Foxtrot@Bravo is not a platform of harassment or hate
I got forwarded an email recently, I cracked a slight smile upon reading it.
Comcare has been complaining to OAIC that this site is a platform of harassment and hate, and supposedly Comcare staff fear being named and shamed on this site. As a result, Comcare (a lawyer by the name of Stephanie Peachey) is claiming to OAIC that it is justified to redact documents released under FOI for Comcare claimants who are referring to this site.
These are not my FOI requests under review by the way, these are FOI requests made by another person back in 2020 when this site did not even exist. OAIC is currently reviewing them, and Comcare has cited this site as a reason why they should be allowed to redact documents under FOI.
Allow me to put this question to you:
Q) If we are not allowed to name and shame people who are doing the wrong thing, what stops them doing the wrong thing?
A) Nothing.
This site is the only thing that exists between Comcare staff being held accountable, and complete lawless chaos at Comcare.
If Comcare staff truly fear being named and shamed on this site, then good, that is exactly the purpose of this site #missionaccomplished. The only Comcare staff who get named on this site are those who are doing the wrong thing, and so if they reform their ways and do the right thing, they need not fear this site!
This is how accountability works! If Comcare staff fear being held accountable for their actions, they are more likely to act appropriately! And this is why Comcare has been allowed to get away with doing so many bad things for such a long time. There just simply is no accountability at Comcare. They can sit there and say they are accountable all they like, but where is the evidence of it? Show me one news article of a Comcare employee expelled from the organisation for wrongdoing, just one!
There is absolutely nothing holding Comcare staff accountable for how they perform in their job. The "Performance team" at Comcare, a team which manages HR affairs within the organisation, is merely painted on the side of the building to feign a presence.
A Comcare staff member could come to your house, punch you in the face, and in my observations they would most likely get a promotion. Even breaking the law is acceptable at Comcare.
"But Fox, there is a Commonwealth Ombudsman!", yeah that's correct, but the Ombudsman does not deal with staff who do the wrong thing. If there are systemic issues within Comcare that the Ombudsman can identify and make recommendations to address, this is what the Ombudsman does (allegedly). In reality all that occurs is the Ombudsman puts a recommendation (or several) to Comcare, and Comcare either accepts or rejects the recommendations by the Ombudsman. If Comcare refuses to accept the Ombudsman's recommendations, the Ombudsman has a bit of a whinge to parliament about it and that's all. There is genuinely no true accountability at Comcare.
In fact sometimes Comcare accepts Ombudsman recommendations and then never actually implements the recommendation/s! Here is an example of just that, in 2010 the Ombudsman recommended that Comcare create a CDDA like scheme where Comcare would be required to pay damages to a Comcare claimant who is on the pointy end of defective administration administered by Comcare (which happens a lot by the way!)
Despite accepting the Ombudsman's recommendation, to this very day Comcare has not created a scheme similar to the CDDA scheme, and we are not entitled to compensation for the wrongs that are inflicted upon us by Comcare. This organisation truly is a law unto its own, no accountability at all, none whatsoever.
So to Comcare staff I have this message:
I am not sorry if my site holding you accountable for your actions causes you fear. Do not mistake my right to hold you accountable for your actions as fear or hate. Just because you want to be able to do whatever you like and get away with doing it in silence, does not mean I am required to sit here in silence and allow you to do so, and I will not. You absolutely should fear me, you should fear that if you do the wrong thing I am going to post about you, name and shame you, and that is what keeps you accountable, until god forbid such time as the Government is willing to establish some sort of watchdog or anything that can actually hold Comcare staff accountable.
Do not mistake my role in holding you accountable for your actions as harassment, these are two very different things.
Do not complain that "people threatening to post on foxtrot" is harassment. Again, this is how we hold you accountable, and accountability is not harassment.
