Publication Date: Jul 2021
RRP: $19.95
ISBN: 9781922464576
Format: Paperback
Size: 111mm x 175mm
Category: In the National Interest

Respect

Jill Hennessy

Also available as an ebook from your favourite retailer.


When Héritier Lumumba’s Collingwood teammates called him ‘Chimp’, it showed a lack of respect. When the Prime Minister referred to Brittany Higgins by her first name in parliament, it showed a lack of respect. When senator Bill Heffernan referred to then prime minister Julia Gillard as ‘deliberately barren’, it showed a lack of respect. When the federal government refused permission to fly the Indigenous flag in the Senate, it showed a lack of respect. When Bettina Arndt defended a 56-year-old man who had repeatedly raped fifteen-year-old Grace Tame, now the 2021 Australian of the Year, it showed a lack of respect. So when did respect disappear? When did we agree to abandon our respect for expertise, for other people’s experience and history, for the boundaries between the personal and the public, for facts as well as feelings? In a civil society, respect is a fundamental principle. Should the government of the day legislate respect? Should it lead the community or follow it? Victorian MP Jill Hennessy, in a passionate argument, exhorts us to reclaim the empathy that respect depends on.


Jill Hennessy

Jill Hennessy has been a Labor Party Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly since February 2010, representing the seat of Altona. She was minister for health in the Daniel Andrews ministry from December 2014 to November 2018, and was attorney-general...
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