James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Macquarie for moving this motion and thank her for bringing it to debate in this chamber. It's really important that we take every opportunity we can to talk about these uncomfortable and unpleasant issues, highlight them here in the federal parliament and make sure that we send the message that, by having a unified position on these issues, we're very committed as leaders in our community to making significant change in any such instance. This one, particular to the music industry, is a good opportunity. I thank her for that and commend and associate myself with all of the remarks she made.

In some ways it's disappointing that we hear these revelations on a really regular basis. It can be depressing that we've got so many problems that need to be addressed in the space of the treatment of people in the workplace, particularly around sexual harassment and other things. I feel the silver lining on it is that at least we're now revealing practices that, let's be honest, have clearly been happening consistently for a long time. Let's be blunt. It's been thousands of years in professions that go back that long.

At least we live in an era now where we are talking about these issues. We are calling them out. People are feeling, at times, empowered to tell stories that they didn't feel comfortable telling in years and decades gone by. I hope that, both in this parliament and more generally in society, people who have had these awful, terrible, unacceptable experiences are feeling that change is occurring. I think we all wish it was occurring much more quickly than it is, but I hope that we're bringing leadership in this place to this topic generally.

Specifically, this motion gives us an opportunity to talk about the music industry, but I hope that we are bringing leadership and cultural change that empowers people to talk about this poor treatment. I hope we are sending a very clear message that it's completely and utterly unacceptable, that members of the Commonwealth parliament find it completely and utterly unacceptable and that there is more support for victims of this kind of treatment than ever before. Workplaces, I hope, are giving confidence to employees across every sector in our society, if there are issues like this that are systemic or if they've had particular appalling experiences, to come forward, because we want to help and support them and we want to stamp out these sorts of appalling and disgraceful practices that are occurring.

I know this motion isn't singling out this industry at all; what it's saying is that this is a good example of revelations in a sector that are not acceptable but which are also an opportunity for that sector to take the steps that they are taking to send a very clear signal. Having uncovered this appalling culture of behaviour, as an industry, they are going to provide leadership to change that for the future. Hopefully, if nothing else, despite those people having had such terrible experiences, they will have some confidence that no-one in the future will have to go through the sorts of things they have had to go through.

I think this is in light of a really important piece of legislation that will pass through the Senate by the end of this term, the respect at work bill, and of course the excellent work that Kate Jenkins has undertaken in her role broadly but also the review that she undertook into workplace culture and some very uncomfortable and confronting issues that occur in this building. Again, I would say that I'm pleased that we are shining a light on this topic. There have been poor, terrible and even criminal experiences that people have endured. Whilst it's very uncomfortable to hear the truth that they occur, at least we are shining a light on this topic so we can make the changes we can make as parliamentarians in our workplace. Also, from a legislative point of view, we can make sure to provide an opportunity to ensure that people don't have to endure those awful experiences and that awful treatment into the future. On that basis, this is a very uncomfortable, disappointing set of revelations, but it shows an opportunity for us to do what we can to change it for the better into the future.

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