Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 23 July, Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun and Perth’s Sunday Times reported on the Australian Liberal Students Federation national conference in Sydney held earlier that month. Both stories begin:

A BIG Brother-style sex scandal involving a rising star of the Liberal movement is being investigated by the party.

Liberal staffer Brendan Rowswell, of Melbourne, has been accused by a female colleague from WA of ‘nuzzling’ his head into her chest at a boozy party function and sexually harassing her.

Mr Rowswell is identified as a staffer for the member for Indi, and I can confirm that his name appears on the member’s current staff email list. Mr Rowswell has also used his Parliament House email address as a contact point for fellow Young Liberals. The press reports say that 30 minutes after the alleged assault Mr Rowswell pulled a friend away from the alleged victim and announced to onlookers that the friend would be ‘getting lucky’ with her. A complaint by the alleged victim to the executive of the Australian Liberal Students Federation was ignored because the organisation has no sexual harassment policy and it was not prepared to ‘make policy on the run’. According to the reports, the alleged victim also made a complaint to Newtown Police Station but has decided not to pursue indecent assault and sexual harassment charges. Just two weeks after the publication of these reports in the Sunday Herald Sun and the Sunday Times, the Border Mail published a follow-up story. It was headlined ‘Sophie backs her new officer’ and began:

SOPHIE Mirabella has dismissed sexual harassment claims against one of her newly appointed senior staff.

On what basis the member dismissed the serious allegations against her staff member we just do not know.

A report in yesterday’s Herald Sun headlined ‘Junior Libs accused of Jewish slur’ raises more serious questions about Mr Rowswell’s conduct. The source of the report is a transcript published on the website of Mr Andrew Landeryou over the weekend recording a conversation between Mr Rowswell and other Young Liberals about an upcoming student election. The transcript records Mr Rowswell using an anti-Semitic term to describe a member of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students. It is a term that decency and the rules of this House prevent me from repeating. Sadly, it is not the only inappropriate reference in the transcript. Mr Rowswell is also reported to have said: ‘What about the Jews? Ah, expletive them.’ The transcript records another Young Liberal discussing the student election saying that the returning officer ‘will boot out any tickets provoking racial tensions re Israel/Lebanon … we should incite something’. This is a remarkable transcript. I found it barely believable until I read comments by Mr Rowswell in yesterday’s Herald Sun confirming its authenticity. Defending his conduct, Mr Rowswell says:

During a bitter, private discussion of factional university politics, where gratuitous comments were traded, I used crude language.

Mr Rowswell says his comments were not religiously motivated and he is sorry. While I am sure he is sorry he got caught out, that does not excuse his conduct, nor does it excuse the lack of action on the part of the member for Indi and the Liberal Party. Far from taking action after the first incident—the alleged assault of a fellow Young Liberal—the member for Indi promoted Mr Rowswell to a full-time position. Mr Landeryou says that, as an employee of the member for Indi, Mr Rowswell is:

... an unwelcome distraction for the ambitious MP just at the time she is positioning herself for an elevation to the Ministry in an anticipated reshuffle next year.

I doubt very much that Mr Rowswell alone is responsible for the member’s frustrated ambitions, and I think his conduct does more than provide an unwelcome distraction for the member for Indi. It is time the Prime Minister showed some leadership and told the member for Indi to pull her staffer into line. It is time the Liberal Party took action against Young Liberals who think assault, sexual harassment and anti-Semitism can be excused as part of the everyday political rough and tumble.