Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've spoken in this place previously about sexual harassment in the workplace, and it grieves me that I need to speak about it again. It's got to stop; it's got to be stopped. This abject failure to provide a safe place of work here in parliament, and in politics more broadly, has got to come to an end. I acknowledge Brittany Higgins's extraordinary courage and act of civic leadership in speaking out about her ordeal in the office of the now Minister for Defence two years ago. The fact is that being raped in your workplace and speaking about it shouldn't have to be an act of courage. The crime that is alleged and being discussed today across the nation is a stain on the parliament of Australia. Through the behaviour that is tolerated, accepted and even celebrated in some ways in this building by some, clearly, the Australian people are marred.

As Brittany stated:

… everyone should feel safe to report sexual assault without fear of losing their job. These incidents shouldn't have to play out in the media for change to happen.

She's 150 per cent right. It's obvious to any moral person that she is totally right. But media pain is the only way that seems to work to get the government's attention. I have to ask the question: for how long will this government pay attention? Will it bat this matter away, as we've seen it bat so many other matters of moral integrity away? It batted away the much reported cultural malaise that hangs over this building after the incidents in the Four Corners reveal, 'Inside the Canberra bubble'. People were shocked by that, but that was a few months ago. What did the government actually do? What's happened? I wish I could say that it was resolved. I wish I could even say that nothing really bad came of it. But the reality is that Minister Alan Tudge, who is one of the features in that particular piece, is now promoted to being the Minister for Education and Youth in Australia. That's how much moral courage and moral integrity Mr Morrison really has. He promoted the man who was exposed as, really, a perpetrator of this culture.

I'm heartened by the growing belief in our nation that people should be physically and mentally safe in their workplace. I at least hang on to the hope that—and I'm sure many of my colleagues here do—this view of a safe workplace inside and outside the parliamentary circle is widely held. But no matter how many times the public shaming of perpetrators is noted by the media here in this parliament and supposedly noted by the government, there continues to be a culture of acceptance of sexual predation, sexual assault and sexual entitlement by the powerful over the less powerful that reeks like a decaying corpse in the corridors of this place, the 'corridors of power', as they're often called, where power is being abused and where abuses are papered over. It's pretty clear that the papering over isn't working.

I fear that the hastily constructed inquiry that was announced by the Prime Minister today will fail, because it's another media fix, not an acknowledgement of a deep, cultural problem that is manifesting itself in incredible struggle, despair and trauma for people working in this building. It's not just about parliamentarians or their staff; it's about people from the Department of Parliamentary Services who come in this building. It's about people in the media corridors. Power is operating in this building, and it's not operating in a safe and enabling way. It's dangerous, and we saw the consequences of that danger not being named and not being properly handled, and we see them in the story of Brittany. There are sources out there. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has informed Labor's announcements today of what we have proposed to do. There needs to be a proper allocation of resources to this, and—(Time expired)