Words matter. And if you needed any proof of that, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk this week led by example.

Just take the politics out of it, for a moment and consider this anywhere else: in the broader public service, in private companies, in the school staff room.

The CEO is told that one of the organisation’s most senior males has called a female colleague – slightly more junior – a ‘bitch on a witch-hunt’.

The CEO doesn’t know if it’s true or not. The female colleague, let’s call her Nikola, says it happened and she wants mediation.

The male manager, let’s call him Rob, denies the words were ever uttered.

What does the CEO do?

A – Ignore it, until the media finds out about it and then go into damage control?

B – Ignore a request for mediation by the female colleague, and cross your fingers, hoping it will go away.

C – And when it doesn’t, tell them to go back to work or sit in a room together and work it out.

If the answer was ‘all of the above’, you might fail management training 101, but you could become Queensland premier.

I don’t know if Integrity Commissioner Dr Nikola Stepanov was delivered that horrible misogynic slur. And I don’t know if Robert Setter, the Public Service Commission chief executive, is telling us everything about that conversation.

But we heard what the Premier said – and it was out of line, dismissive, ignorant and downright insensitive.

This is a leader who claims credit for lifting the representation of women in Parliament and Cabinet. This is a leader who claims credit for improving dismal female representation on boards. This is a leader who has vowed to stamp out bullying, wherever it occurs, and to use every law possible to reduce the scourge of domestic violence.

And then she tells a woman, who accuses one of her most senior bureaucrats of calling her a ‘bitch’, to go back to work.

Ask anyone working in the field of domestic violence today, and they will shake their heads in disbelief. They’ll call it dismissive and inappropriate and a whole lot more. Arrogant. Cruel. Defying logic.

And why? Why would a premier respond to such a sexist accusation in such a trivial way?

Bullying – whether it is in the workplace, the school, in the tea room in company offices or the public service – is just plain wrong.

And we see the impact of it daily. How many child suicides can we put down to bullying – but also the lack of understanding around how to deal with it?

How many women – and some men – have left their jobs because they have been bullied and belittled?

Annastacia Palaszczuk might not know the truth around the accusation, but she is duty bound to treat it seriously and investigate it. That’s what her laws demand others to do.

And her inability to do that has exposed an ignorance that dwarfs some of the other accusations her government is now facing around accountability and integrity.

Back in 2018, when this phrase was allegedly uttered, the premier set up a Queensland cyberbullying taskforce, which I chaired.

It followed the tragic death of Amy Jayne “Dolly’’ Everett, and a determination that we needed to stop losing gorgeous young children who believed suicide was an escape from the bullying hell that marked their schools days.

On any objective assessment, bullying continues. Too often families are burying teenagers who cannot see beyond the horrible and habitual nastiness delivered via smartphone.

The Government makes a play of saying it has implemented all recommendations of that Queensland anti-cyberbullying taskforce, which was made up of mental health experts and educators, union representatives and medicos, and legal, cyber and parenting experts.

Recommendation No 4 related to Members of Parliament and other community leaders. And it requested that they consider “the views expressed about their behaviour by stakeholders during consultations, and commit to showing leadership in demonstrating more respectful behaviour’’.

In retrospect, it might benefit from an edit or two. Role-modelling – whether you are a company executive, a parent or a premier – is crucial to setting a standard, and delivering on it.

Annastacia Palaszczuk needs to address that – in words and actions.