Don t make waves! Systems and patterns of the abuse of power are evident in social and political environments today, wherever gender imbalance persists. Perpetrators prey upon disempowered subordinates, in cultures where inequality is normalised with impunity. A conspiracy of silence protects offenders. Brittany Higgins represents many working women in a male-dominated workplace. In a male work culture you understand who are the powerful and who are the vulnerable. Her hesitation to report alleged sexual indiscretion by a Federal Government staffer, in fear of reprisal, is why sexual assault upon the vulnerable is still problematic in our third millennium society. In an election year particularly, you don t make waves.
Why do we need to make our community safe? To encourage investment into our region, we need to ensure that our region has a safe economic platform as well as a personal safety platform. Ask yourself a simple question: would you move into an environment of high crime and low employment opportunities? I surely wouldn t. To move our region forward we need to encourage industry growth to create local jobs that will change a lot of lives; lives that have hope; lives that prosper; and lives that don t turn to crime. Crime needs to be tackled at the root cause, to prevent lives being lost to an uncertain future, which creates more despair and destruction in our community.