Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

A denial of equality on any basis is a denial of respect. It's a failure to uphold the rights of every person. It's a failure to have our nation realise its full potential. I add my voice to speak in favour of this motion by the member for Macquarie, the government's Special Envoy for the Arts, who has a long-held interest in both the arts generally and in combating inequality.

The Raising their voices report, delivered in September, covers many ills: sexual harassment, sexual violence, bullying, pay disparities, a culture of drug and alcohol misuse, misogyny and a poor workplace culture where women and minority groups find it difficult to thrive. At the root of each of these ills is the denial of equality and the denial of respect. The Raising their voices report did not happen suddenly. It is the result of many people, mainly women, being prepared to speak up and take action over many years. The report is the result of those cumulative efforts, and I salute all those who have contributed. We know that many times people decide not to speak up when they have been abused or discriminated against or even assaulted. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes it all seems too hard, sometimes there's a job on the line, sometimes there's fear, sometimes peer pressure might play a part, sometimes the last experience of a complaint going nowhere mitigates against complaining this time and sometimes maybe we think that our voice doesn't count, that it's just one voice, that it won't make any difference.

Tarana Burke, the founder of the Me Too movement, responded to the report in the keynote address in conversation at Bigsound 2022. Tarana challenged artists and industries to take responsibility for their part in the harms described in this report. She reflected on the courage of those who came forward to describe abuse and asked industry to show the same courage. The courage Tarana Burke refers to requires much more than the Music Industry Joint Statement of Acknowledgement, released the same day as the report. The music industry accepts the report, acknowledges the harm and has apologised, with over 100 music companies and organisations signing on. This is just a first step. Courage infers action; action requires courage.

I'd like to thank every woman, man and gender-diverse person who participated in this report. Your voice made a difference. I thank the artists who came together in 2021 to kick off the process, the temporary working group and the review team, and I'd like to thank all those who raised their voices in the years leading up to the report, who may have thought that it didn't make a difference. I thank Rae Cooper, Amanda Coles and Sally Hanna-Osborne, who delivered the report Skipping a beat: Assessing the state of gender equality in the Australian music industry back in 2017. I thank All Our Exes Live in Texas for speaking out. I thank Mallrat for not just letting it lie but pointing out the ARIA Awards' gender disparity this year. I thank David Novak for challenging men in his industry to grow up and stand up. I thank Camp Cope for noting that there's always another man telling them that they can't fill a tent and yet riding in the dark on their bike with no handlebars and refusing to be just a female opener for anyone.

This government has already taken action to implement the recommendations from the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces, delivered by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins in March 2020. It is salient for this motion that the proportion of the workforce found to have experienced sexual harassment in the Jenkins report was about a third—too high but significantly lower than the more than 50 per cent in the Raising their voices report. As the Prime Minister stated in the House, it is simply unacceptable.

The music industry has a problem, and it needs help. Among other things, the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Bill 2022 aims to prohibit conduct that subjects another person to a workplace environment that is hostile on the ground of sex and aims to introduce a positive duty on employers to take responsible and proportionate measures to eliminate unlawful sexual discrimination, including sexual harassment, as far as possible.

In my first speech, some five months ago in this place, I looked forward to 'a country where politicians speak less of the need for cultural and gender diversity because it has become the norm'. I wish this for the music industry and hope that the courage and action that now needs to follow the Raising their voices report will provide a basis for an industry that is firmly rooted in equality and respect.

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