Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Amendment (Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission) Bill 2024. This has a been such a long time coming. Establishing the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission to enforce codes of conduct that apply not just to MPs but also to staff has been an incredibly long wait. It's been desperately needed, and I'm pleased we're here today. But I do have some concerns that I'll be going through in my contribution.

We've seen some truly horrific behaviour in this building over the years—some criminal behaviour. And I want to deeply thank all the brave staff who have spoken out about that conduct, and indeed also some MPs, for their courage and resilience. Thanks to their courage and their bravery in speaking out, we have seen a series of reforms to try to clean this place up, to try to improve the conduct and to try to set the standard for workplaces around the country. As everyone will acknowledge, we had been so far from doing that up to this point. Setting up the IPSC has been the next piece of this puzzle.

The reason we've needed this is that, prior to this series of reforms with the establishment of the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service and today with this bill—the establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission—all we had was an internal process run by the Department of Finance. Put yourselves in the position of a staff member, knowing there was a process that was ultimately not really that independent and was run by a department that was overseen by a minister and could never have resulted in consequences if the offender was an MP. What a shit process—excuse my language. Do I need to withdraw that?