Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I note that this is in fact the only amendment that the government will be seeking to move during this period of committee consideration. I think that's just worth reflecting on for a moment, because the sorry history of this legislation is this. The government sat on a report that it had commissioned into sexual harassment in Australian workplaces. It commissioned this report and then it sat on it for a full year—at least a year, in fact, because all the indications are that an early draft was given to them even months before it was formally tabled.

Now, Mr Porter, for reasons he has never bothered to explain, didn't think that this was a matter worthy of his attention, and, in fact, when I asked questions of the department about this in Senate estimates, they rather shamefacedly revealed—and I feel for the department, actually—that, in an entire year, the person that Mr Morrison thought suitable to be the Attorney-General had not bothered to speak to Commissioner Jenkins about her work. Mr Porter has never actually explained why it was that he took so little interest in sexual harassment in Australian workplaces—never bothered; never put that on the record. But I think many of us would have our own theories about why this was of so little interest to Mr Porter.

Finally, scandal after scandal after scandal has forced this government to engage with the questions that face Australian women. Tens of thousands of women mobilised around the country to demand that their interests be observed—to demand that the government start to engage with the reality that every woman in this country understands: that Australian women's working lives are not equal; that Australian women are subject to too much violence, at home and at work; that there is too much discrimination and that people have had enough. What was Mr Morrison's response to all of this? It was to hide inside. It was to refuse to engage with the thousands of women who'd made their way to the grounds of this place to voice their dissent and their concern that the government does not respond to their interests. Scandal after scandal after scandal—and we finally get a response to the Respect@Work report.

As to the government's response, their headline claim was that they accepted all 55 recommendations, but, when we actually go through the implementation road map, that's not what's there—that's not what is there at all. We see mealy-mouthed responses: 'accept in principle'; 'note'—note, but insert caveat which in fact negates the subject of the recommendation from Commissioner Jenkins. And then the legislation before us does not even fulfil the promises that are made in the road map.

So my question to the minister is this. Why have so few of Commissioner Jenkins's recommendations actually been reflected in this legislation? Why do Australian women have to wait?