Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the motion being raised, although we disagree with the suspension of standing orders. In consultation with the clerks, I understand that the selection committee meets today to decide the order of business for the next sitting of parliament and the timing of debate for private member's bills.

Having been someone who has introduced a private member's bill as a backbencher in this place, I do understand how the system works. I also, by the way, appreciate the presence of the opposition spokesperson for women and her interest in this subject, as well as the other women, including the member for Mayo, who seconded the bill here in the House today. The presence of these women matters, and it matters in a bipartisan sense. And there will be opportunities for other members in this place to speak on the subject matter.

In terms of the suspension and the bringing on of the debate: the government, as managers and business in this place, can't agree to that. But we recognise the importance of the subject, particularly today and particularly after the events of the last few weeks and, indeed, yesterday. I can say that the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, who is a person respected across the parliament, addressed my party room and the minister at the table's party room this morning—the combined coalition party room. She gave us a sense of where her review is heading and the opportunities for so many people to speak to that review. I felt a sense of optimism—and 'optimism' is a difficult word to use on a day like this. But I will always say that when circumstances are dreadful and when the whole parliament appears to be tarnished by events, we know, as the Prime Minister said, that it is time to get our house in order. It's time to accept that the experiences of women in this place have been buried for too long; the hurt has been buried and the disrespect and unkindness across the board, but they have found a voice. So that's my message today as I walk around the corridors. We're all so busy, rushing between the chamber, our meetings, our committees and our ministerial business. No-one in this building is any more important than anyone else, by the way, but we're all very busy! It is time to lift our eyes and to look into the eyes of the people who pass us in the corridors and to understand some of the hurt, some of the shame and some of the distress, but to turn that into action.

For many women, this has been a period of time where they have looked into their own circumstances and their own life experiences—things that have happened to them in the past. I haven't been exceptional in that view; I've done the same thing. But it isn't about us. Every second we spend talking in this place across the chamber about us and what it means to us or the body politic more broadly or the political jibe that we just feel we have to say, every time we do that, we discredit the hundreds and thousands of women who haven't got a voice, who are, in some cases, unable to leave their house because they're not allowed to or are in rural and regional corners of Australia, where there are, for example, very few services for them. Because if you step up as a victim of family violence in some of our small communities, everybody knows who you are and you feel you can't do that. So every second that we spend talking about ourselves is time that we waste in talking for the women out in Australia who are counting on us. They're counting us to do better. They're counting on us to take the events that have happened to us and not talk about it anymore in-house than we need to—and, of course, we do need to—but to lift our eyes, raise the profile of issues for women more broadly and talk it up.

I was listening to the minister at the table talk this morning on the media and he spoke very well for the men in this place too. But If I look back over the 20 years I've been in this place, I think we both agree that we are proud of our workplace. We are proud of the work that our staff do for us. We are proud of the extra mile they go in preparing our briefs, in watching Senate estimates, in giving us what we need to appear in front of this dispatch box. I'm very defensive of the workplace and I intend to use my voice and the conversations that I am having and the networks we have as women in this building to do better. We are not an exemplary workplace. We are not shining a light out as a beacon of high standards when it comes to respect in the workplace. I don't just mean respect for women; I mean respect more broadly. We haven't done that well. But we have an opportunity to do better.

I really saw the Prime Minister's remarks this morning as a turning point for that. I want to just reflect again on Kate Jenkins and the words she spoke to us all. Yes, there's been commentary about the 55 Respect@Work recommendations. I have read them carefully—at close to 900 pages, perhaps not every page carefully. But I appreciate, understand and accept the sentiment in those. Some of those things will start to happen. I'm really confident that there is more action coming. There is change coming. Change is in the air. We know that we need to reflect that change here in this place, because today the Prime Minister said what many women are thinking: again, that it's time to get our house in order, to do better for the women of Australia, to care deeply for their circumstances.

In my mother's and grandmother's days, sexism in the workplace was very overt. Maybe I made the mistake in the last few years of thinking that, because you never talk about it, maybe it's not really happening. But, unfortunately, it is. The same dynamic is at play. The same negativity about women, the same sense of shame that women feel in response, it's all there. It's all there. It's just not obvious. It's not spoken about; it's buried. So we actually haven't come as far as we thought we had. That's something I have had to tell myself: we have not come as far as we thought we had and we have not come as far as we need to. In the spirit of bipartisanship, I would like to invite the member for Sydney to conclude my remarks.

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