Alison Mau: Hayley's #metoo fight with NZDF a lesson for everyone

Monday, 5 August 2019

Hayley Browne (Nee Young) set out to build a career in the navy. Instead, she says she was harassed and raped.

OPINION: All Hayley Browne really wanted, right from the start, was an apology.

I know this because I've read and re-read the raw, nine-page report, titled 'My Story', she handed to Navy officials in 2012. It marked the start of one of the most high-profile #metoo stories New Zealand has seen, and she delivered it to her superiors long before she launched legal action that reached its culmination this week

In it, she reports dozens of instances of sexual harassment and assault ranging from the now-famous KFC bet, to simulated masturbation, groping, slut-shaming, and rape.

Hayley Browne's fight for an apology from the NZDF is finally over.

When she finally spoke up to her Commanding Officer, he laughed and said 'We're mongrels, aren't we?'

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At the start of the document she makes it plain she is not looking for retribution against her rapist. At the end, under the heading 'Outcome', she says:

'Ideally I would really like someone (anyone) to say they are sorry.'

At the very heart of Hayley Browne's legal case has been the idea of a duty of care - that the Navy, like any other employer, had a responsibility to provide a safe working environment and failed to do so. As it fought her tooth and nail through the courts, the NZDF claimed it had no such duty because she signed its unilateral service agreement, instead of the employment agreement a civilian would sign when starting a new job.

This was akin to signing away her basic human rights, Hayley says. In this scenario, the NZDF had no legal duty to provide a workplace free from sexual harassment or discrimination.

After years of litigation Hayley finally has her apology, and an undisclosed amount of compensation. Given the amount taxpayer dollars the NZDF is willing to spill on high-powered lawyers in cases like these, I truly hope it's a big chunk of cash, and even then it may only cover her legal fees and counselling costs. Hayley deserves it.

Through her sheer stickability (and that of her lawyer Jol Bates) she has forced the NZDF to face the responsibility it owes to the women and men who serve. It could have avoided years of trauma and heartache if it had apologised right back at the start. Instead, it has had to be dragged to this point of change, with the Prime Minister's intervention necessary in another case the #metooNZ team investigated.

And yet ironically, the NZDF's epiphany and it's sweeping apology puts it well ahead of the New Zealand corporate world when it comes to dealing with #metoo issues.

We still do not know how many Kiwis are suffering from harassment in the civilian workplace. We still do not have a coherent way of tackling it in the private sector. The NZDF is at least making attempts to tackle the rot.

Here's what Hayley Browne has been asking for, for years, in her own words:

'To be respected as a human, to have it acknowledged that what happened … to me is wrong, for the NZDF to own their mistakes, for the NZDF to make significant steps to rectify their mistakes so they don't treat others the same way they have treated me, and a token but actually fair compensation to show they care.'

It's not much to ask, and today Hayley Browne has what is due to her. I couldn't be happier.