Revenge porn

Before embarking on a journey of revenge, dig two graves: Confucius.

 Australia witnessed one of the most remarkable TV interviews this week with a crew following disgraced whistle-blower Cathy Jackson and her paramour Fair Work Commission Vice President, Michael Lawler.

Jackson has slipped from everyone’s poster girl blowing the whistle on the graft in her union and in particular where union funds had been used to pay for prostitutes by a former union boss turned Labor parliamentarian.

His actions caught many people literally with their pants down as Labor Prime Ministers down tried to defend the parliamentarian holding their balance of power. The overall fact became clear that the Health Services Union executives had been using union funds like their own piggy bank and dished out money like confetti. This was not a good look for the union movement when workers saw their funds used in this way.

Labor was kicked out of power and Craig Thompson had his day in court where the prostitute payments had to come out even if they appealed to the media and yet were fairly insignificant to totals involved. Time for retribution. The Labor movement with the vast $400 billion retirement nest egg controlled by unions and employer organisations through compulsory superannuation funds were not going to let anyone block their traditional modus operando. So they wanted their pound of flesh.

Suddenly Cathy Jackson is herself in the firing line with a claim that she also misused union funds to the tune of $1.4 million dollars. When interviewed she was not clear on her defence but it will probably be that she was entitled to a whole range of expenses provided the Union’s Branch Committee signed off on it as OK. Strange but her case against former HSU President Michael Williamson and Craig Thompson taking funds for various purposes had also been signed off through this lack of governance in the overall process.

The question has to be why did she start this in the first place? Yes she saw a massive misuse of funds and may have been incensed by use of money even on prostitutes, but she must have had some inkling that she might not have been entitled to global travel with a lover as just another example of misuse of funds. The argument posed by her successor Chris Brown that she dobbed in the others so that she would look good when she knew they would come after her does not provide an adequate explanation. She could just have resigned and the system would have rolled on as ever.

Most likely she was just a stupid woman going through a divorce from husband Jeff and caught up in a moment where she should have known better. A little research would have shown her that whistle blowers have not had great success and can even be locked away in foreign embassies for years.

And going to the media while it helps some on an ego trip is proven far from useful. On a scandal far larger than this one, a potential whistle blower was told by a Four Corners’ producer that unless they could get visuals such as bundles of money being loaded into suitcases, they could not use the story.

While Cathy Jackson might be written off as “silly” for her attempts, the role of her now lover or partner Michael Lawler is certainly strange. Confessing to a five hour monologue in which he justified both their positions via self-recoded video diary, as a former practicing barrister one would think he would know better. Whilst he might get away with the technicality of secretly recording telephone conversations on the grounds of self-protection, to publicise these in the open totally negates their value in getting people to back off. Ever heard of waving a red rag to a bull. Everyone knows that in political situations goad the opposition and they will come after you indirectly. Someone in Lawler’s position with his experience should know better. To an outsider it is almost as if there is some sort of “death wish “in the way he is going about this business. His denial on the programme that “I am not C… struck” as an explanation might just be true.

Again, Lawler’s production of a phone call with is boss Justice Ian Ross allowing him unfettered leave entitlements to refute a letter to the contrary would have been better left behind closed doors. Instead he invites Ross into memory loss and the need to get Lawler on some other charge.

The former head of the Sydney Blood Bank who created a fiasco delisting the shares was later hit with theft charges for not returning a neighbour’s ride on lawn mower to hide who had profited so the system will get there one way or another.

And off course news that Four Corners were to do an interview seems to have sparked a police raid which puts in question legal process in relation to exactly where is it fair to remove all your documents when you might need them for a defence. But life was never fair.

With all the recent media attention to revenge porn, this case has all such earmarkings where as in other cases, often it ends with people shooting themselves in the foot...