Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ashlin McGee. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: In workplaces across the country, it feels like there's been
Speaker 1: a slow but steady reckoning on sexual harassment and discrimination.
Speaker 1: Many powerful positions have been publicly held to account and
Speaker 1: even sacked. That moment of reckoning was supposed to have
Speaker 1: already come to the most high profile workplace in the country,
Speaker 1: Parliament House. But a few years on, how much has
Speaker 1: it really changed today? The Saturday Paper's chief political correspondent
Speaker 1: Karen Barlow on the challenges of policing parliamentarians and why
Speaker 1: alcohol is so ingrained in political culture. It's Thursday, June
Speaker 1: sixth Karen, It's been two and a half years since
Speaker 1: Kate Jenkins handed down her damning review of the culture
Speaker 1: at Parliament House. What did you decide to check in now?
Speaker 1: With the progress that's been made?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Look, one of the main reasons why I wanted to
Speaker 3: check in was just the fact that I talked to
Speaker 3: people in the building Parliament House all the time about
Speaker 3: what is better about the place and what's not. I
Speaker 3: talked to staffers, I talked to MP senators and there's
Speaker 3: a real common thread about things are better but there's
Speaker 3: still a long way to go. They've noticed change, but
Speaker 3: there's still things that are happening around this building that
Speaker 3: include sexist comments, really some old attitudes, and it was
Speaker 3: worth a sort of dig around. You dig a little
Speaker 3: bit further and you talk to people who work here,
Speaker 3: and there's still bullying that goes on. There are still
Speaker 3: some concerning things that need to be investigated. There are
Speaker 3: structures that have been now put in place to help people,
Speaker 3: but it is not and very far from perfect around
Speaker 3: this building. The other thing I would say is the
Speaker 3: highlight recently of ending gendered violence.
Speaker 4: I'm glad to be here with women, men, boys and
Speaker 4: girls saying we won violence against women and children to stop.
Speaker 3: One thing that really stood out to me was a
Speaker 3: statement that the Prime Minister said, which was all governments
Speaker 3: need to do better.
Speaker 4: Today, to demand that governments of all levels must do better,
Speaker 4: including my own, including every state and territory government.
Speaker 3: And that said to me set the standard. It brought
Speaker 3: me right back to where are we setting the standard?
Speaker 3: And I've really quickly found it's not hard to find
Speaker 3: that we're not setting the standard.
Speaker 2: In this building of Parliament House.
Speaker 5: I'm joined by the Minister Women the Minister Foreign Affairs
Speaker 5: and the Minister of Finance to release the Jenkins Review.
Speaker 5: A little while ago, I had the opportunity to speak
Speaker 5: to Kate Jenkins and thank her for the tremendous work
Speaker 5: that she has done.
Speaker 6: In March this year, following several people courageously share their
Speaker 6: experiences of bleing, sexual harassment and sexual assault, the Austrange
Speaker 6: Human Rights Commission was asked to conduct the independent review
Speaker 6: of Commonwealth Parliamentary workplaces.
Speaker 1: Karen, were you in the building when that report was
Speaker 1: handed in.
Speaker 3: I was, and it was still shocking to read it
Speaker 3: all in one spot because I guess a lot of
Speaker 3: this is these are cases that are anonymous.
Speaker 2: That was the only way.
Speaker 3: That these people felt that they could come forward. This
Speaker 3: is a case of, you know, people wanting to not
Speaker 3: ruin their careers.
Speaker 6: Many people shared distressing experiences of blean, sexual harassment and
Speaker 6: sexual assault, sometimes for the first time. They said these
Speaker 6: things could never be shared with anyone else. They did
Speaker 6: so with the hope that they could help make this
Speaker 6: workplace better for those who come after them.
Speaker 3: I think it's important to take a step back just
Speaker 3: to remind everyone that this important landmark report came from
Speaker 3: when Britney Higgins told us about what had happened to
Speaker 3: her inside Parliament House, the rape that happened inside a
Speaker 3: ministerial office, a rape which has now been proven to
Speaker 3: a civil standard. This is something that was ordered by
Speaker 3: the Morrison government and it was something that wasn't just
Speaker 3: Britney's story, it was many other staffers had come forward
Speaker 3: and said that there were inappropriate relationships, bullying and harassment
Speaker 3: and look, he found a toxic workplace. It found widespread
Speaker 3: bullying and harassment and cases of assault.
Speaker 2: One in three.
Speaker 3: Parliamentary workers in these Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces experienced sexual assault.
Speaker 3: That is a really high number of cases. And one
Speaker 3: other one that stood out to me was the fact
Speaker 3: that female parliamentarians, and these are the people that are
Speaker 3: I guess up in the high area of power in
Speaker 3: this building, but still male parliamentarians experienced sixty three percent
Speaker 3: cases of sexual harassment and the national average is around
Speaker 3: a third, so that's really high. So there is some
Speaker 3: awful cases that were highlighted in the report.
Speaker 2: A case of a staffer.
Speaker 3: Pointing out the revolting and humiliating experience of having a
Speaker 3: male boss, a male MP sticking his tongue down her throat,
Speaker 3: just shocking accounts to find it all bundled up and
Speaker 3: to read through the raw statistics of all these numbers
Speaker 3: are actually cases of people who have.
Speaker 2: Suffered in this building.
Speaker 3: So it led to twenty eight recommendations to improve the
Speaker 3: situation around Parliament House, and there is a promise, a
Speaker 3: election promise from the Albanese government to implement all of them.
Speaker 1: What is it about Parliament that's created this culture and
Speaker 1: that makes it so hard to change.
Speaker 3: This is a building that is like no other workplace
Speaker 3: in the country. This is a big building where there
Speaker 3: are on any given day one thousand people working in
Speaker 3: Parliament House and on a sitting day somewhere between four
Speaker 3: and five thousand people. So it's not a small workplace.
Speaker 3: This is a place that is highly charged, high pressure.
Speaker 2: It is full of.
Speaker 3: Quite a few, I would say, a type personalities that
Speaker 3: they are pressing themselves inside this building, which is like
Speaker 3: a hot boiler situation. There is so much pressure it
Speaker 3: trickles down into the offices, which then trickles down into
Speaker 3: the non political offices, the parliamentary libraries. There is long hours.
Speaker 3: People have come from all parts of the country. They're
Speaker 3: away from home, and people deal with some of the
Speaker 3: pressure by drinking, and that's the cause from problems in itself.
Speaker 2: It's a hot.
Speaker 3: Topic about how this place is getting better or it's
Speaker 3: not getting better. And I did speak to a parliamentarian,
Speaker 3: a female parliamentarian. She told me that, yep, when I
Speaker 3: come to Canberra, I don't drink. I don't go out
Speaker 3: and I've made sure that all my staff are female.
Speaker 3: That's just the way that I deal with it. I've
Speaker 3: spoken to other female parliamentarians. They don't go out in Canberra.
Speaker 3: I spoke to Lydia Thorpe, who has a case that's
Speaker 3: still ongoing with another Senator, David Van, and she told
Speaker 3: me that she doesn't go out in Canberra anymore and
Speaker 3: that she feels that it is still a boys club
Speaker 3: and that nothing has changed in this building.
Speaker 1: After the break. Why politicians don't want to ban the booze? Karen?
Speaker 1: People in Parliament House telling you the culture hasn't changed enough.
Speaker 1: Why is that? What happened to the twenty eight recommendations
Speaker 1: we got from the Jenkins Report.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess what's happened.
Speaker 3: First up is the low hanging fruit has been dealt
Speaker 3: with and There have been a lot of progress.
Speaker 2: With many of the recommendations.
Speaker 3: We have things like the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service where
Speaker 3: people in trouble at any level can go to them
Speaker 3: and ask for assistance or advice. This is something that
Speaker 3: was set up pretty quickly. That is something that is
Speaker 3: working and most people who go to the Parliamentary Workplace
Speaker 3: Support Service report that the advice to get there, the
Speaker 3: people that work there are good and they are very helpful.
Speaker 3: There are changes around the building just from small things
Speaker 3: like better medical help were needed. There's vending machines around
Speaker 3: the building because people realize that there is a tendency
Speaker 3: to get stuck in the building because you work some
Speaker 3: really long hours. Its vending machine or two around the
Speaker 3: building where you can get headache tablets or hygiene products
Speaker 3: or things like that.
Speaker 2: Stockings even it's amazing.
Speaker 3: But there are two big recommendations that are being held
Speaker 3: up at the moment, and the interesting thing about that
Speaker 3: is that they are the two pieces of reform that
Speaker 3: directly impact on MP and senator behavior. That's to do
Speaker 3: with the amount of alcohol that flows through the building
Speaker 3: and to do with the enforcement of a code of
Speaker 3: conduct for serious complaints and that's the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission,
Speaker 3: and this is a body that is supposed to have teeth.
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be in place very soon, but it's
Speaker 3: been held up like the alcohol policy, because there is
Speaker 3: a lot of internal debate between the parties about how
Speaker 3: to go forward and what format should take. But there
Speaker 3: is a Parliamentary Leader's Task Force. There's representation from the
Speaker 3: major parties and some of the independents on that particular body.
Speaker 3: They're working through this on a non partisan way. They
Speaker 3: want to get the reform through and I have spoken
Speaker 3: to the Finance Minister, Katie Gallaher, and she's confident that
Speaker 3: there will be legislation that will be put to Parliament
Speaker 3: fairly soon and that there will be a new commission
Speaker 3: set up by October so we can start having this
Speaker 3: sense of consequence in the building.
Speaker 1: So, Karen, you've been speaking to some of the female
Speaker 1: parliamentarians that are on this task force. What are they
Speaker 1: saying about why there are delays.
Speaker 3: I understand that there is immense goodwill on the Parliamentary
Speaker 3: Leadership Task Force. There are people such as Susan Lee
Speaker 3: from the Opposition, and there is Katie Gallaher and Don Farrell.
Speaker 3: There's also Zalie Stegel, there's Larissa Wader from the Greens.
Speaker 2: There is good will.
Speaker 3: But there is this difficulty of getting it through the
Speaker 3: party room. In the major parties, there are wide big
Speaker 3: party rooms of very varying interests. There may be people
Speaker 3: that have done this sort of behavior and on the quiet.
Speaker 3: This is something that is essentially about politicians policing their
Speaker 3: own behavior and it is proving very difficult to get through.
Speaker 3: So what could happen if there is a serious breach
Speaker 3: of the code of conduct. This is for stuff of
Speaker 3: serious cases like assault or serious cases a bullying and harassment.
Speaker 3: There would be a possibility for parliamentarians to be suspended.
Speaker 3: They could be dismissed from a committee. They could have
Speaker 3: their salary or their allowances stocked. And there is a
Speaker 3: real controversy over how much money should be docked from
Speaker 3: a parliamentarian's salary, and it could be between two and
Speaker 3: five percent of their base salary. That is some of
Speaker 3: the controversy, but it does come down to the core
Speaker 3: thing that a parliamentarian, an MP or a senator cannot
Speaker 3: be sacked from their job. And that's it's really interesting
Speaker 3: because I guess if this situation, a serious complaint had happened,
Speaker 3: and in any other workplace they could get sat In
Speaker 3: this particular circumstance, it's down to the electorate to decide
Speaker 3: whether a parliamentarian should lose their job for doing something
Speaker 3: awful to another human being.
Speaker 1: Karen, It's been six years since I worked at Parliament House,
Speaker 1: and back then it's exactly how you described it. It was
Speaker 1: really blowkey and boozy. There were functions every night with
Speaker 1: heaps of free drinks, and that was really where the
Speaker 1: real work happened. So as a staffer or as a journo,
Speaker 1: you really had to be there after hours to get
Speaker 1: ahead and do your job. You've been in the building
Speaker 1: so much longer than I ever was. Is there a
Speaker 1: world of work now that happens outside of that? Is
Speaker 1: it significantly different?
Speaker 3: Some things are exactly the same, So the boozy dinners
Speaker 3: still happen. There are still those sort of events that
Speaker 3: happen out of ours. I've had the situation where Barnaby
Speaker 3: Joyce had a couple too many and he got himself
Speaker 3: into all sorts of.
Speaker 1: Trouble, fronting up after falling down.
Speaker 2: Good morning, how are you? I made a big mistake.
Speaker 2: There's no excuse for it. There's a reason.
Speaker 1: There's reason drinking whilst taking a prescription drug.
Speaker 2: They say, certain things may happen to you.
Speaker 3: There are events that still happen inside the building and
Speaker 3: alcohol is still served, but we are still working through
Speaker 3: whether there'll be tougher standards about that. But they're not
Speaker 3: going to get rid of I've got no impression from
Speaker 3: my discussion with Katie Gallaher that they're going to stop
Speaker 3: alcohol in the building. That just is not going to
Speaker 3: totally happen. But things have to change. Is it still
Speaker 3: a boys club? Well, yes, there are still things that
Speaker 3: only male parliamentarians will do.
Speaker 2: They'll catch up with their own ones.
Speaker 3: I would say that the independent female MPs that came
Speaker 3: in in the last term of Parliament have made a
Speaker 3: big change to the way discourse has happened in this place.
Speaker 3: I think back to Kylie Tink where she stood up
Speaker 3: and complained in Parliament about how she felt unsafe when
Speaker 3: there was a change in procedure and she was yelled
Speaker 3: at at and what she said was an aggressive matter
Speaker 3: and she drew attention to that. Would people have drawn
Speaker 3: attention to that in the past. It got attention and
Speaker 3: made people think about how they should be behaving in
Speaker 3: the chamber. Is it still happening in the chamber? Well, yes,
Speaker 3: there are concerns. There is a rough and tumble in
Speaker 3: the Parliament. It's a real blurry line between whether that
Speaker 3: then constitutes bullying. But it is still a rough place.
Speaker 3: It's still a very difficult place in many senses. I
Speaker 3: would say that what I hear when I talk to
Speaker 3: people in Parliament House is that there will only be
Speaker 3: true change when there are consequences laid down for serious events,
Speaker 3: and that's something that has to be worked through once
Speaker 3: there is an independent Parliamentary Standards Commission, and let's wait
Speaker 3: and see.
Speaker 2: On that one.
Speaker 1: Karen, thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, three Tourism Australia staff who
Speaker 1: went on private holidays using one hundred and thirty seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of taxpayer funds are being investigated by the
Speaker 1: National Anti Corruption Commission. The three staff have been sacked
Speaker 1: from the trus and body, but Truism Australia officials haven't
Speaker 1: yet revealed the destination or the nature of the trips,
Speaker 1: citing the need for investigations to be completed and Elon
Speaker 1: masks play x dot Com will be able to continue
Speaker 1: hosting graphic video of the stabbing of a bishop in
Speaker 1: Sydney after Australia's E Safety Commissioner Julie inmngrant announced she
Speaker 1: was dropping court action against it. The commissioner says the
Speaker 1: decision isn't a concession to masks allegation she'd overreached in
Speaker 1: the case and attempted to act as a global censor. Yesterday.
Speaker 1: Mcgrant said that was a furfey and she believes the
Speaker 1: only way to pursue tech giants overhalf full content is
Speaker 1: to target the global servers that host it. I'm Acheline McGee.
Speaker 1: That's all from us today at seven am. Thanks for
Speaker 1: your company. We'll see you again tomorrow.