Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Waters for the question and acknowledge her engagement with me through the course of this year—as I acknowledged, before, engagement from across this chamber and the other chamber, and of staff, current and former, in relation to the commissioning of this work and also in relation to the actions the government has taken in response to Stephanie Foster's recommendations earlier this year.

I think, in responding as we did, as a parliament, to Stephanie Foster's recommendations, we have shown that this parliament and this government recognise the need for action—that these reports, these recommendations and the events of this year need to be a turning point and a driver of change. The actions we have taken this year—in relation to delivering new support services and counselling services; in relation to delivering new training mechanisms across the parliament and ensuring transparency about MPs' and senators' take-up of those training mechanisms; and in relation to establishing the new Parliamentary Workplace Support Service to handle complaints, and putting in place procedures to ensure that people are held to account for recommendations in response to those complaints, all the way through to members of parliament—demonstrate a willingness to act. That willingness to act follows through, now, to the recommendations in the Jenkins report.

We want to see response to these recommendations in the most positive and wholesome and fulsome way possible. What I would say—through you, Mr President—to Senator Waters is that we want to make sure that we continue to engage with you, the opposition and other parties' crossbenchers and with staff, current and former, to make sure we get the responses to this right. We have funded responses to date. We've acted to date. We will continue to do that. And I, of course, join you, as I have already, publicly and in here, in acknowledging all of those who participated in this review and drove it to this point. (Time expired)