Slumbering Green

The assassination of Shinzo Abe in Japan by a man evidently with a mental illness does raise questions on a number of fronts. It’s worthwhile looking at the tone of public conversations even in countries like Australia which doesn’t have a history of violence against elected representatives. Egging is commonplace enough not to need explanation, however, and it’s just a step up in the level of violence to get to shooting. Guns being more accessible in Australia than in Japan it’s not hard to see how this might happen, so Karen Andrews, a Coalition politician, is right in expressing concern on this account. The other problem that needs addressing is that Japan largely ignores mental health in its conversations about itself. More awareness in this regard might’ve prevented the accused from making his weapon and plotting Abe’s demise. Mental illness is unfortunately endemic in Japan and the burden on families is even larger than it is in Australia because people feel so much shame. It’s go...

A report into sexual harassment in the Western Australia mining industry highlights the corrosive nature of corporate life in a stark way. If women were being bothered by unwanted advances, if the comments coming from their male coworkers were so awkward, if they felt like they had to wear baggy clothing just to survive the workplace, where were the human resources departments?  What were HR managers doing? Did they have no idea? Were no complaints at all about fly-in-fly-out employees on mine sites registered in their books? It’s very hard to believe that some idea of the problem wasn’t talked about among HR staff. What about sharing this data with colleagues at other companies? If you have dedicated HR staff whose job it is to find out about misbehaviour in the workplace and to deal with it in a professional manner, then the system evidently failed in a catastrophic manner. A public outcry, an official government report, all of these things must lead to culture change, but I thi...