The nation’s foremost campaigner against pornography got Grubsheet kicked off Facebook and complained to the Australian government’s eSafety Commissioner that we didn’t have her consent to publish the pornographic images she took of herself and she sent to her lover, Aseri Radrodro. Yet Lynda Tabuya thinks nothing of defying Fiji’s Online Safety Commission and continuing to share images of the savage beating of a child that Fijians were specifically asked officially not to continue to share.
As of last night, the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection had shared that video with 2,400 other people through her personal Facebook page long after the Commission had issued its request that people cease to do so. Why? Because as with everything else, Lynda Tabuya doesn’t believe the rules that apply to everyone else apply to her.
She has cynically tried to benefit politically from the savage beating of the young girl that went viral on social media AFTER the perpetrator had been brought to account and appeared before the courts. What possible benefit was there to continue to share those shocking images not only after the wheels of justice had begun turning but AFTER the Online Safety Commission had issued its appeal?
It is the same shocking disregard for normal standards of behaviour that Lynda Tabuya showed with her drug and alcohol-fuelled sex romp with Aseri Radrodro last August in Room 233 of the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne while the sacked minister for education’s wife, Sainiana, slept in a nearby room on the same corridor. The Minister for Women and Children is a disgrace and must be removed at once.
Unfortunately, the intelligence emanating from the current inquiry into Lynda Tabuya’s conduct in Melbourne by a PAP disciplinary committee indicates that she is going to escape without censure. Grubsheet sources say that those in the party who want her brought to account are being overruled by PAP members determined to produce a verdict that clears her because of “insufficient evidence”. Just imagine that, Fiji. All anyone has to do is to ask the Minister to lift up her blouse to see if she has tattoos of turtles on her back that were clearly visible in one of the photos that Australia’s eSafety Commissioner told Grubsheet we didn’t have her consent to share and that it ordered us to take it down. And they are evidently baulking at that and reportedly intend to clear the Minister of the allegations against her.
According to these sources, the Prime Minister intends to ride out the scandal over what happened in Room 233, just as he intends to ride out calls for the removal of Siromi Turaga and Salesi Temo for their violations of the Constitution in illegally appointing the Acting DPP, John Rabuku, and the Supreme Court judge, Alipate Qetaki. Why? Because he can get away with it, with no credible opposition and with the leaders of FijiFirst again before the courts.
We have entered a new dark age in Fiji where a complete breakdown in moral standards in public life is taking place before our very eyes presided over by a man who promised better standards of governance than his predecessors but is excusing the inexcusable and defending the indefensible and justifying it to himself and his colleagues on the basis that he can get away with it because there is no-one to bring his government to account.
Lynda Tabuya is fast becoming a symbol of that defiance – someone who can get away with a sex scandal and alleged drug taking and also defy the Online Safety Commission by continuing to share images of an appalling attack on a defenceless girl. It isn’t in the interests of that girl that she has taken up this case but her own political survival – posing as someone who cares when in defying the Online Safety Commission, she has proved that she doesn’t care at all and regards herself as above the law and above conventional standards of proper conduct.
It is the ultimate irony that it is Grubsheet, not Lynda Tabuya, who is complying with the Online Safety Commission’s appeal not to share the beating video clip, just as we complied with the order by Australia’s eSafety Commissoner to remove the image of the turtles on Lynda Tabuya’s back because we didn’t have her consent to share it. But both incidents remain an indelible stain on this prize hypocrite, who may be well be cleared by her colleagues in the PAP but will be hounded all the way to the next election and beyond until she is out of public life. Because there is only one word for her conduct. WRONG.
POSTSCRIPT: Lynda Tabuya has continued her grossly inappropriately conduct by publicly supporting a private funding appeal for the victim of the attack. (see below) She is the Minister for Children, for God’s sake, and has the entire resources of the state to dedicate to the victim’s wellbeing. Though we must be grateful for small mercies. She at least isn’t offering prizes of her favourite tipple, Jack Daniels, to those who dig deep for a child who is being shamelessly exploited by this low-life to save her political skin.
Another idiot who is putting Fiji in a bad light. There is no way she can recover from this but time will tell what the PM will do. Hope he sends her to the bleaches.
Just pointing out to the PM, people are silently watching. What you do will effect the next election. People are fed up with the lack of integrity
You’re carrying on like Davidson in Somerset Maugham’s Rain: getting your panties too tightly in a bunch, endlessly writing and rewriting the same shriek. You’re going to do yourself in. The CJ is Salesi Temo, the Supreme Court judge is Alipate Qetaki, not Temo
Yep. Repetition as an instrument of learning. Like your mother taught you how to eat a banana.
Thank you for spotting the literal. But Salesi Temo is the Acting CJ, not the CJ. No banana for that.
The truth is too hard to handle for some people. Keep up the good work, Graham.
Perhaps Meta(Facebook) should take the same action again Lynda as was taken against your Facebook page!
Or are Government Ministers not subject to the same rules!
She has completely lost it. Her behavior is against the Constitution that should safeguard children. This is the same Constitution that she took oath on to serve dutifully and diligently.
She is now defiant of the Constitution and all international Conventions that Fiji is a member signatory of. This is a total failure on the Minister’s part.
The Minister is caught in perpetuating the crime.
This will shock all women leaders to the core. Another disgusting behavior.
Grubsheet create another Facebook page and continue your excellent journalism. Facebook has more viewers and this will put pressure on coalition govt corrupt ministers and illegal practices in defiance to constitution. Likes of Lynda cannot escape such scandals in this age of the world when all evidences is against her.
Unfortunately, Nick, I got a message from Facebook to say that my exclusion is permanent. My offence? To again show the “turtle photo” after I had been told it breached their community standards.
The Fijian government and multiple private Facebook holders had lodged formal complaints with Meta so none of it is remotely surprising. But there’s your glorious new era of free expression for you.
The same as all the other Coalition con jobs.
I cant beleive how dumb Lynda is. And whats more surprising is that she refuses to learn from previous mistakes. She is the hole that will sink this coalition ship.
Fiji cant wait long enough for next elections to bury this coalition into the political grave.Bloody bunch of clowns most of them.
Using this to save her political career is the lowest form of scum ever but not unexpected of the dishonourable Lynda. What a disgrace, trying to deflect her sex scandal with Radrodro and using the innocent victim Tarusila as a scapegoat to advance her political ambitions. Elections cannot come any faster. The coalition needs to go. And Lynda needs to disappear to kadavu to be president of Marijuana Rugby Club!
Unfortunately, I see her getting away with it now. This recent social media stunt was pure cynical populist politics at its worst. Completely performative with no regard to the rights of the child to privacy, and the re-traumatization this risks for the rest of that child’s life. It was the distraction she needed and oh didn’t she run with it, with her sheep followers reacting as expected. Thinking people see it for what it is, unfortunately those are in the minority. The result will be a reminder to the PAP committee of her following, and the threat she poses should they cut her loose. They won’t do it, they have too much to lose. She may yet be our Prime Minister one day.
Using a child’s abuse to up herself into the social scenes again. I noticed her Facebook post likes fell to less than a 100 likes recently. So she used this child’s story to get her fame going.
No self respect.
Lynda will do anything to stay famous but for all the wrong reasons.
She threw the child as a bait and her sheep bought that.
The child will live through the stigma all her life because Lynda still believes that the story is important to tell. She ignores that the child is in emergency state care. That means the State has to protect her from more harm. But only Linda can cause more abuse on this child by posting about her.
Linda will be the reason why this ship will sink. Said that from day one and still saying that today. You’re welcome Rabuka.