Saturday, February 13, 2010

BULLYING SURVEY OPENS CAN OF WORMS

There can be no doubt that the president of the Northern Territory Police Association, Vince Kelly, strongly defends his members, and leaves no doubt about what he means. While welcoming the new NT Police Commissioner , John McRoberts, he was reported as saying he would be given a year to prove himself in the job. The Commissioner in turn forthrightly expressed himself in media interviews and made it known that he can be personally contacted about matters of concern .

Furthermore, he is said to have been less than impressed with the various firewalls of redtape and paperwork within the police structure. It is to be hoped that his refreshing attitude extends to the wider public service. The past year has shown the nation widespread shortcomings in vital Territory services.

Recently a survey revealed the extraordinary amount of bullying going on in the NT Public Service, an intolerable situation . If bullying is so rife, how come union representatives have not spoken up in public long ago and taken issue with the canker?

It has been put to Little Darwin that Territory unions , with few exceptions, are fairly passive -pussycats, being one description- less spirited than in past years. It is a long time since an Administrator was forced to don his pith helmet and slip out the backdoor to a waiting gunboat because angry unionists were burning his effigy.

A straw poll in a vital government service recently found that a large part of the workforce were dissatisfied with the way human resources performs in handling complaints. One burning issue within the service being the seeming persecution of a person for close on two years by a bod in a high position , himself now the subject of an investigation over another staff related matter in which it was suggested police could be called in to investigate.


A weird reported excuse for the bullying in the public service was said to be middle level management on contracts pressuring people. Others speak of people in high positions “milking ” the system , causing chaos and then moving on . The bullying problem is not only in the public sector. There has been evidence of what amounts to standover tactics and cheating of young people in the private enterprise workforce.


In the event that the local media does a modicum of investigation it will discover a major issue involving not only bullying , but other stunning insights which reflect adversely on the performance and capacity of some in high positions.