Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I listened with great interest to the contributions from Senator Payne and Senator Ruston. What was going through my mind was that they're in a fairly invidious position. They both have a level of professionalism and competency, demonstrated over a number of years in this parliament.

The first part of this urgency motion is:

The urgent need for the Morrison Government to respect the thousands of Australians who marched in the Women's March 4 Justice yesterday—

I think that's where the Morrison government has really let itself down. The Prime Minister's responses following this procession of very ugly revelations coming to light have been, in my view, quite bizarre. If I had to go back and ask my wife about a set of circumstances I'd heard about in my workplace, I'd probably end up with a thick ear. It is quite bizarre that he could come out and say publicly, 'I asked Jen, and she said, "What about our daughters?"' That is a very bizarre statement.

It doesn't get much better. The Minister for Defence had an extremely unfortunate series of explanations, equivocations and denials. Ultimately, her own office said, 'Enough is enough,' and started leaking on her. The 'lying cow' stuff is unforgivable. It is unforgivable that you run an office where that is able to happen, but it is doubly unforgivable that you can't handle it and you blame the victim. There are many good offices in this place. There are many places where people are treated with respect, where there are proper rules and where harassment in any way, shape or form is not permitted. To have the minister's office, where this person has been employed, exploit situations with vulnerable workers is a failure of leadership. It is a failure of leadership in that ministerial office.

The Prime Minister's failure to recognise it is also quite unfathomable. He has the great honour of leading this great nation. Over the years many prime ministers have been capable of it. John Howard stood in front of people and said, 'You're going to lose your guns,' because he knew it was right. Here we have a Prime Minister who says: 'The rule of law will take care of all of this. By the bye, some other thing is going to happen, and I'm not going to investigate it.' For the general public, this is very bizarre behaviour from the person they elected to lead them, to lead the nation and to show empathy and courage when it's required.

I don't think the Prime Minister has shown any empathy. He certainly hasn't shown any courage. It might have been traumatic for him to go out on the steps of parliament for the March 4 Justice. People may have heckled him. That doesn't matter. He's the Prime Minister. It's his job to lead from the front with empathy and with courage, to state the programs he has put in place and to defend his government's position. You don't say, 'You can have a private meeting with me and I'll get you a cup of earl grey tea and we'll put it all to bed,' because it's not going to bed.

This parliament is going to change. On any side of the chamber, plenty of offices with really good high standards exist. Those who transgressed should be rooted out and dispatched from this place. If you cannot provide a safe working environment for your staff, you shouldn't be here. If you need training on that, I don't know how the hell you got here. The first bit of training I had on equal opportunity and sexual harassment was at a course in 1988. This is not new stuff. You know that, if you have vulnerable employees, you need to be watchful and give guidance. You need to make sure that they're looked after. There has been a complete failure in the Minister for Defence's area to look after her workers. That is unfathomable to me. I really do think that the parliament will change for the better. The sooner it happens the better.