UNC pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Ani­ta Hayne says Prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has once again shown his con­tempt for the rule of law and has al­so re­vealed his stance when it comes to the pro­tec­tion of men who are in­volved in sex­u­al ha­rass­ment scan­dals.

Re­spond­ing to re­ports of an al­leged cov­er up in the Dar­ryl Smith mat­ter, Haynes said, “The re­ports in the press are in­deed alarm­ing, and Dr Row­ley’s re­sponse dur­ing the post Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence on Thurs­day 31st Oc­to­ber is weak and high­lights his poor lead­er­ship.”

She added: “The ex­tent to which this ad­min­is­tra­tion at­tempt­ed to weaponize state re­sources against Ms More­au is shock­ing.”

Haynes not­ed that the pri­ma­ry role of any Gov­ern­ment is to pro­tect its cit­i­zens, and that in­cludes en­sur­ing a safe work­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

She said, “When you read of a let­ter sent over a year ago by the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley which speaks of ‘a con­cert­ed ef­fort to sani­tise the fir­ing ex­er­cise of any ref­er­ence to the al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and to treat it as an or­tho­dox claim of un­fair dis­missal,’ one is left to won­der who is guard­ing the guards?”

Haynes said the Com­mit­tee’s find­ings “as re­port­ed in the press that Ms More­au made two com­plaints, ‘that she had been sex­u­al­ly ha­rassed by the for­mer min­is­ter and that her re­port­ing of that com­plaint was the rea­son for her dis­missal’ show the ex­tent of this cov­er-up by this ad­min­is­tra­tion,” she added.

“On the one hand you have to live in fear of be­ing sex­u­al­ly ha­rassed and then you al­so have to be afraid of be­ing fired for re­port­ing what hap­pened,” Sen­a­tor Haynes said. “My heart breaks for the in­jus­tice that Ms More­au has faced.”