Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Reports of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault in our parliament have justly shocked the nation and highlighted the need for urgent reform to ensure that all Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces are safe and respectful places to work. In the wake of these shocking revelations, a number of reviews were undertaken with regard to the behaviour and culture in our parliament, perhaps none as important as the Australian Human Rights Commission's Set the standard report. An extensive body of work, the report of the independent review into Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces was sobering reading for anyone who read it. I don't think any of us walked away, after the many months of testimony and reading those submissions, thinking that there wasn't an urgent need for reform in this workplace, and not just this workplace. When we talk about Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces, we're talking about every place where Commonwealth members of staff and members of parliament are conducting business.

I want to pay tribute to Kate Jenkins's exceptional work in leading that report and the very delicate work of providing a safe place inside a notoriously unsafe space for a lot of workers and people in this building to tell their story—to know that they could do that, that they would be listened to and believed and that there would be a series of recommendations made to this parliament. I appreciate the comments from the member for Hume, who spoke just before me, about wanting to continue to engage on these matters, but I remind every single member of this House and the other place that there was a very clear commitment from all of us to implement each and every one of the recommendations from the Jenkins report.

This really is, as the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, said in that report, 'an opportunity for the leaders of our country to transform Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces to become what they already should be', and that is 'workplaces where expected standards of behaviour are modelled, championed and enforced, where respectful behaviour is rewarded and in which any Australian, no matter their gender, race, sexual orientation, disability status or age, feels safe and welcome to contribute'. It's hard to think that anybody might want to argue against those standards. I welcome the multiparty support for these reforms and certainly for the bills before the House today.

I think it is critical that we never lose sight of the intent of those recommendations and that original commitment that we made to the thousands of people that work in this place and in all of the other Commonwealth workplaces across the nation. This is a government that is absolutely serious about improving workplace behaviour and culture, and we are deeply committed to implementing all 28 recommendations of the Set the standard report. I've often said in this House that making the laws, passing legislation and drafting codes of conduct—that's the easy part. Every single one of us should be able to do this in a very timely manner right now. The really big work that is incumbent on all of us is driving cultural change. That's the long-term work that needs to be done and that's the hard work, where everybody has to step up and play their role. As challenging as some aspects of these pieces of legislation might be for some, I say again: this is the easy part.

There has been significant work across the parliament, across the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce, to develop this bill, and lots and lots of discussions and negotiations to try and get this right. Progress is being made, but we have a lot more to do—and I don't think any of us can pretend otherwise—including working across the parliament to establish enforceable codes of conduct. We've all agreed to those codes in principle, but they sit there in a space where they cannot be properly exercised at this point in time. We need to establish enforceable codes of conduct, and that will only happen when we do the work to embed the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission, and that's the next step for this parliament.

Beyond these two bills that we're talking about today, I want to flag with everybody that there is another body of work to be done—to establish an independent parliamentary standards commission because, without that, as so many members of staff told me and other members of the Parliamentary Standards Committee that were drafting the codes of conduct at the time, those codes are worthless. They are nothing but words on paper if we do not have the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission to hear matters and then follow through with proportionate sanctions.

I welcome the member for Hume going through some of that detail. I don't wish to repeat that, but both the Jenkins report and the committee I chaired on parliamentary standards agree there should be a range of enforceable sanctions depending on the nature of the offence or the nature of the breach of those codes. That is a big body of work that is yet to be undertaken by this parliament. Not one of us should be under any false illusions here; that is critical work yet to be done. As I said, as a member of the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce and the chair of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Standards, I am very pleased to have been involved in this process to date. I think every person on that task force and likewise on that committee has a really deep personal commitment to ensuring that we do the hard work of driving the cultural change in this building. I believe that there is a very deep public expectation that this reform will take place.

Every other parliament has squibbed this in the past. There is no place for us to get weak at the knees now. For half a century we've been talking about codes of conduct for this place. We've squibbed it every other time. We cannot be the parliament that does not stand by our word to ensure that the implementation of all the recommendations is done and done in full. The 47th Parliament has this incredibly unique opportunity before us to make good on all of those past mistakes and to leave a legacy for future generations of people who come and work here. That's what I want my legacy to be, and I'm pretty sure most people in this parliament would want something to pass on to the next generation of parliamentarians as well.

The Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Bill, or the PWSS Bill, which is before us now, will implement recommendation 11 of that Set the standard report, which recommends the Australian government establish an office of parliamentarian staffing and culture. After a lot of consultation, we've decided that the naming of that place should remain Parliamentary Workplace Support Services. That's what people are now very used to, and there's been an establishment of a trusting relationship there, so I guess that's where there's been a slight deviation from Jenkins's recommendation. I can assure the House that Kate Jenkins was never wedded to the title of that body and is very, very happy for the Parliamentary Workplace Support Services to fill what she had envisaged as being the parliamentarian staffing and culture office. Its fundamental role is to provide those important human resources supports to parliamentarians but also to all our MOP staff. I think it is critical that that is trusted, confidential, independent advice and support, and we know that there's a good track record for PWSS now.

The bill is also going to enable the PWSS, once established, to implement a further six recommendations of the Set the standard report, and those are recommendations 7, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 19, together with parliamentary departments to additionally implement recommendation 14. Time won't allow me to go into those details, but they are all well recorded. The MOPS Amendment Bill responds to the MOPS Act review—a really important body of work. That review was undertaken in response to recommendation 18 of the Set the standard report. This package is the first tranche of structural reforms recommended by Jenkins. This is the first of a series of bills that we need to deal with in order to deliver all of those reforms. The second tranche, as I said, will legislate the independent parliamentary standards commission. That's going to be responsible for the enforcement of the codes of conduct, the investigations of alleged breaches and sanctions, including sanctions against parliamentarians. So we're holding ourselves up to a standard here, and that's important. It's important that we model some behaviour for our staff and visitors and everybody else in this building too.

In February this year, the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins said that great progress was being made towards reforming this workplace culture, one that would be safe and respectful, and, whilst this legislation is an important part of that work, we cannot stop here. There's a lot more to be done. I hope that the bipartisan, or I should say multipartisan, spirit that's driven the work so far continues. We are all in this together. It's not just the job of government, although you can be absolutely assured this government is going to drive and lead this process. But we all have a role to play, and the legislative package will make important reforms to support the professionalisation of the employment framework for staff, support for parliamentarians with their employer duties and support parliament to be a workplace which is safe and respectful. That's a big change. There is going to be a very clear onus on parliamentarians in our role as employers, and that should be made very, very clear to everyone in this building now. We have a clear role as an employer and certain obligations as a result of that.

Many people have been involved in this journey. I really want to do a shout-out to our staff and those people who came forward to tell their stories. That was a really tough time for our staff. Their experiences to date had not given them a sense that they would necessarily be afforded safety and privacy and would not suffer sanctions and consequences themselves if they were to tell their stories, so I don't underestimate for one moment the courage of all those people who did come forward.

This MOP(S) Amendment Bill has been a long time coming. The setting up of the PWSS as a new statutory authority is an important adjunct to the MOP(S) work that has been done. It will modernise the MOP(S) employment framework, and that is terribly important. The new act will provide clarity of roles and responsibilities and improve transparency. The amendments made by these bills today are the product, as I've said, of extensive consultation with parliamentarians and with staff across the parliament, including the leadership task force, the staff consultation groups and union representatives, bringing everyone to the table, as it should be. I deeply thank everyone who has been engaged in the development of this legislative reform, through collaborative effort, to implement the Set the standard recommendations. That's how we're going to drive that long-term cultural change and find safe and respectful workplaces for everyone in this place.

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