to the man, NewstalkZB saw the finding of the investigation against him, a finding that would usually be kept under wraps by the unimpeachable Parliamentary Service. The finding bore out everything the man had claimed and found the claim against him was unsubstantiated.
…micro aggression policing millennial culture call outs is fine on twitter but most of us would be very hard pushed to agree that a a hug/crutch grind, comment about hair/breast gazing and cheek kiss/cheek kiss equates to being a serial rapist.
Even taking the worst possible interpretation of his actions (crutch grind, breast gazing and cheek kissing), you could never get it to rape.
In the age of subjective rage where the climb to Mt Martyrdom is a race to have the biggest and most painful grievance, such accusations and loose use of language to describe unwanted attention is social media capital, but to adopt those woke standards and conclude rape in the real world seems remarkably relaxed by the Speaker of the House.
Now some 5th wave feminists will say how dare we question the women because we must always believe the woman.
I think accusations need to be taken seriously, not believed. They can be believed when corroborating evidence is established. Believing someone simply because of the nature of their accusation is Salem Witch Trial stuff, it’s not a position rational people can reasonably endorse.
Some 5th wave feminists will claim that even listening to the accused is victim blaming and victim shaming.
Hmmmmm.
You start getting the feeling that according to identity politics dogma, as along as an accusation is made by a woman, you must believe it.
Which stops sounding like equality and social justice and starts sounding like toxic gender tribalism.
The danger for the woke is that by defining rape at these thresholds creates the risk of the Kavanaugh effect. During the Kavanaugh confirmation fiasco, voters stopped fearing their daughter would be raped & feared their sons would be falsely accused of rape.
What Trevor has done by defining rape at this threshold is it’s made voters not fear being raped, but accused of being a rapist.
This is a tragedy to those who have been legitimately sexually abused as their valid concerns get eclipsed by the injustice of accusing a man of rape for actions which fall well short of that accusation.
This is going to have counter-productive repercussions far beyond the initial report. I foresee a protracted employment complaint looming.
The irony of a bullying report that has ended up bullying should be lost on no one.
I’ll agree the Speaker has stuffed up, but what is a fifth wave feminist and can you name even one?
The Speaker has forgotten this is a report about experience of staff, untempered by another point of view, as occurs when complaints are processed (as with the Retirement Commissioner) or a due process in general. It was and is for the purpose of developing safe working space practice.
It raises questions about his suitability to be involved in such a process when it is developed. The matters had been dealt with historically. And it is little wonder police were not involved.
Yeah, his role has compromised the safe workplace environment of one, and maybe two people. He’s made a mess.
I still wonder about the immediate fear of the women working at the workplace, every workplace of that size in the country would have a rapist (not charged and or convicted) working there (based on surveys of women and the number raped by men – most not reported). And few, if any, of the unreported rapes ever occurred at the workplace.
Some of these recent Bomber posts make it almost seem like he’s been red-pilled. If so, best strap yourself in, because (like the Moon) this path is a harsh mistress (especially on social media). If you think the far-right are bad, wait until the far-left turn on you.
Yeah na. I appreciate the red pill metaphor. But the far left are communists, this is more about growing pains during the development of equality in society.
The irony of a bullying report that has ended up bullying (and has been released by a bully) should be lost on no one.
You missed a part out
BG!
Yep.
Good analysis. What the hell was Mallard thinking?
Mallard seized a ‘Paula Bennett shafting J-L-Ross’ moment’ to subliminally suggest his own new-found virtue in contrast, and he blew it big time just as she did.
Trevor Mallard has, of late, appeared to like the sound of his own fancifulness.
If this is at the expense of some poor man’s reputation and emotional well-being, Mallard should have to pay personal costs, then quit, and bugger off and shoot ducks or something. He’s in the wrong book.
J have to agree Mallard has made a mess of this. But theses are historical matters. Where was the bully speaker David Carter when these historical cases were dismissed? Why did we not know about theses/ Like the housing crisis under National, did they not exist? Or were they swept under the carpet, given what we know now on the Jamie Lee Ross debacle?
What we do know is that these alleged cases came about by way of Mallards/Governments want for an investigation, something National unashamedly poke fun at.
The one clear thing we know National is good at is Dirty Politics, does this extend to behaviour and bullying?
Mallard went about bringing this into the open the wrong way but bringing this out into the open he has done.
Isn’t it strange when an issue is raided against your beloved government you always try to deflect back to a previous government. This is Mallards problem and nobody else’s
Your “Beloved” government Rozgonz ? Beloved government ? Beloved ?
Um… this isn’t a Hans Christian Anderson or an Oscar Wilde creation we’re talking about here, this, alas, is real life and really, the only modern suggestion I’ve seen of a government being loved is Elaine Paige belting out, “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”, and who precisely was loving whom is skimmed over by nice soppy music.
Are you sure you’re not talking about All Blacks ?
Beloved ?
ROZGONZ Isn’t it interesting you didn’t read my post in it’s entirety.
The reason I deflect back to the previous hapless Government is because they took no personal responsibility for their countless mistakes. The housing crisis or non- crisis in nationals eyes, being a prime example.
Oh for heaven’s sake Bert, try not to use euphemisms like, “hapless” when referring to the late (really good word) National Government.
You are being very kind to them, but there was little hap in their collective misanthropy which wrecked so much of the social structure in this country, and most if not all of this was achieved by deliberate underfunding of e.g. health and education, and many good people cruelly impacted on – but people considered unimportant because they were not monied.
Too many children’s lives have been damaged and scarred
by the previous govt, and it didn’t have to be that way.
Totally.
The guy was labeled a rapist by the whole Nation…with no evidence, no charge, no chance for defence.
Yet again the allegation becomes the evidence although the investigation revealed the allegation was without substance. So what seems to have happened is the woman who made the first complaint could not get any traction because it was found to be unsubstantiated so what does she do? She cries “Me Too” “Me Too” and repeats it.
Yes I am a young woman so I expect to get real criticism for what I have just said but if the media report on the person who has been banned from Parliament is correct then he has been unjustifiably and unfairly labelled as a rapist.
Now everyone is ducking for cover but the the way the whole thing has been handled means that the person that has been banned will be tainted forever and of course the woman who started the whole thing will be feted as a “very brave” woman who has stood up for all women. Well, she does not stand up for me.
And as for Mallard’s comments – where is his accountability? Sorry, stupid question.
Accountability YS ? I think that going by the precedents of the Key govt, it may mean that everything’s Nicky Hager conspiracy theorising – and giving adoring media groupies a bottle of initialised plonk again at Christmas.
Mallard will have to account for this, at the very least at an employment hearing, but that will never heal the emotional battering if, as it seems, a foul accusation has been circulated against this man right throughout his workplace.
And if this info was procured through entrapment, then the inquiry processes suck, and also need to be examined very carefully indeed.
With all the power the speaker has and the importance of the position Mallard should have handled this better.
He must have known the inevitable shock and panic announcing this would cause.
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