This sums up Australia’s utter contempt for children and women, together with a complete lack of safeguarding.

[StealthSpinach]

Teacher.
Children as young as 11.
Triathlon competition.

Teenage girl voices discomfort and inappropriateness of behaviour - coach/teacher and children wearing tshirts with “I have sex with bikes” written on them.
She is disqualified (then reinstated), bullied, harassed and vilified - abhorrent behaviour continuing even now.

That is the state of Australian society?

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/gold-coast/teacher-and-students-caught-wearing-shirts-with-i-have-sex-with-bikes-written-on-them-at-national-school-sport-triathlon-event/news-story/83e8585b002a960585119a09421fcd80

Unfortunately the link won't work for me, but it sounds vile.

Can’t read it but how in earth do their parents think it’s ok for their kids to wear the shirt too?

Sorry, forgot about paywall.
Try this:
https://archive.md/MP5kH

@XChrome and @HerRoyalNotness - archive link above will hopefully give access.

The archive link's not working either, unfortunately.

What on earth was the claimed reason for.the shirts? Even without the inappropriateness it's a bizarre slogan.

Try this one! https://archive.is/MP5kH

Thanks, that works.

I don’t understand how seemingly all of the other teens (and their parents) thought this was appropriate for a schools event.

But even if they thought the t-shirt was “just a bit of fun,” (not sure I see the humour, but each to their own, within reason), the very most someone should do is a little eye roll at the complaint, not launch into full-on bullying.

And then all the (very obvious) arse covering and sloped shoulders from the bodies that are supposed to safeguard these kids - it’s just depressing.

While this is horrid it’s not reflective of Australia’s contempt for women and children. Having lived in both Australia (28 years) and the uk (26 years) in Australia women are more respected there than we are in the uk.

That is the state of Australian society?

No. That’s Queensland. Please don’t lump us all in the same bucket. I am a tad surprised it’s the Gold Coast though and not further north but also not really in a way as have always found the Gold Coast area quite tacky for want of a better word. Seriously, the further north you go, the odder it gets generally. I’m sure there will be outraged QLD’ers saying they are not like this, and fair play, but that’s my observation of being born in and spending several decades in this country and travelling up the east coast on a not infrequent basis.

Also, if you venture into the NT, you’ll probably see a fair few ‘Up the Crack of Dawn’ t-shirts worn with much hilarity (although I must admit I did find their promotional ‘C U in the NT’ campaign fairly funny at the time). Again, Australia is a very big place and there are HUGE locational differences so don’t come with the ‘Australian society’ crap.

I think this could have happened pretty much anywhere. Some extremely fucked up people thought this was cute and amusing and then got vicious when they were exposed for promoting pedophilia. They may not have consciously intended to promote pedophilia, but if that's the case they should have taken their lumps for it and apologized. Because they are not mature or decent people, they lashed out at this poor girl for blowing the whistle on them. Disgraceful behaviour.

@HoppingPavlova This happened in WA. Zoe Wogan is from the Gold Coast and was competing in The School Sport Australia Triathlon and Aquathlon Championships over there. She made a complaint about the tshirts being sexually explicit and inappropriate in a a school sporting event.

And FWIW, this was a national event and the way it was handled by the national body of officials does actually reflect the state of Australia and not just one state.

Copy and paste from the article:

Wogan was at a team dinner before the national titles in Rockingham, Western Australia, when she witnessed QRSS official Brian Harrington and around 30 junior athletes wearing a shirt with his image and the sexually explicit words on the front of them.
….

Instead of being supported for raising her concerns in private Wogan’s mother Jacqueline said things spiralled and little was done to stop the avalanche of bullying from rivals and teammates in person and online in the aftermath.
It escalated to the point where Jacqueline changed Wogan’s flights home so she could be with her and so she could get away from an environment that she deemed unsafe for her daughter.
Wogan said she is still getting bullied at events and school and that her mental health had been significantly affected.

Well, WA, yes, also my previous statement stands. Lot of oddness there also🤣. National comps don’t mean much if you have organisers/officials that are from odd places, which is likely the case.

Let’s look at some elected federal officials, Bob Katter is an excellent example. No way does that loon represent the majority of Australians, but do a proportion of oddballs in more remote locations feel he represents them, yes. WA is in no way normal in leadership if you care to look that up, they have been trying to secede from the rest of Australia for yonks, will never happen but they keep bubbling away with it.

I see where you are coming from @HoppingPavlova and I agree that this behaviour does not represent the majority of Australians. However, it does represent the state of our country when something like this is left largely unchallenged.

It’s not just that children were exposed to and wearing sexually explicit T-shirts at a national school sporting event, it’s the cover up and the stalking, harassing, bullying and the attempt to disqualify Zoe Wogan from the event as retribution for her complaint. (Attacking whistleblowers is pretty much widespread across Australia including our cities). It is also the fact that it has only made news in 2 local newspapers behind paywalls. Despite the seriousness of this, it hasn’t been exposed on any mainstream news site or national news.

I am from Australia and I would have known nothing about this if I hadn’t come on Mumsnet and seen it posted. That says a lot about the state of our country when these ‘oddballs’ as you call them are left unchallenged in their predatory behaviour. And it also reflects badly on Australia when we shrug our shoulders and don’t give a crap what is going on in remote parts of our country.

Despite the seriousness of this, it hasn’t been exposed on any mainstream news site or national news.

It was one person, 30 shirts, and one kid unfortunately being bullied. It's a disgusting (and peculiar) incident, but I mean it's not exactly national news.
Nor is it "the state of Australian society" 🙄

Yes, there's a reason we call Queensland the Deep North. Actually a lot of reasons.

ETA ditto WA. Talking about Australia as if it's homogeneous is like saying the same thing about the US. Vast countries with some very isolated communities and great differences between them.

And it also reflects badly on Australia when we shrug our shoulders and don’t give a crap what is going on in remote parts of our country

No one is saying ‘don’t give a crap’ but the reality is NOTHING will change oddballs and the backwards and fuckwittish thinking in certain parts of our country. Nothing. You can die trying and good for you, I wish you well. However, after several decades experience including working stints in such areas, I can assure you, no matter what, nothings going to change. Just leave them to their oddities and thank fuck you don’t live in those places with those ideals yourself, and thank fuck they are a minority. I also agree with not giving them airtime, it’s counterproductive as they thrive on it. Rather than shaming them, it will only spur them on.

At a national competition.

FFS, do you really want/need the Prime Minister to specifically address this to cover off the national level aspect? Personally, I think there’s a fuck tonne that would be on the list before Albo even got close to this one isolated incident. But if it makes you happy, drop him a line.