Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Corangamite said something insightful, then, about the standards you walk past. The standards you sit beside say a lot about you too. The member for Ryan is often on his feet in the parliament talking about cyberbullying, talking about the eSafety Commissioner—

An opposition member: Protecting families.

Protecting families. And yet this evening he unfortunately finds himself in the whip's chair, having to sit through this motion. My sympathy and empathy go to the member for Ryan for having to sit beside the member for Bowman while his history in this place and in his electorate is dragged through this Chamber. It is a really unfortunate thing that we are here tonight, because we don't need to be here.

The Prime Minister said he was going to fix this problem. I stand here, surrounded by women from the Labor Party who are in this Chamber tonight to make sure that our voices are heard. I stand here as a member of the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training with the member for Cooper, who is also a member of that committee, to put on the record into Hansard exactly how we feel. We've written to the Prime Minister. We've asked him to dismiss or replace the member for Bowman as chair of that committee, and it is not too much to ask. I'm going to say what I've said in that committee room before: the member for Bowman's presence as chair of that committee threatens the integrity of that committee. It threatens its work.

As a stakeholder in the industries of education and training, being asked to come into a room to give evidence to the member for Bowman is now beyond a joke. This is a public scandal. The fact that we have had to come into the Federation Chamber and air this dirty linen again when it has already been reported in the press speaks volumes about the integrity of a couple of people that we work beside in this building. One of those people is in the Chamber tonight. The empathy training as clearly failed. The integrity training may need to follow, because when the member for Bowman was asked a question by women elected to represent people in this building, not just on our side of politics, his interjection earlier talked about his political enemies. I can't put it clearly enough. The parliament is about a contest of ideas, and there isn't a woman on this side that won't do that job with relish. But we spend our time in this building talking to people on the other side respectfully and inclusively. We work on committees.

The first time I saw the member for Bowman was in this Chamber in my first term. The member for Bowman came into the Chamber and delivered a speech just like this, on private member's business. He then took out a container full of corrosive oil of some description, opened the container, spilt it all over the table and was sanctioned by then Speaker Bishop; he was named for his behaviour in this Chamber. So he didn't have empathy then. He has a record of showing an absolute lack of empathy for the people he represents through his behaviour on his own MP Facebook page. There are options. We all know what the options are. We all have social media pages that bear our name and our status. We have ways to set them up automatically so that, if someone swears, their comment is hidden so that it protects other people who want to interact with us on social media.

All of us in this room have been trolled at times. I remember spending one of the first weekends as the member for Lalor having had a comment about somebody's sexism and having to monitor my page for 16 hours a day for four days while I was attacked by men of various ages, some particularly young. We live this. We live it every day. But I don't think the women in the electorate of Bowman, as residents of a community, need to be attacked by their own member, by the person they send here to represent them. And how do the men of Bowman feel? A lot of people have completely forgotten that the world is full of good men—good men who respect women, good men who respect one another, good men with integrity, good men with empathy and good men who would like to see the member for Bowman removed from the committee and removed from this parliament.

See this speech in context