The unaddressed issues in Greens NSW 4: Jenny Leong’s Speech
On 13 November, Jenny Leong gave a speech in parliament. You can read it in hansard here, or at New Matilda.
I’m not going to reprint the speech in its entirety. Suffice to say, aside from everything else, Jenny made allegations about Jeremy Buckingham MLC. She said “I know there have been active volunteers who have stepped aside or resigned as members as a result of Jeremy’s behaviour.” She said “some constituents raised with me the fact that they had seen Jeremy behaving badly” at a Greens event. And “On two occasions earlier this year Jeremy behaved in an aggressive and intimidating manner towards me — once in a public place and once in the corridors of this place.”
Some of these allegations by Leong related to things she had personal experience of. Some of the allegations are claims made by others about Buckingham’s behaviour. Jenny stressed: “I am in no way comparing my experiences or the experiences of other volunteers and members to that experienced and articulated by Ella; I am sharing this information because I think it goes to character.”
Dawn Walker MLC’s response to these allegations:
Another Greens MP, Dawn Walker, also said that there had been a “concerted effort over the last few years to try to exploit sexual harassment and assault allegations to smear political opponents within the Greens”.
“As a woman, this concerns me greatly because such allegations should be not weaponised and should be treated with sensitivity and through proper processes,” Ms Walker said.
“It seems we are now at a point where some MPs have abandoned basic principles of justice for public accusations.”
Leong speaking about her personal experience has thus become abandoning basic principles of justice for public accusations. This is called weaponising those allegations. And exploiting sexual harassment and assault allegations. The claim that this has occurred “over the last few years” is particularly worth highlighting, but I will abstain from pursuing that issue here.
Perhaps less aggressive, Cate Faehrmann’s op ed in Fairfax adopts a similar line. She wrote, “it is extremely distressing for me as it is for many women and Greens members to see allegations of sexual harassment and assault, including the party’s handling of these, being used as a political weapon.” Thus, Leong’s personal testimony of her alleged experiences has become a political weapon. It can be disregarded, or treated skeptically. After all, it serves a particular political end.
Faehrmann goes on to write “The unrelenting attacks against Jeremy Buckingham have revealed a deeply troubling side to the campaign for women’s voices and experiences to be trusted when it comes to allegations of sexual assault and violence against them by men.” This is basically at the heart of her — and Walker’s — message. Trusting “womens’ voices and experiences” is not so great after all. At the time she wrote that op ed, Faehrmann was the spokesperson for Greens NSW on women’s issues. She subsequently resigned this position, in the face of strong internal opposition within the party.
Her concluding note: “We are at risk of trivialising women’s experiences of sexual, domestic and family violence if we use allegations about men’s behaviour for political gain or throw out due process and the principles of natural justice.”
What is Jenny Leong’s political gain? How does she benefit from recounting her alleged personal experiences?
For those not in the Greens, it is worth recounting some of the factional layout. On the left, the only representative is David Shoebridge (who has featured in most of the insinuations about Ella Buckland). In the centre left is Mehreen Faruqi, Jenny Leong, and Jamie Parker. On the right is Faehrmann, Walker, Buckingham, Justin Field, Tamara Smith. Who has called for Buckingham to resign? Shoebridge, Faruqi, Leong, Parker, Smith. That is, representatives from all of the factions. Tamara Smith on the right, the three in the soft left, the one on the left. The only people standing by Buckingham are his factional allies. Doing so has required them insinuating that Leong talking about what she says are her personal experiences… is simply acting for political gain, weaponising these types of allegations and so on. As Faehrmann said, there is a “troubling side” to believing women. Like Leong.
Perhaps most appalling was Justin Field’s diatribe. I’ll highlight bits from the opening, and then post the finish:
It concluded
Note how Field calls Jenny’s speech — where she talked about her alleged personal experiences — “hearsay and innuendo”. It was “first and foremost an opportunistic effort to destroy”. It was an “orchestrated political hit”, and “not designed to… ensure a safe space for women”. That is, he aggressively and openly rejects taking her claims of her personal experiences seriously, and has publicly and openly berated her, and made clear that he doesn’t believe her claims, and regards them as little more than “hearsay and innuendo”. There is not even a pretence of taking it seriously — her testimony is “first and foremost an opportunistic effort to destroy”.
This is Jeremy Buckingham’s factional allies speaking. They are making clear how they respond to a woman making allegations against their factional ally. When Ella made certain allegations, there was a series of insinuations made against her, repeatedly deployed across national media for months. When Jenny Leong spoke about what she says she experienced, she copped something similar. Her claims about how she was treated were not taken seriously, or treated sympathetically. They were traduced.
Cate Faehrmann can be distinguished from the others, in that she made the ritual claim that she said Jenny should make a complaint, and she would support Buckingham standing down during that complaint’s investigation (Faehrmann voted repeatedly to shield Buckingham from standing down during the investigation of Ella’s allegations, and also voted against discussion of those motions). Yet even if one can question Faehrmann’s sincerity, she is at least a hypocrite. Justin Field’s facebook post, on the other hand, is about as terrible as it gets when it comes to responding to these types of allegations. I cannot think of another public figure who has responded in a comparable way to those types of allegations. Yet in the Greens, whilst there are moves to expel Buckingham, Field’s behaviour — in support of his factional ally — hardly even registers. This is the kind of rot that has seeped in to the party, that is not even subject to any serious discipline, or public critique. I don’t know if Buckingham will go. But these are serious issues that the Greens NSW are grappling with. Jenny Leong’s public speech has made clear the issues go deeper than one night in 2011, and indeed, are more systemic than the one representative accused of misconduct on that night.