Sexual harassment: legal in Tasmania?

Issue 

Sexual harassment: legal in Tasmania?

By Joy McEntee

HOBART — Women are having their rage refurbished daily by the Mercury newspaper. Every edition carries a peep show style update on the case brought against Hobart City Council by a 21-year-

old woman who suffered sexual harassment and from her co-workers while she was employed as a horticultural apprentice.

Readers are regaled with a range of excuses for the inexcusable: she "had a reputation"; her shorts were see-through; she was prone to being sexually harassed — it had happened before; the foreman didn't have special instructions from the council about preventing sexual harassment.

The Mercury is continuing the dishonourable tradition of making the victim into the criminal.

This standard of reporting is no more than locals have come to expect of the new tabloid "Mockery", as it is often called.

But the concentration on the character of the rape survivor is also obscuring a larger issue: there is no sexual harassment legislation in Tasmania. Despite the fact that criminal acts have been performed, the woman is reduced to suing the council.

The federal sex discrimination commissioner, Sue Walpole, pointed out on May 17 that Tasmania's local and state employees are not protected by the federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and that Tasmania is the only state which lacks state legislative protection.

Rose Matthews, of the Women's Action Group, said, "This is just another illustration of the way women in Tasmania are confronted with the basic issues of women's oppression in sharper terms than many feminists in the larger centres would credit. The judges in other places do not perform adequately, but at least there are laws for them to enforce if they do decide to take an interest in justice. Here the problems faced by women and gays are not even acknowledged.

"The state government tries hard to pretend that we don't exist. It's up to us to reveal the kind of hypocrisy which allows them to pretend we don't need human rights."

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