Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Workplace Reform (Set the Standard Measures No. 1) Bill 2022. I'm proud to do so and regret that I have to, probably like the minister at the table. I'm proud that we're able to make this place better but sad that there is such a need. I will give you a quote:

This is Parliament. It should set the standard for workplace culture, not the floor of what culture should be.

That's a quote from one of the 490 interviews conducted as part of the independent review into Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces, or the Jenkins report.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, who has done an incredible job, released her important report into Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces on 31 November last year. The report is aptly titled Set the standard. In what has sadly become uncommon during this 46th Parliament, the bill before parliament is the result of constructive, bipartisan efforts to produce a bill that I'm hopeful will make real change, a legacy that we in the 46th Parliament can all be proud of. This bill implements recommendations 17 and 24 of the Set the standard report.

Working for a parliamentarian is a unique experience—227 unique experiences perhaps, because there are 227 different parliamentarians here. It can have extreme highs when things are going well and deep lows when things are tough for the boss. No matter how nice your boss might be, there is always a power imbalance between a parliamentarian and their staff—I'm reading words written by a member of my staff here, but the reality is that I'm still the employer. I know this can be a very difficult workplace. I know how hard the staff work in this building and in the electorate offices which provide support remotely during sitting weeks and all year round in the electorate. People make contact when their lives are at risk, when they're feeling suicidal, when they're starving, when they're homeless—all sorts of people make contact with our 227 electorate offices.

Staff working for members of parliament have an added worry that comes around every three years—or six years in the other place for most of them, for 72 of them—and that's the performance review we go through. So they can have a boss who is out of a job, and they immediately lose their job as well. There are many reasons why working for a member of parliament may be appealing, but job security is not one of them. The minister and I, each having a marginal seat, recognise that it's a performance appraisal that's particularly difficult. Lack of job security is a major barrier to staff raising complaints. Staff should never be subjected to bullying, sexual harassment or sexual assault, wherever they're working. That's a given.

This bill implements two recommendations of the Set the standard report. We know things have changed over the life of this building, for example. I think we've heard the story before. When this building opened, there were four bars in it—I think I've got the count right. There are now zero bars in this building. One of them became a childcare facility. Things have changed in that time. To implement recommendation 17 of the report, the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 will be amended to make it clear that the provisions in the Fair Work Act apply to MOP(S) Act staff and that written notice of termination, specifying the reasons for termination, must be provided—just like a normal workplace. Recommendation 17 also provides that it should be made clear that the Work Health and Safety Act applies to parliamentarians in their capacity as employers—because those 227 members of parliament are all individual employers. In order to implement recommendation 24, the Age Discrimination Act and the Disability Discrimination Act will be amended to clarify that those laws apply to MOP(S) Act staff.

Legislating these two changes will give greater job security to staff and, importantly, highlight to parliamentarians their obligations as employers. Remember: the only skill they have as an employer is the fact that they got 51.1 per cent of the vote or more. We come to this place with a broad range of skills and experience in the workplace, as we should. But a lot of those processes don't necessarily prepare you for the workplace and working with the secretariats and the parliamentary staff—all the people who make this incredible workplace hum. So legislating these two changes will give greater job security for staff and, importantly, highlight those obligations.

As well as legislating to provide safe workplaces, we also need to do something else: change the culture of this building and our workplaces back in the suburbs and in the bush. We need to 'set the standard', as per that quote I started with. Just yesterday, three women who were sexually harassed by former High Court judge Dyson Heydon reached a historic settlement with the Morrison government. This settlement took almost two years of negotiations after an independent investigation was concluded in 2020 and upheld the women's claims. Remember, the women we're talking about have clerked for the highest position in the land. So one would assume they know their way around a court room and a legal text book. Still, it took two years of legal negotiations. The lawyer for the three women said:

… they were so severely impacted by what happened that it took them years to come forward to pursue this matter.

An associate to a High Court judge is a coveted position. Only the brightest and most promising young lawyers are appointed. These three women, all associates to Justice Heydon, have not been able to pursue their dreams of what would likely have been very successful legal careers. This is the destruction of lives that sexual harassment and sexual assault leave in their wake.

I particularly would like to acknowledge the bravery of these three young lawyers in coming forward to call out the behaviour of a person at the pinnacle of the profession when they had only just entered it. That would've been a very terrifying experience, so I commend them for their courage.

In the last year, we have all heard of many strong, brave young women advocating for change. I commend the courage and conviction of Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins, Chanel Contos and Saxon Mullins in speaking to power and being prepared to wear the consequences when power bites back, which is happening for many of those young women. They have still had the courage to speak truth to power and they're changing the world, and changing this building. They are changing it and making it a better place, but it's up to all of us in this building to listen, because I do believe that we have failed some of them.

I note the member for Boothby, whose contribution I look forward to. We do need to call out when people target someone on the other side of the aisle, because poor behaviour is always poor behaviour. I know we could do more, and I personally could do more, but I do try to reach out when I see bad behaviour and call it out. Sometimes we do fail our colleagues when a polite word of support would, I'm sure, be appreciated, but actions are appreciated even more.

When I think of these young women, I would certainly say that they don't owe us their smiles or their politeness, as is claimed by some. As the parliament acknowledged, Mr Speaker, in response to your fine words last week—a great message to the people of Australia—we should have done better. We should have listened more. We should have acted sooner. It's certainly not good enough when a senior minister of the government describes a rape allegation as just a she-said, he-said. I hope such a thing will not be repeated. It's not good enough when a senior minister of the Crown describes an alleged victim as a lying cow.

The acknowledgment in the parliament last week by both party leaders was the start of the healing required to fix this workplace. This bill is the next step, but there is a lot more work still to do. Labor has a long-held commitment to ensuring that our parliamentary workplaces are safe and respectful for everyone. That's not to say they won't be stressful workplaces. As I'm sure the people in my electorate office will know in the build-up to the next election, it is hard work. It is stressful work, and elections are a time when people come out of the woodwork with their concerns. Some are issues they have sat on for years, and they want a candidate or a politician to solve them, and some of these issues are unable to be solved easily. But we do have to make sure that all our workplaces are safe and respectful for everyone.

Labor has a commitment to gender equality—we changed our rules to reflect that commitment—including the need to promote and support women's leadership in the parliament, because you can't be what you can't see; we know that. I worry about some strong women opposite departing this parliament. I wish them all the best in their new endeavours—unless they go on Sky after dark! But whatever they do, I wish them well. We will miss their strong voice on certain topics. I wish the member for Boothby well in particular.

The Labor caucus has committed to working towards implementing all of the recommendations from the Set the standard report. We will consult with our parliamentary and electorate staff, relevant unions—an important part of any workplace negotiation—and all the workplace representatives as we work towards the implementation of Commissioner Jenkins's report. Our staff are a huge priority in this process. We need to make sure that we get it right, that we listen. I know that there is not a short supply of self-believe when it comes to politicians in this building. Sometimes we can be guilty of sitting down and listening to what we want to hear. I have found it's good to just sit down and go through this process and do the best you can in terms of hearing the concerns of your staff.

I've been very lucky with my staff over the years. I'm just a few days from the 15th anniversary of my first speech, and some staff have been with me all of that time—who have put up with me for all of that time, who've looked after me. It is brilliant. Our families are essential, obviously, but our staff are the ones that let us do this job, which I'm honoured to do.

This is their workplace. It's a stressful workplace, and they deserve nothing less than a safe and supportive work environment. The safety of everyone who works here is important. There aren't many workplaces where they say, 'Rather than going home at 8pm, you're now going to go home at 5.30 am.' That's a bizarre workplace. I know that, apart from people maybe being a little bit grumpy—and the Chair, perhaps—when it got to 5 am this place still hummed along nicely.

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