Make of this what you will because it left me scratching my head this morning. But just in case something similar pops up in the United States in the near future (don't rule it out), we should probably keep an eye on the situation. This story comes to us from Victoria, the second-largest state in Australia by population. Jacinta Allan of the Labor Party serves as the Premier there and she has just announced the creation of a new position in the state's Parliament. It's called the "Parliamentary Secretary for Men's Behavior Change." That's quite a mouthful, but all of the word salad that accompanied the announcement didn't do much to clarify precisely what the new Secretary is supposed to do or what powers or authorities they are being granted. In any event, the first person to hold the title is Tim Richardson, an MP from Mordilloc. Best of luck, mate. (Daily Wire)

Labor Premier Jacinta Allan of Victoria, the second most populous state in Australia, announced on Monday that a new position had been created in her government: “Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change.”

Allan selected Tim Richardson, the State Labor MP for Mordialloc, to fill the position.

“Tim Richardson will become Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change, continuing the Allan Labor Government’s priority to make Victoria a safer place for women and children and work to end the tragedy of deaths of Victorian women at the hands of men,” Allan stated. “This is the first position of its kind in Australia – and will focus largely on the influence the internet and social media have on boys’ and men’s attitudes towards women and building respectful relationships.”

Some of my friends in Australia have been complaining recently (for the past couple of years, actually) about how the country has been increasingly sliding toward the left and going woke. But for the life of me, I'm not sure if this move falls into that category or not. I'm sure we would all agree that reducing incidents of injury or death among girls and women at the hands of men (or anyone) is an admirable goal. This doesn't appear to be related to anything associated with gay rights or the trans debate, so perhaps they just felt a need to do this to tamp down violence against women.

None of that gets us any closer to what this new Secretary is actually supposed to be doing, however. Here's how MP Tim Richardson described it on Twitter.

Some pretty hectic reactions here to an important role and Australian first.
It will be about modelling positive role models for boys and men and ensuring we break away from gendered based stereotypes and building respectful relationships.
As boys and men we need to lead this. https://t.co/6tLZJS3VsL

— Tim Richardson MP (@TimRichardsonMP) May 29, 2024

I'm trying to cut the guy a break here, but that really just sounds like more word salad. "Modeling positive role models" doesn't help me out much unless he lets us know who will be doing the modeling. Doing away with "gendered-based stereotypes" sounds like we're creeping suspiciously back toward trans territory, but perhaps that's not what he meant. 

I decided to dig a bit further into the background of this story to see what's going on. CNN published a recent report indicating that violence against women in Australia is a "plague" in that country. 64 women were murdered across the country last year and 31 more have been killed thus far this year. Those figures were provided by the Counting Dead Women Project, which sounds rather morbid, but they would probably know. 

Let's put that in perspective. Australia has a population of 26 million, so there would be roughly 13 million women. 64 murders last year works out to roughly 1 in 203,000. By comparison, the United States currently has roughly 169 million women and girls. There were 4,250 murders of "people who identify as women" last year. (Men were killed at more than three times that rate, ringing up 14,440.) That gives us close to a rate of 1 in 39,750 women and girls being murdered. No number above zero is good, but the reality is that women and girls in the United States are being killed at a rate five times faster than in Australia when adjusted for population.

Perhaps America could use a Secretary of Men's Behavior Change. (I know... I know... don't give Biden any ideas.) But perhaps not. Do we have a higher rate than Australia because there is more misogyny and violence specifically directed at females? Or do we just have more violent crime overall? The reality is that it's probably the latter. As I pointed out already, the rate at which American men are killed is triple that of women. Perhaps we need to focus on restoring law and order and cracking down hard on anyone who takes someone else's life in a criminal fashion, regardless of the gender of the victim. Or is that too crazy of an idea to consider?