The alleged failure by the ACT Greens to respond appropriately to a sexual assault complaint made by a young female volunteer against an older male volunteer in the wake of an election night incident last year is not a good look for the party.
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As an organisation that likes to stake out the moral high ground, it is under more pressure than most to get it right on such matters.
Given the complaint itself is still apparently being dealt with, questions of who did what to whom are not an appropriate subject for public debate.
What is worthy of examination and comment is how and why there was an apparently major failing by the ACT branch of one of the country's major political parties on such a fundamental issue.
Zach Ghirardello, a former party member who worked on the Greens campaign in 2016, has been acting as an advocate for the alleged victim since the night of the alleged incident.
He said that when the 21-year-old tried to take the matter further it turned out the local branch had no mechanism for handling her complaints and lacked the professional capacity to deal with it.
She was, in his words, "fobbed off".
A subsequent report, which a former convenor of the ACT Greens, Sophie Trevitt, reportedly sought to have "watered down", noted party officials had referred to volunteers who raised the matter "as difficult".
Ms Trevitt also sought, albeit unsuccessfully, to have references to three critical incidents raised during the campaign, and the inclusion of sexual assault as an instance of a critical incident, removed from the report.
This is hardly good enough from an organisation which flags the rights of women as a key value.
The Green's core principles include that women have the right to equal respect, responsibilities, opportunities and rewards in society; the right to live free from harassment and fear of sexual abuse; the right to live free of direct, indirect and systemic discrimination and the right to enjoy equality to men in all spheres of society and their human rights.
Core aims include a nationally co-ordinated response to the domestic violence crisis; for women to be able to live their lives free from violence; and for the negative effects of violence against women to be addressed through adequately funded, culturally appropriate, accessible, women-led and directed health and education programs.
It would appear, in this instance, the ACT branch has some way to go before talking the talk translates into walking the walk.
A key message for the broader community to take away from this is that regardless of whether you are a multinational employing tens of thousands or a grass roots organisation heavily reliant on volunteers you need to have clearly set out policies and guidelines in place on what constitutes sexual harassment and how allegations should be dealt with.
