Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I want to pick up where my good friend the member for Jagajaga left off in terms of women marching and women being angry and the voices of young women which are demanding to be heard just to make this observation. Not long after the March4Justice, I was sitting in a doctor's reception, waiting for an appointment. They always play something on the television for everyone when they are waiting. There was a documentary on about the women's marches and the feminist movement in the 1970s. They showed some of the meetings of the women planning their actions and planning their marches. One thing that really struck me was how excited and happy they were and how they were, it seemed watching the documentary, full of a sense that they were going to make change and that, whilst they were angry at—let's face it—centuries of women not being treated equally to men, they also seemed to be full of positivity and hope. As I said, they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Some of the meetings looked almost like a party. Then you fast forward to 2020 and 2021 and particularly the March4Justice, when, really, the aims of those women, you would think, would have been fulfilled by now. I think that the pervading emotions amongst the women who marched and the women who watched and supported the march were anger and disappointment that it was still happening and that, after all of those decades, in some circumstances it had got worse.

The other thing that happened with the March4Justice is that it was the voices of young women who, disturbingly and shamefully, had experienced sexual assault or harassment that were amplified. As the member for Jagajaga said, they demanded to be heard, and they demanded that without apology. They were inspiring. I think that in some ways that goes to the heart of one of the observations and recommendations of Kate Jenkins in her Set the standard report, about the need to end a culture of entitlement and impunity, because ultimately we know that sexual harassment, assault and violence, be it in families domestically, be it in the street or be it in the workplace—the private sphere or the public sphere—comes down to gender inequality and a belief in entitlement, impunity and superiority. For everything else that we can do, are doing and should do to make workplaces, homes, streets, sports clubs and theatres safe for women, fundamentally what we have to do is continue to work towards gender equality, and that goes for this parliament as well.

So this legislation is supported wholeheartedly and in a bipartisan manner because it is a step towards fixing the problems that clearly have existed in this workplace for far too long, and it's a welcome step, as was the acknowledgement and apology by the Presiding Officers, leaders of parties and Independents that happened earlier in this parliament. But it's not enough. Laws and words on their own don't lead to changes in culture. We've heard a lot of words from a lot of us about changing the culture and about a commitment to do so. Whilst this legislation and the words of apology and acknowledgement are a good start, they are not enough, alone or together, to change the pervading culture, particularly the pervading culture of entitlement and impunity that exists too much in politics, particularly—whilst I'm sure there are examples of women behaving badly—in the male dominated activities of politics and parliament.

Words and laws alone don't change the culture, but do you know what does? Actions change the culture. Demonstrated and lived attitudes change the culture. If we really want parliament to be the standard bearer for safe and respectful workplaces—and, if anyone doesn't, I ask why they're here—then the people who are here, who have been elected to be the leaders of this workplace, are absolutely responsible for setting that standard and demonstrating it in everything we do and in the way we interact with our staff, with the staff of other parliamentarians, with the people who work in this chamber, with those who clean our offices, with the secretariats of our committees, with those who serve us coffee and food in the canteens and at the coffee trolleys, and with those who work in the press gallery. We have to be responsible for setting the standard and demonstrating it in the way we interact with everyone, and we have to be responsible for setting the standard and demonstrating it in this parliament.

I'm pleased that there is a committee to establish a code of conduct for those of us who are elected to work here. My opinion is that that code of conduct needs to look at how we conduct ourselves in this parliament, particularly in the most watched part of this parliament, question time. You only have to look at the question time that we all had to sit through today to see examples of bullying and verbal abuse, of behaviour that is the antithesis of the behaviour that we should be modelling if we want to set the standard.

Too often, the behaviour engaged in politics in this chamber and outside of this chamber falls so far short of the ambitions of the Set the standard report and the legislation that we are all supporting today that it's not only depressing; it's just not surprising that so many Australians are lacking in trust and falling prey to the lies, the misinformation and the conspiracy theories of people who are taking advantage of that dissatisfaction with politics for their agendas and aggrandizement. How do we establish a workplace that abhors bullying, harassment and verbal abuse? It's up to us as the leaders of this workplace, but, in particular, the Prime Minister and the ministers in his cabinet, who displayed those very behaviours during all of their interactions, including in this parliament and in question time, need to change.

This legislation is welcomed, as is the legislation that I anticipate will follow, as we work to implement all of the recommendations of the Set the standard report, as the Labor caucus has unanimously committed to doing. While we're at it, we need to implement the Respect@Work recommendations. This workplace needs to be safe for everyone; every workplace needs to be safe for everyone. When we're given the tools to do it by the experts, we need to take those tools up and use them.

I want to finish my contribution by saying that these are the behaviours that I would like to see in a code of conduct, behaviours that talk about honesty, transparency, responsibility and respect. That's not too much to ask of our parliamentarians.

I want to join with others to say that we are nothing without our staff—those in our electorate offices, parliamentary offices and the staff that we don't employ but work in this building in the business that we're in. We are the face and the voice of the work that is done by people who are often young, enthusiastic, eager, smart and hopeful—people that we should be lifting up, not people that we should be crushing. We are responsible, no matter what the age of the people who work for us, for the way in which they are treated by us and by others.

I want to lend my support and admiration to the brave and tough young women who made the decision—and I can't imagine how hard it was to make—to speak publicly about their experiences that led to this Set the standard report being delivered after an investigation. To everyone who participated in that and had to relive, from the stories that we've seen in that report, horrendous behaviours in order to make it better for other people, that takes a strength and, I hope, a resilience that is hard for many of us to imagine. It also takes a selflessness that is more than admirable. Let us all here set the standard today, tomorrow, during the election campaign, when we're in government, when we're in opposition, when we're at the footy club or at the local play, and when we're in question time. If we don't set the standard and live up to that standard, how can we expect others to?

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