David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I warmly welcome today's debate on the Set the standard report. This is clearly something that is not a set-and-forget exercise. This needs to be an ongoing conversation that we revisit. Cultural change is hard. It takes time and continued effort. Twelve months on, it is clear that there has been some progress but there is a lot more work to be done in this area. As the President noted, only six of the 28 recommendations have been implemented in full, so we can continue to crack on with it. As a new parliamentarian, I welcome and reflect on the strong focus on safety that was part of my induction process. I note that the review benefited from 1,723 individual contributions. It was wide ranging and robust, and we need those contributions to continue. We need to continually evaluate how we are progressing on this. As Senator Waters pointed out, the test is not how parliamentarians feel but how staff and everyone else in this building feel.

One of the really important parts of this sort of cultural change when we're talking about sexual harassment is that men need to really step up, be part of this and be advocating. That ties into the broader conversations that we are having in Australia when it comes to family and domestic violence. Men must stand up. At the end of the day, much of this—not all but much of this—is a men's problem. It is some of those deeply ingrained cultural attitudes. They don't serve us. I think we all recognise the need to move beyond them and to have these hard conversations. So I welcome this place beginning to lead on this and to set the standard and to show the country that this is something that is being taken seriously. I really believe that that leadership will have flow-on effects through our communities.

Members of my team were pleased to engage constructively and provide a comprehensive submission to the review of the MOP(S) Act last year. It was disappointing that the findings of that review did not have more ambition when it comes to addressing fundamental issues affecting the wellbeing of our teams in this place—things like ensuring that staffing levels are set independently and through evidence-based decision-making processes.

Of the risk factors identified in the Set the standard report, many are still prevalent here today—power imbalances, gender inequality, lack of accountability, entitlement and exclusion. The Set the standard report's findings around the incidence of sexual harassment were particularly shocking: it found that 54 per cent of the most recent sexual harassment incidents occurred at Parliament House or in the parliamentary precincts and 26 per cent of people sexually harassed in workplaces by a single harasser were harassed by a parliamentarian. While it's really encouraging to see this debate continue, we need to continue to talk about this not just in here but in our offices, between parliamentarians and with our staff. This is something that has to be an ongoing conversation. I really welcome it, and I welcome the leadership that has been shown by senators across the political spectrum on this issue.