Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—It is not my intention to disrespect the Senate or its processes. I have great respect for this institution. It is one of the honours of my life to be standing here representing the people of my home state and leading the Australian Greens. It is a privilege and an honour to do it, and I reflect on that every day. This is a place where all of us can help shape the nature of our society. Indeed, we can be a force for good. Mr President, that's why I couldn't withdraw my statement yesterday—because the repeated shaming and innuendo directed not just across at this side of the chamber but directed right across the Senate is reinforcing a culture of workplace harassment and the open harassment of women in our society.

Australia does have a deep and disturbing problem of violence against women. I remember Malcolm Turnbull the former Prime Minister saying that not all disrespect towards women leads to violence but that's where all violence against women starts. We in this place should be setting an example for the nation, and yet this, one of the most powerful institutions of the country, allows men to openly and brazenly shame, insult and harass female members of parliament, and it reinforces that culture that will lead to 72 women being murdered by their partners this year.

Abuse against women is everyone's business. All of us have a role to play in that. There is a great reckoning going on in our society, where all of us are reflecting on our behaviours in the past and are trying to do what we can to help lead the change we need to see in our society. As men, we have been perpetrators. We have been responsible for creating that culture, and that's why it is up to men to make a stand and to call it out. We must no longer tolerate workplace harassment in this chamber. It must stop. There has been a repeated pattern from a small number of men in this chamber who, either through whispers or, sometimes, on the record, make the most demeaning and insulting comments directed against many of my colleagues.

When this was raised some time ago and you made your statement, Mr President, I had a conversation with Senator Sarah Hanson-Young that forced me to reflect on my own role in this—that I'd not stood up, that I'd stayed silent, that I'd assumed this was just part of what it means to be a senator in this place. I apologised to Senator Hanson-Young and I said that I would now stand up and call it out whenever I heard it, that she would not be alone. And yet, despite your statement—a very welcome statement, Mr President—this behaviour continues. They do it over and over and over again. Sometimes you don't hear it, but we do. Sometimes they put it on the record—it's deliberate; it's calculated—then they withdraw it. But those words can never be taken back. They hurt and they damage. That's why yesterday I made the statement I did.

I also want to give some context to what happened yesterday. The day before, I approached the Deputy President of the Senate because that behaviour that occurred yesterday had occurred the day before and on the back of months of a pattern of behaviour. I indicated to the Deputy President that I would be writing to you, Mr President, to inform you that, when a senator yells across the chamber to a female colleague, 'Go and have a cry,' because they don't like what they're hearing, that's unacceptable. It would be unacceptable in a classroom, it would be unacceptable on the factory floor, it would be unacceptable in a business and it's unacceptable in the Senate. Yesterday Senator O'Sullivan used words that were designed to hurt and humiliate a fellow colleague. The day before, other senators in this place used words that were aggressive and threatening. I want to thank Senator O'Neill for standing up and calling them out when she heard them.

The question for us now as a chamber is: are words enough? Is a call to people in this place to lift the standard of behaviour enough? I don't think it is, Mr President, because we've heard it time and time again. When in September 2017 Senator Hanson wore a burqa into this Senate I sought for the Senate to adopt a code of conduct that would prevent this offensive and harmful behaviour. In August this year, following a horrific first speech, again I sought to have a code of conduct adopted, and it was rejected by both the government and the opposition.

The current rules are not working. We are allowing harassment and we are allowing women to be demeaned in this chamber. They stand on all sides of the chamber, but predominantly they are those people who are walking out right now. They aren't strong enough. They simply cannot hear the truth. They are the cowards here. It's very clear that, despite your words this morning, Mr President, they take no heed of the call to all of us to improve the standards in this place. The men who use sexism to belittle or intimidate women should not be tolerated in any society and they most certainly should not be tolerated in the Australian Senate.

Mr President, we accept your recommendation in terms of the way we will handle the discovery of formal business, but we need to do more than that. We need to ensure that there are strong rules and a strong code of conduct that does not allow this offensive behaviour to continue.