Lieutenant General David Morrison schools the misogynists and shows how you can be tough and liberal.
Best quote:
“You may find another employer where your attitude and behaviour is acceptable but I doubt it. The same goes for those that think toughness is built on humiliating others.”
The man knows how to lead. Let’s hope be succeeds.
Words. Not. Minced.
If that guy gave me a dressing down like that I would feel very small indeed.
Hmmmm. He read it well, but seems a bit robotic for all that. Dead eyes.
Why is a guy talking tough about sexism not being tough so news worthy?
Good question, maybe it’s because he’s a rare example of an Aussie male?
Taking in isolation, it is not. But its been a big week over in Oz for gender and misogyny issues.
+1 Take heart Julia. There’s hope for your country yet!
Given that some of the sexist imagery they have in their prime time advertising would probably and rightfully get you lynched over here, that’s hardly surprising.
Because leaders of male-dominated organisations are traditionally pretty shit at calling out misogyny. Cough, Catholic Church, cough.
Yeah as I said below, this man is a competent General. He cares about the warfighting capability, discipline and morale of the forces under his command.
The concerns of bleeding heart liberals is, I suspect, not the top priority here.
One more reason we shouldn’t have male-dominated organisations, IMO. 🙂
The Australian army is not a happy place for women. Given the number of sexual harrasment “scandals” which have come to light recently, I’m inclined to think that the video is primarily a PR exercise.
Some relevant articles on ABC news:
Army email scandal: Expert says sexism is deeply ingrained in Defence Force
Worse than Skype scandal’ – Army admits new sexual controversy
Sex discrimination commissioner ‘appalled’ but not surprised by latest Army scandal
Dead eyes? I saw real anger.
Scary, unblinking anger. I agree.
Statements like that, karol, often lead me to wonder how far your paridisical home world is from this unfortunately frail, fallible terrestrial plane we poor mortals must inhabit. This is something to be happy about, not an excuse to wring one’s hands and do the jaded martyr bit.
Would love to see him, in another role, campaign against Tony Abbott.
same, but in a campaign against john key
His speech to the UN on International Women’s Day (PDF) is worth a read too.
Thanks for that Pete. Well worth reading. David Morrison appears very genuine indeed. The speech Eddie has highlighted certainly tackles the issues head on. I wish David Morrison and his supporters well in tackling these issues.
Anvil fired for effect (from a rail gun).
Apparently the Aussies want him for PM!
I’d rather see him as Commissioner of the NZ Police
Race relations
Everyone bear in mind that in this case “liberal” means “better foreign war fighting machine”.
Yes, CV. It is this that gives me pause.
Given that we’ve established climate change, peak oil, and god knows what else are going to make our part of the world very desirable, vulnerable territory in a few decades, I’m not sure why you’re implying that’s a *bad* thing.
Because it’d be better to defend ourselves through an aggressively fair, peaceful, and independent foreign policy that makes us not worth invading.
Imagine if Don Brash had made that sort of speech whilst leader of the National Party.
There would have been howls of protest along with an exodus of Nat supporters.
I assume you are being ironic. Had brash made such a speech he would still be prime minister
If Brash wasn’t Brash and was advised by people who weren’t his advisors then mebbe anything could happen.
But in the real world he made dissing Clark’s marriage and talking about ‘mainstream’ part of his message, didn’t see any problem with it.
No Mathew, not ironic except in maybe the sense that Brash (you know, Family Don, my wifes from Singapore Don etc) would never have made such a speech. Had (family) Brash done so, the howls of protest amongst sectors of the Nat Party would’ve been loud and some people would’ve packed their bags and left.
And I’ll suggest several reasons why Brash would not have been Prime Minister.
1. “Honest Don” was exposed, he got caught out making a deal with the EBs and then trying to cover it up. That exposure really sunk him.
2. “Mainstream Don” was exposed, as he made secret deals with the EBs (you know, when they met to ‘pray’)
3. “Family Don” didn’t actually come out until after the election, my wifes from Signapore and my girlfriend from Auckland.
Thankfully we didn’t have to suffer “Economic Don” and his dated economic policies.
Us liberal wooly namby-pamby lefties need more bloke like Morrison. If Slater and his boyfriend carried on like they do in front of him, they would be doubling round the parade ground.
This guy should be sent to have a “chat” with Eden Park management.
And a lot of New Zealnd’s sports culture.
And he should have a chat with some spin doctors.
Here’s Hoots channelling Alastair Thompson on “stupid maori” Nanaia Mahuta on 92N: “When you get pregnant, you leave your job”.
Kathryn Ryan replies, “Keep digging, Matthew…”
Hypocrite, much?
Weasel excuse in 10… 9… 8…
Nah, Hooton will ran away instead…
He really is a vile little troll and whore, isn’t he?
Except that calling him a “whore” would be an insult to sex workers.
This is the sort of talk we need so long as he walks the walk as well and yes I think he’s angry as well because he may feel he has a slightly wider problem of who is actually in charge.
Did you notice in the opening minute that he mentioned a “network” of people swopping tasteless material on the various defence force emails & network. Now if you are an army commander, presumably the last thing you need is networks inside your force who do not subscribe to a “common purpose or value” because one day that network may be supporting or promoting some value that is not that of the democracy that gives the force it’s legitimacy. The last thing any state needs is it’s defence force captured by any special interest groupt
Now this is a long winded way of saying “what if a network formed in your force that was say anti dope smoking – nothing wrong with this. Then parliament passed a law saying no criminalising
dope smokers and they held to their values and started taking out the local tinnie house with the weapons we give them.”
I’m picking that he will get a flood of tip off’s followed by a wave of departures.
The anti-dope smoking network may not be such a problem, but there are law enforcement and military forces out there where the racist and homophobic internal networks are real problems.
Yes I agree – but was using dope smoking as a “soft” example. As well as racist and homophobic networks there could be ultra religious networks (of all varies christian included) or based on a particular econ theory (neoliberal?) or that support a particular parliamentary group -which is the stuff coups are made of.
I just find it very telling that liberals think any kind of speech or action that promotes respect for women is intrinsically ‘liberal’. How do you know this man is ‘liberal’ just because he has a laudable attitude towards respect for women in the Oz armed forces? Respect for woman is not something ‘owned’ by liberals, in the same way that the sanctimonious Greens do not ‘own’ any issue that is obliquely related to the Environment.
Seems like a top bloke and he seems suitably pissed off.
However……. strange that this suddenly surfaces this week when the Aussie Army have been investigating this for for over 3 years.
Coincidence – much?