Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Chair of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Standards, I present the final report of the committee, together with accompanying documents. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This week marks one year since the release of Set the standard: Report on the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces by the Australian Human Rights Council's Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Commissioner Kate Jenkins. I again acknowledge the work of Commissioner Jenkins in that report.

The Set the standard report made 28 recommendations to ensure our parliament is a workplace that is safe and respectful. The former government committed to implementing all 28 of those recommendations, as did the then opposition. A multiparty parliamentary leadership task force chaired by Kerri Hartland was established by the former government to oversee the implementation of the recommendations, and I was honoured to be a member of that task force in the last parliament. The first recommendation of Set the standard was to deliver a joint statement of acknowledgment, and one was delivered to this parliament on the first sitting day of this year. It was a key outcome from the first meeting of the task force.

The former government also oversaw the passing of legislation to provide additional protections to staff of parliamentarians and establish this very select committee on parliamentary standards pursuant to further recommendations. We also commissioned a comprehensive review of the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984, and that review has since reported. The implementation of these recommendations built on the changes already introduced following the Foster review of the parliamentary workplace, which the former government commissioned. The former government also extended funding for the important Parliamentary Workplace Support Service and provided extra funding for the Parliamentary Support Line. This was constructive work with colleagues across parliament to make the changes needed to ensure our workplace is safe, supportive and respectful. This report, I hope, demonstrates that such constructive work is continuing, with our response to the Set the standard recommendation to enact codes of conduct for appropriate behaviour in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces that would be underpinned by an independent investigation and enforcement mechanism.

As we know, our own Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces have not been safe and respectful places for all. Our overarching principles as members of the committee in our committee deliberations and recommendations in this report have been that everyone who visits or works in a CPW—a Commonwealth parliamentary workplace—should be safe and respected. Through our report, we say to all the people who contributed to the Set the standard report: thank you. We heard you. We believe you. We are responding to you. And those generous brave disclosures have meant something because they will help to protect others.

This committee heard unanimous support for codes of conduct to establish safe and respectful workplaces. Our evidence came from a broad range of contributors, with varied experiences and perspectives, and I thank them for their contributions. In this report, we have drafted three codes: behaviour standards for all CPWs that set standards that everyone entering those workplaces should meet and that remind everyone that the purpose of the parliament is for the free exchange of ideas in a respectful and professional manner; a behaviour code for staff that sets the standards by which all employees contribute to a safe and respectful workplace and that outlines prohibited behaviours but goes further to outline the need for a more diverse and inclusive workplace; and a behaviour code for parliamentarians that largely mirrors the staff code but also outlines the employer obligations for safe and respectful workplaces as well as expectations for how parliamentarians interact with each other in the course of fulfilling their elected role.

It was clearly enunciated to us that, without a confidential, independent and serious investigative body with an effective sanctions regime, these codes will not be able to drive the long-term cultural change that is needed. In our report, the committee strongly supports the recommendation to establish an independent parliamentary standards commission, as proposed in the Set the standard report, along with a range of sanctions. The committee has also put forward recommendations for guidance material and training to accompany these new codes. This is crucial to ensuring that the codes become part of everyday practice, setting clear standards of behaviour in all Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.

As the chair of the joint select committee, Sharon Claydon, the member for Newcastle, said in the other place today: 'I note this parliament is not alone in finding this a difficult task.' Several past Australian parliaments have tried to address this issue, and despite forming an agreement that a code of conduct was necessary, they failed to develop one. Indeed, the parliament has been considering codes for almost half a century. In 1975 a report on the declaration of interests noted that a meaningful code of conduct should exist in the Australian parliament. In 1993, 2008, 2011 and 2012 the Australian parliament again tried and again failed to introduce codes of conduct. So we know that we're not alone in this parliament in finding these issues sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes challenging.

It is difficult in a place of this nature, occasionally, to try to bring those many disparate views together, but we have endeavoured to rise to the challenge. Through these proposed behaviour codes we have responded to the message of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Ms Jenkins, in relation to Setting the standard. This committee has worked very hard in the last few months to deliver this report. I want to thank the secretariat, particularly, for their hard work, particularly in a very compressed time frame. I want to thank the chair, the member for Newcastle, Sharon Claydon, for her leadership of this important process and for her collegiate and constructive approach. It's not possible to produce a report of this nature and deliver the outcomes with which we were charged without that chairing approach, and I am particularly grateful. I also acknowledge my friends and colleagues Senator Claire Chandler and the member for Forrest, Ms Nola Marino, both the coalition members of the joint select committee.

Can I say that COVID-19 brought us many things, including online committee meetings, but for a Western Australian member in daylight saving—you may appreciate this, Mr Acting Deputy President Smith—I don't think they were ever meant to start an online meeting at 4.30 am, which is what has happened to the member for Forrest in the last short time. So thank you, Nola, for your patience with us eastern seaboarders.

This report is a very important report for this parliament. It's a place in which I have worked, both as a staff member and as a senator, for a long time—that doesn't bear repeating. But I do think that, as a parliament, what we have seen and had to address in the last year has had a very significant impact—no question—on the perceptions of the parliament itself, and I find that profoundly disappointing. I was very pleased to be asked to take on the role of deputy chair of this committee, a joint select on parliamentary standards, because if in some way I can contribute to setting that right, then I am honoured to have had that responsibility. I commend the report to the Senate.