A Caution? You Have Got to Be Bloody Joking.

Apparently, wanting to visit a shopping centre without getting caught in a violent brawl is now asking a bit much. Buy some groceries, browse the shops, take the kids out - and hope nobody decides to turn the place into their personal fight club. I am bloody disgusted that ordinary people can have their day hijacked by this sort of selfish, aggressive behaviour.

So Sunday’s brawl at Melbourne’s Highpoint Shopping Centre sent families seeking safety in shops, while security guards trying to intervene were struck. Police arrested two boys, aged 15 and 16, and a 19-year-old man. The boys received cautions for affray; the man was released without charge.

Cautions. After that reported chaos, I find that response deeply unsatisfying. I want to understand how it adequately addresses the harm done to everyone around them. Because the people who happen to be nearby matter, too. Their safety should count for something before someone ends up seriously injured.

I am sick of the expression “just kids” being wheeled out as though teenagers cannot possibly understand that punching people is wrong. Most teenagers manage to go shopping without terrorising anyone. They catch up with friends, eat something, waste their money and go home. Being young does not make violence inevitable, and it certainly should not make it acceptable.

My view is straightforward: young people convicted of serious violence should face real time in custody when the seriousness of their offending warrants it. A meaningful sentence. Something that reflects the harm they caused and protects the public. Their age should inform the response, but it should not swallow every other consideration until the victims barely feature.

And yes, provide education, counselling and rehabilitation during that time. Give them the opportunity to come out with better judgment and some prospect of a decent future. I can support all of that while still expecting consequences. Concern for a young offender’s future does not require the rest of us to shrug off what they have done.

What about the people working in these places? Retail workers should be thinking about stock, customers and when they can finally take their lunch break. Security staff deserve to finish a shift safely. Putting on a uniform does not mean agreeing to be somebody’s punching bag. Nobody’s hourly wage is compensation for being assaulted.

Then there are the parents trying to keep their children safe. I cannot imagine having much interest in an offender’s excuses while trying to get a frightened child away from a fight. You would want the danger stopped. Afterwards, you would want to know that the response took it seriously.

I want public spaces where decent people can get on with their lives. Where older people, people with disabilities, families and workers can move around without having to plan how quickly they could escape if violence breaks out. That is a reasonable expectation of a shopping trip.

Of course individual responsibility has to be established properly. Arrest alone does not prove guilt. But once serious violent offending is proved, I want a justice system prepared to impose serious consequences, including custody where warranted.

The public should not have to wait for a tragedy before its safety is treated as urgent. I am tired of the aggression, tired of the entitlement, and tired of ordinary people being expected to absorb the fear and disruption.

Go shopping. See your mates. Have a bloody coffee. But if you choose violence, you should face consequences that match it.

He Gets Parole! They Get to Keep Being Afraid.

I am so bloody tired of reading stories in which a man destroys women’s lives and then the conversation turns to how nicely he might settle back into his own.

Pierre Raphael Mol, who sexually assaulted six women, has been granted parole and is scheduled for release on October 4. Authorities cite assessments of low reoffending risk. One survivor, Ashley Yakimchuk, has expressed fear that he will seek revenge. He is to live in a Corrective Services managed facility. Those are the reported circumstances. My reaction is disgust.

I understand that parole involves supervision. I understand that there are assessments, procedures and people whose job is to weigh the evidence. But I want to know where a woman’s ability to sleep without fear sits in all that paperwork. How much weight does her peace carry? Because being told someone is considered a low risk must be very cold comfort when you are the person frightened of what he might do.

Women looking for work should be able to answer an advertisement without walking into a predator’s trap. They should be able to trust that a professional setting comes with professional boundaries. Mol used modelling work to lure women to his studio. At his 2024 sentencing, the judge criticised his understanding of consent and continued victim blaming.

That makes my skin crawl. The exploitation of trust. The entitlement. The belief that another person’s body is somehow available because you have decided you want access to it. There is nothing complicated about the principle here. A woman agreeing to work with you has agreed to work with you. You do not get to invent further permissions.

And I have absolutely no patience for the tragic downfall of a talented man. His reputation, his career, his standing in the community — why should those things soften our judgment? Talent is not a character reference. You can create something beautiful and still behave appallingly. Women do not owe you forgiveness because someone admired your work.

What infuriates me about these stories is how easily the language becomes tidy. Rehabilitation. Reintegration. Risk assessment. All necessary concepts, perhaps, but none of them captures what it means to be afraid in your own home. To wonder whether speaking up has made you a target. To have done the hard, frightening thing of reporting an assault and then face another round of uncertainty.

I am not claiming to know what Mol will do after release. I am saying that a survivor’s fear deserves more than a reassuring phrase. I want protection that is concrete, support that is accessible, and answers that make sense to the women who have to live with this decision.

We keep encouraging women to report sexual violence. We ask them to endure the questions, the exposure, the court process and the possibility of being disbelieved. Then we need to show them that their safety matters after the sentence has been handed down, too.

I want these women to have ordinary, uneventful days. To go somewhere without looking over their shoulders. To sleep. To feel that their lives belong to them.

That should be a central measure of justice. And I am sick to death of wondering whether it even makes the list.

Some men suck. It is why secretwomen.org will someday be reality! :)

Cancel the Wedding. Get Some Dignity.

“Too much to forgive,” says a friend of Isaac Heeney’s fiancée, according to the latest reports. If that reflects how Steffie Waters feels, I can understand it. What I struggle with is the familiar expectation that a woman should spend weeks weighing up whether her own peace is worth more than a relationship that has become a public bloody circus.

Heeney was among five Swans players suspended for breaching club standards. There is also an ongoing police investigation, with no charges laid. Those allegations remain unproven. The club’s disciplinary action, however, is a fact—and its standards were apparently more than these professional adults could manage.

Professional football demands discipline. Training schedules, dietary requirements, recovery sessions, team meetings. An entire organisation devoted to helping grown men make good decisions. Yet somehow, once the football is put away, basic good judgment becomes an advanced elective.

Then comes the aftermath. The damage control. The worried conversations about a promising career. The sympathetic discussion of what he stands to lose. Marvellous. Can we spare five minutes for the woman whose engagement has become something strangers discuss over breakfast?

I have very little patience for the idea that she should now help rescue the situation. She agreed to marry a man. She did not apply to become the human shield in front of his reputation.

And if she stays simply because he’s handsome, famous or exceptionally good at football, well; I think that would mean she gets what she deserves. You’re choosing a husband, love, not filling a vacancy in your fantasy team. 

We are far too impressed by sporting talent. Give a man a guernsey and suddenly people start explaining away behaviour they wouldn’t tolerate from the bloke next door. 

I’ve had three ex-husbands. I understand that leaving isn’t always simple, and I won’t pretend an Instagram photograph tells us what is happening privately. But I’ve also learnt that the years you’ve already spent with someone are gone. 

If I were in a relationship that had reached “too much to forgive,” the wedding would be off. I wouldn’t be waiting for another beautifully worded apology or a convincing performance of regret. I’d be making arrangements for my own future.

He can manage his career with his club, his advisers and whoever else is paid to sort it out.

She has a life to get on with. I hope she chooses it.

Rob Lowe Has Broken My Heart. He Doesn’t Know It Yet.

Rob Lowe was asked to name his best on-screen kiss, and he answered immediately: Nastassja Kinski. They kissed in The Hotel New Hampshire back in 1984. Apparently she was so beautiful that he was nervous.

I have taken this news with the dignity you would expect from a woman whose in her sixties. I’m going to lie down for a bit.

Of course, Nastassja Kinski is gorgeous. I’ve seen her. I’m not disputing his eyesight. What I object to is Rob Lowe still remembering a kiss from 1984 while I’ve spent the intervening forty-two years being available in a purely theoretical sense.

The really annoying part is that he’s still gorgeous himself. Rob Lowe has somehow kept the face and the hair. It feels excessive. There ought to be a limit. Boy... He ought to try being a woman. There is no such thing as a gorgeous, craggy woman!

He’s been married for decades, I’m happily spoken for, and the kiss happened on a film set before many people reading this were born. None of which makes my disappointment any less real. I didn’t ask for an explanation of who his favourite was. I was quite content not knowing.

So congratulations, Nastassja. You won a competition you probably didn’t realise was still running. As for Rob, I’ll forgive him eventually.

Probably by lunchtime.

He Rated Her Looks. What A Dick

Coco Pickering, 22, working at Commonwealth Bank has apparently become the subject of a LinkedIn post calling her “beautiful”. And now corporate Australia is arguing about it, because a young woman should be able to go to work without a man publicly assessing her appearance.

LinkedIn is meant to be a professional platform. People use it to talk about jobs, skills, promotions and the occasional leadership lesson discovered while making toast. Yet somehow this man looked at a young bank worker and decided the professional contribution he had to make was a comment on her looks.

Perhaps he thought he was being nice. That’s often the excuse, isn’t it? It was a compliment. But a compliment is usually for the person receiving it. A public post about a woman’s appearance invites everyone else to look at her through his eyes. She didn’t go to work to become content for his LinkedIn audience.

I’m sure she has a job to do and ambitions of her own. None of those appears in the headline. What does appear is her age, where she works and a man’s opinion of her face. That’s a fairly neat demonstration of the problem.

And before someone says we can’t say anything nice anymore: yes, we can. Tell a colleague she handled a difficult customer well. Praise her work. Thank her for helping you. There are hundreds of pleasant things to say about a woman at work that don’t sound like you’ve wandered in from a dating app.

The man may be surprised by the reaction. I’m more surprised that he pressed post without once thinking, “Would I write this about a 22-year-old male bank worker?”

Probably not. Which tells us exactly how professional the post was.

Good for her! What a sleazy old pig.