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Speaker 1: We know that. The Independent Member for Johnston, Justine Davis,

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Speaker 1: yesterday moved a motion in the Northern Territories Legislative Assembly

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Speaker 1: calling for stronger standards of behavior in parliament. The Member

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Speaker 1: for Johnston pushing for amendments to the existing Members Code

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Speaker 1: of Conduct to introduce a clearer behavior code for our MPs. Now,

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Speaker 1: she joins me on the phone, good morning to you, Justine.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Katie, how are you going?

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Speaker 1: You're really good now, Justine. This motion called well It

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Speaker 1: noted the importance of safe, respectful and professional parliamentary workplaces

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Speaker 1: and stated that bullying, harassment, discrimination and intimidation have no

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Speaker 1: place in the Territory's parliament. What prompted this motion?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think I originally moved this motion at the

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Speaker 2: end of last year, after the more than a year

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Speaker 2: of being in Parliament and witnessing terrible behavior by some

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Speaker 2: members in the chamber attacking individuals, pledging each other, screaming

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Speaker 2: across the chamber, mocking people. And that's not what we're

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Speaker 2: elected to do. It's a waste of time, it's a

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Speaker 2: distraction from the issues that we're actually there to deal with,

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Speaker 2: and it also creates a workplace that is not safe

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Speaker 2: for many people.

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Speaker 1: So what happened yesterday it did obviously you put that

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Speaker 1: motion forward. I understand that, well, it was debated and discussed.

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Speaker 2: What happened, Yeah, it wasn't exactly debated. So what happened

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Speaker 2: is I put it forward. The Deputy Chief Minister sorry,

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Speaker 2: moved an amendment to the motion after I spoke to it,

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Speaker 2: and essentially what his amendment did was remove any any

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Speaker 2: call to action. So my motion both talked about what

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Speaker 2: you said earlier, you know, to recognize that there's no

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Speaker 2: place for that kind of behavior in our parliament, both

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Speaker 2: in the chamber and for staff that work work in

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Speaker 2: the Parliament, and then said this is what we need

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Speaker 2: to do. Let's put some things in place both to

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Speaker 2: make sure that these behaviors don't happen, and if they

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Speaker 2: do happen, we've got some robust processes to address them.

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Speaker 2: So what the Deputy Chief Minister amended the motions to

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Speaker 2: remove and to remove any concrete action and then said

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Speaker 2: move that the motion be put so there was no

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Speaker 2: further debate. So the outcome was and I'm very happy

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Speaker 2: that everyone in the chamber supported the statement that there

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Speaker 2: is no place for this kind of behavior in the chamber,

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Speaker 2: including towards staff. I'm really disappointed that the opportunity to

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Speaker 2: actually address this in a concrete way was not taken

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Speaker 2: up by the government and I'll continue to work on

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Speaker 2: this because it's just not good enough. This kind of behavior.

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Speaker 2: It's not good enough. It's disrespectful to territory, and when

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Speaker 2: the amount of time that's spent in that chamber attacking

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Speaker 2: people personally rather than doing the work we're elected to do,

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Speaker 2: which is to make good law and address the issues

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Speaker 2: that are really important for territory.

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Speaker 1: Justine, part of me listens and things you're absolutely spot on, Like,

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Speaker 1: some of the behavior is terrible, Honestly, some of what

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Speaker 1: I've seen over the last sort of ten years that

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Speaker 1: I've been watching Parliament, some of it is quite disgraceful,

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Speaker 1: to be honest. Actually it's probably longer because I used

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Speaker 1: to work as a staffer and saw some of the

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Speaker 1: rantings of some of our former ministers. But then the

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Speaker 1: other part of me thinks, well, there does need to

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Speaker 1: be really robust discussion, and there does need to be

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Speaker 1: you know, people making sure that they stand up for

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Speaker 1: what they think is right. And sometimes I know, even

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Speaker 1: for me in here, that can get a bit heated.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, there needs to be robust discussion. That's the point

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Speaker 2: of parliament. That's why we left people, that's why we

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Speaker 2: want to make sure that we're finding fiercely for the

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Speaker 2: interest of our constituents. That's what parliament's all about. But

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Speaker 2: robust debate is not attacking individuals, screaming at them across

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Speaker 2: the chamber, calling them go to trash, mocking them, saying

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Speaker 2: you're a loser when they're talking about painful family history.

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Speaker 2: None of that is robust debate. It's completely unnecessary. It's

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Speaker 2: a distraction from the issues that are actually important.

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Speaker 1: Now, there was another interesting thing that happened in parliament

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Speaker 1: yesterday and I don't know if I've ever seen it

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Speaker 1: in my time observing parliament, but Chancey Paik, one of

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Speaker 1: the Labor opposition members, stood and asked a question of

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Speaker 1: the speaker. He asked the Speaker to address how and

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Speaker 1: what measures I guess, what steps have been taken following

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Speaker 1: these allegations in the media which have been made about

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Speaker 1: bullying claims of Tansel Rahman, who was sitting on one

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Speaker 1: of the committees and is indeed the member for Fong Lim.

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Speaker 1: What did you make of that interaction.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was extraordinary. I don't think it's

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Speaker 2: ever happened before. I mean, I'm new to Parliament, but

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Speaker 2: from what I know about about how the Parliament worked,

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Speaker 2: and the Speaker gave a very strong, clear statement to

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Speaker 2: the member about his behavior and about his response to

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Speaker 2: that behavior, and one of the things that she said

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Speaker 2: in that statement was the staff of this Parliament deserve

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Speaker 2: to know that this Assembly will not look away when

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Speaker 2: they are hurt. And that's exactly what my motion was

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Speaker 2: set up to do. And that's one of the reasons

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Speaker 2: I'm so disappointed that there was no commitment to action,

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Speaker 2: because that is part of our responsibility is to make

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Speaker 2: sure that the people who do the work to make

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Speaker 2: the Parliament function and enable all of us to do

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Speaker 2: our jobs are safe. And so we need to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we have a safe workplace for everyone there.

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Speaker 2: And as I said, this was an opportunity to actually

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Speaker 2: have some mechanisms in place to do that. We also

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Speaker 2: saw the day before a motion to refer that member

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Speaker 2: to the Privileges Committee, so that is the existing committee

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Speaker 2: that the Parliament has to look at issues like this,

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Speaker 2: and the self rejected that motion, so they're not willing

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Speaker 2: to use the mechanisms as there already. They're not willing,

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Speaker 2: which to me shows that we actually need to have

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Speaker 2: some differentferent processes in place, so there is something that

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Speaker 2: we can use to address this. But also disappointingly, they're

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Speaker 2: not willing to say, Okay, let's put some things in place.

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Speaker 2: It's not a big ask to say, let's have a

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Speaker 2: safe workplace. You know the kind of behavior in parliament

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Speaker 2: I think I said yesterday, your groups come all the time.

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Speaker 2: We love it. They look when they talk to me

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Speaker 2: and I say, why are people behaving like that? We

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Speaker 2: can't do that in school? Exactly right, you can't do

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Speaker 2: that in school. So why should your elected representatives, who

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Speaker 2: you elected to represent you, who you pay for, why

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Speaker 2: should they be wasting your time your money doing this

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Speaker 2: rather than addressing the issues that you care.

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Speaker 1: I always think as well, Justine, if you're quite good

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Speaker 1: at arguing a point, you don't really need to go to.

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Speaker 2: Insults exactly, insults to individuals where you go when you

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Speaker 2: can't stand strong on your policies. And that we have

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Speaker 2: seen that over and over again. We've see it all

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Speaker 2: the time in question time, are question is asked and

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Speaker 2: instead of addressing the question. A question asked on behalf

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Speaker 2: of the constituent or your community, and instead of asking

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Speaker 2: the question, the response is an attack it to the

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Speaker 2: person who's asked at the individual and it's just not acceptable.

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Speaker 1: And look, I will say, I know you won't a

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Speaker 1: member in the last term of parliament, but goodness me

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Speaker 1: sometimes that used to frustrate the heck out of me

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Speaker 1: when you know they'd be asking questions about, you know,

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Speaker 1: some of the issues impacting territorians and the response would

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Speaker 1: be stop talking the territory down and you know, berating

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Speaker 1: people for asking questions. I just don't like that. No

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Speaker 1: matter which side of the political spectrum or where you

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Speaker 1: sit on the political spectrum, I think you've got to

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Speaker 1: allow people the opportunity to ask a question and do

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Speaker 1: your best to answer it exactly.

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Speaker 2: That's the point of question time. Territorians want answers to

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Speaker 2: questions and that's what we should be doing there. It's

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Speaker 2: just not necessary, you know, we need to move beyond that.

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Speaker 2: It's not a problem that's onny in the Northern Territory Parliament,

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Speaker 2: but other parliaments around Australian around the world have put

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Speaker 2: things in place to address this and once again it's

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Speaker 2: you know, the territory is behind and it's time that

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Speaker 2: we actually lived up to the standards that people expect

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Speaker 2: of us.

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Speaker 1: Well, Justine, always good to have a catch up with you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: You two Katie have a great day.

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Speaker 1: Thank you you too,