Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Parliamentary Workplace Support Services Bill 2023 and associate myself with the excellent comments made by my colleague, Senator Larissa Waters. This bill gives effect to recommendation 11 of the Australian Human Rights Commission's Set the standard, the report on the independent review into Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces. The bill creates the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service as an independent human resource entity for staff and parliamentarians, which, believe it or not, hasn't existed until now in this place. This was a major problem identified by the Set the standard report.

I do want to first up, though, thank PWSS and its amazing staff for the excellent and extremely valuable work that they do in supporting us and our teams in here. I know this because I have personally accessed that support many times because this place is far from ideal for a migrant Muslim brown woman, and that does take its toll.

In addition to PWSS, there are multiple other important and urgent recommendations of the Set the standard report which are yet to be implemented. No-one can deny that this place desperately needs a shift in culture. Hardly a week or even a day goes by without an example of unacceptable and bad behaviour and it is way past time that we stop couching these terrible and harmful behaviours as 'robust debate'. Intimidation, bullying, racism, sexism or any form of discrimination is not robust debate; it is vile behaviour that should stop, and it should not be acceptable or tolerated in any workplace, including our own. We need to see all the recommendations of the Set the standard report implemented as quickly as possible. This bill does represent a step forward in establishing a proper human resource agency, and this agency will act in some ways to change the culture of this place and improve the support that is made available to people who work here. But there is so much work still to be done.

One of the outstanding and key recommendations of the Jenkins report is the establishment of an independent parliamentary standards commission, the IPSC, that will formalise and enforce codes of conduct for parliamentarians and staff. Legislation is required to establish the IPSC. The Set the standard report recommended the IPSC be established within 12 months. It was initially expected in October this year, but here we are. It has been delayed to February 2024. That is a real shame. How long will we have to wait before these recommendations are implemented? It's not good enough. We really need to establish this body urgently, because implementation and enforcement of the behaviour codes of conduct is really a big missing piece here. Even though both the House and the Senate have endorsed these codes, they have not really been implemented, nor is there a mechanism to enforce them. Without enforceable behaviour codes, I must say that any other changes are still a bit of tinkering at the edges and a bandaid measure, even though they are necessary. There is no use in merely treating the symptoms of the problem while ignoring the root causes.

While developing these codes, we received overwhelming evidence that the workplace culture in parliament was broken and harmful in so many ways to too many people and that bullying, harassment sexual assault, racism, discrimination against disabled people, ageism and all forms of discrimination were, in fact, commonplace. We can never forget that the Jenkins report revealed a staggering 51 per cent of people working in parliamentary workplaces had experienced bullying, sexual harassment or actual or attempted sexual assault. First Nations people, people of colour, people with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ people experience discrimination, micro-aggression and segregation. Of course, it should be unacceptable. The highest office in this country should lead the way on workplace safety. Instead, it has been toxic, cut-throat, hyper masculine, whitewashed and exclusionary on multiple levels.

It deeply concerns me to say that despite all of the revelations over the past few years, parliament still remains an unsafe place for women, people of colour and other marginalised people. It's been eight months since the behaviour codes of conduct were developed and six months since parliament endorsed them, but we are still waiting for their implementation while this terrible behaviour goes on. As a member of the committee that was responsible for developing these codes, I am really disappointed by the slow progress. These behaviour codes and their enforcement are a bare minimum to lift standards of behaviour in this place. A support service without behaviour codes of conduct and, more importantly, consequences for MPs, is a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. I urge the government to quickly set up the IPSC with the investigative and enforcement mechanisms that have already been recommended by the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Standards and by the Jenkins report so that the codes have power to make the change that is so desperately needed and to hold people to a high standard, to hold people to account and then, if they don't meet the standard, to actually have consequences. This is a matter of urgency. Anything less is unacceptable and will not result in the real change in culture which I hope most of us want in here.

The codes set an expectation of how we behave in this place, but meaningful improvement will depend on a real commitment to changing culture and actually embracing diversity. We know that our parliament unfortunately remains a place where power and privilege are entrenched. This is the bigger challenge that we all have to overcome. We cannot do this without making sure that our parliaments actually look like the communities that they represent. It is a small but positive change to see that there are a few more First Nations people and people of colour in this place after the last election, but there is still a long way to go before parliament reflects our streets and suburbs and not the closed, privileged networks where many in this place continue to come from. Entrenchment of privilege and power—especially when unchecked, and with no enforceable consequences—is the root cause of why this place has a toxic and deeply harmful culture. My hope is that the PWSS will not only continue to act independently but also be forceful in its recommendations for a safe, supportive and respectful workplace.

I note that, where needed, the PWSS will be able to make policies and training programs mandatory, and this function is so crucial. I have pushed, and will continue to push, for anti-racism training, disability discrimination training and First Nations cultural awareness training to be made mandatory for all in this place—MPs and staff. This is one of the recommendations of the joint committee which worked on parliamentary standards, of which I was a member. If there's one place that needs unpacking of white privilege and white fragility, it's this place. Mandating anti-racism training for all federal MPs in parliament, and Commonwealth employees, is really essential to doing that.

While training and support are important, so is accountability. I note that the PWSS will have the ability to make public when MPs do not undertake the mandatory training they've been asked to do. I'm hoping that this will serve to increase transparency in this place and hold people accountable for their actions—and even push them to actually do the training.

The behaviour code, the PWSS and the IPSC are all crucial to making this place safe and respectful for all. But at the end of the day, politicians and their parties need to show leadership and to model the behaviour that people out there expect from us. This is a good start, but there's more to do, especially for the behaviour codes to be implemented and the enforcement mechanisms to be set up. I want to thank all the people who have come forward with such courage to share evidence with the various reports and committees. Sometimes it has been deeply disturbing evidence of what they experienced in their parliamentary workplace. I can assure them that the Greens want to make sure that all their work has not been in vain, and that the only reason we're moving forward with change today is because all of them came forward and pushed for this change. It is not easy, and I do thank them for their courage.