Content notification: This article contains discussion of sexual assault and violence
Editor’s note: The author of this piece has requested to publish anonymously due to concerns about her safety and welfare. We know that victims who come forward – in Australia and around the world – often face relentless unwarranted public attack and criticism. BroadAgenda supports the writer and came to the considered judgement that it’s important to publish anyway.
I have a particular, personal interest in the topic of toxic parliaments and in the work that is underway to detoxify them. More on that in a second. But first to something that’s happening right now.
On 17 July 2024 I attended the launch of the new book Toxic Parliaments And What Can Be Done About Them by Marian Sawer and Maria Maley, both from the Australian National University (ANU). The event was hosted by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, with the keynote speech delivered by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, followed by a panel discussion. You can listen to the discussion on YouTube.
Toxic Parliaments grew out of the workshop Parliament as a gendered workplace: Towards a new code of conduct, held at ANU in July 2021. The workshop also developed a model code of conduct which fed into the code of conduct eventually adopted by the Australian Parliament. Toxic Parliaments examines how the #MeToo movement and revelations of sexual harassment and bullying resulted in reform of parliamentary workplaces in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The book is open access and you can download it for free here.
Over mocktails and canapes after the launch, I chatted with people I knew and people I had just met. Some of the latter group asked me where I worked. I explained I’d previously worked at Parliament House, but don’t anymore. When they asked why not, I referred them back to the book’s title.
The entire story is long, complicated, and traumatic. I won’t go into it in any detail here because nobody wants a defamation lawsuit.
Let’s just say that I have experienced the most toxic elements of toxic parliaments. By that I mean rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination. Yes, I’ve managed to collect the full set of toxic parliamentary workplace experiences.
I realise that no one is giving out any medals for winning the Parliamentary Workplace Trauma Olympics, but if they were I would be among the frontrunners for a podium position.
For readers who may not have been following quite as closely as I have, I will backtrack a bit …
Set the Standard
In her keynote speech Kate Jenkins described her work on Set the Standard: Report of the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces as a ‘privilege’ and a ‘career highlight.’ The Set the Standard report, tabled in November 2021, followed her March 2020 report Respect@Work, which examined sexual harassment in workplaces throughout Australia.
Kate Jenkins AO was the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner. Picture: UC
Set the Standard was effectively a more focused version of Respect@Work, targeted at the nation’s seat of power. It was initiated following media reports of sexual assault, sexual harassment and bullying in federal parliament, including the now well-known allegations made by former political staffer Brittany Higgins.
Over 1700 people participated in the review. I was among them. The report included the headline figure that 51 per cent of all people in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces had experienced at least one incident of bullying, sexual harassment or actual or attempted sexual assault.
Upon its release, the Set the Standard report made news headlines not just in Australia, but around the world.
The report made 28 recommendations. Recommendation 2 was the establishment of a leadership taskforce to oversee the implementation of the other recommendations, ensuring ownership and accountability.
The Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce (PLT) was established in the 46th Parliament, and re-established in the current (47th) Parliament. It is made up of politicians from across the Parliament and has an independent chair. Following its initial establishment, the PLT implemented Recommendation 1, a Statement of Acknowledgement that included an apology for ‘the unacceptable history of workplace bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault’ in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.
The Statement of Acknowledgement also contained the words: ‘We are fully committed to working across the Parliament to implement all of these recommendations within the timeframes proposed by Commissioner Jenkins.’
Progress on implementing Set the Standard
It has now been more than two-and-a-half years since Set the Standard was tabled, and more than two years since that commitment was made. The Parliament has not, as it turns out, implemented all the recommendations ‘within the timeframes proposed by Commissioner Jenkins.’
The delays have been criticised by the Greens and by some independent parliamentarians. By February 2024, less than half the 28 recommendations had been fully implemented. The explanation given for the delays by the responsible minister, Katy Gallagher, (who is also a member of the PLT) has been that ‘we are working hard to get it right.’
Kate Jenkins herself appears to be satisfied with this explanation. She praised the leadership shown by the PLT and the Presiding Officers, adding that she ‘disagrees vehemently’ with any media reporting that there has been no change in parliament since Set the Standard.
This may have been a reference to recent comments by independent senator Lidia Thorpe. Senator Thorpe has been a vocal critic of the toxic culture in Parliament House and claims there are people walking the corridors who have not been made accountable for their bad behaviour. While the government delays legislating the body that will investigate such issue and enforce penalties for perpetrators, I’d argue that her frustration is entirely understandable.
The long tail of trauma and the silencing of survivor voices
It is important to remember that the Set the Standard report only exists because brave people spoke out about their traumatic experiences in Australia’s parliament.
Those people demanded a safer workplace and genuine reform. The Australian public was outraged by the stories that emerged from the report and called on politicians to act.
Kate Jenkins and her team at the Australian Human Rights Commission can be justifiably proud of their work on Set the Standard. The report was comprehensive, thorough and trauma informed. Most importantly, it listened to the voices of people in parliamentary workplaces.
Unfortunately, the listening seems to have largely ended with the tabling of the report. While I have taken every available opportunity to be consulted on Set the Standard implementation, such opportunities have been rare. Disappointingly, Set the Standard did not include a recommendation for ongoing staff consultation.
While the PLT did eventually set up a staff consultation group, no mechanism has been established for ongoing consultation with people who have had traumatic experiences in parliamentary workplaces, but who — often for very that reason — no longer work there. Nor does the PLT appear to have engaged meaningfully with survivor advocates while undertaking its work.
People discussing Set the Standard often refer, as Kate Jenkins did in her speech, to ‘the long tail’ of trauma. What the report’s recommendations and their implementation have failed to do is to provide much in the way of solutions for the people who have been traumatised.
Apparently, contributing experiences and suggestions for the purpose of creating a safer workplace for other people – a workplace we may now be too traumatised (and not even welcome) to work in ourselves – is meant to be enough for us.
Well, that … an apology most of us were not invited to attend in person, and free counselling from the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (PWSS). When sexual and other abuse was uncovered in the Australian Defence Force, the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce was established.
Complainants were able to access reparation payments and to participate in restorative engagement conferences. I have no way of knowing if a similar scheme was ever considered as part of Set the Standard. All I know is that no redress mechanism made it into the report recommendations.
In addition, the tendency of the media to turn the issue of workplace misconduct in federal parliament into a soap opera revolving around Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann has not done anyone any favours.
As Kate Jenkins noted in her keynote speech, the intense media focus on a single case runs the risk of people assuming the problem in parliamentary workplaces is confined to ‘a few bad apples’, rather than being a systemic issue. Public attention has been on the ‘omnishambles’ rather than on fixing the broader problems.
Also, the focus on politicians and political staffers has allowed the long-disregarded problems in the parliamentary departments that support them continue to fly under the radar. The ‘toxic workplace culture’ at the Department of Parliamentary Services, for example, has reached the point where Greens Senator David Shoebridge suggested during a recent Senate Estimates hearing that a new independent review should be considered – only two-and-a-half years after that same culture was examined as part of the Jenkins Review.
Survivors believe Parliament “…is very much a boys’ club and if you don’t adhere to or agree with the boys’ club unfortunately you are cast out.” Picture: Stock image
Listening to lived experience
The tone of Kate Jenkins’s speech and of the panel’s conversation as they discussed the implementation of the Set the Standard recommendations to date was overwhelmingly positive, indicating there has been significant progress.
But for many of us who have experienced the dark side of parliamentary workplaces, both before and after Set the Standard, this narrative feels disconnected from our lived experiences.
As I wrote this article, I asked some of the people I know who currently work at Parliament House, or who worked there until recently, how they feel about the progress so far. Many of these people have experienced burnout, bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, or sexual assault during their time in parliamentary workplaces.
Here are some of the things they told me, speaking anonymously:
On the pace of change:
‘The Set the Standard recommendations have taken way too long to be implemented.’
‘Progress has been very slow, and things haven’t moved much in practice.’
‘There is a lot of publicity on the progress of the Set the Standard recommendations but not much tangible change in the workplace. People are still being bullied and required to work unreasonable hours.’
On whether Parliament House is a safe working environment:
‘I don’t feel that Parliament House is a safe workplace … I was still bullied post-Jenkins and didn’t feel supported at all. So many people I talk to had similar experiences and a lot of exceptional people have now left the parliamentary workplace to seek safer environments.’
‘Within the parliamentary departments, it is well known that there are members’ offices to which you never send female staff alone for any reason. While the number of these offices has been reduced by the demographic change that happened at the 2022 election, many remain. It seems redundant to argue that the building is safer for the Set the Standard recommendations when staff are still adjusting their business processes to account for the possibility of harassment, or worse.’
‘The place is toxic [but] senior management have done a good job in presenting a very different viewpoint.’
‘There is real abuse of power and people are too scared to speak up due to the real possibility of losing their jobs.’
‘There is no respect or genuine care for people [at Parliament House].’
On diversity and inclusion:
‘The place is very much a boys’ club and if you don’t adhere to or agree with the boys’ club unfortunately you are cast out.’
‘Accessibility is considered too hard and too expensive and therefore those issues are completely ignored.’
‘It’s evident from the recent treatment of Senator Payman that the Parliament is still struggling to accept diversity. Parliaments will remain unsafe to work in until diversity is fully embraced, not just for the photo shoots and quotas but for all that diversity brings to the table in life experiences.’
On the treatment of parliamentary department staff:
‘Implementation has not been accompanied by meaningful change within the three major parliamentary departments. The fragmented implementation has been very concerning for staff, with DPS, House of Representatives and Senate staff initially excluded from the PWSS process. This has led to a lack of trust in the process and the new structures from non-political building occupants.’
‘The non-political staffers at Parliament House have been wrongly assumed to have better and safer working conditions than political staffers. In comparison to political staff, non-political staff … enjoy less power and safety.’
‘[These] staff do not seem to have mattered as much to this government, which has been particularly detrimental to the efforts of such staff to obtain timely and proper justice in relation to very significant and permanent workplace injuries they have suffered, including sexual assault injuries.’
These are the voices that the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce doesn’t seem to want to listen to. The people who won’t be featured on any discussion panels.
In the lead up to the book launch, I had been particularly interested to hear Kate Jenkins’s thoughts on the reforms that have been undertaken so far. But on reflection, it occurred to me that the real question is not whether Kate Jenkins — or an academic expert in the field, or a member of the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce — is satisfied with Set the Standard implementation. The real question is whether the people the Statement of Acknowledgement was directed towards are satisfied.
And, like the people I’ve quoted above, I am not satisfied. Two-and-a-half years after the report was released, I feel used and discarded, disregarded and powerless, much as I did after being raped and assaulted.
Once more I am left behind, collateral damage, while others move onwards and upwards, free to build impressive careers. While people with higher profiles than mine congratulate each other on the positive changes they’ve made to parliamentary workplaces, I’m consoling former colleagues over the unjust and preventable collapse of their once promising careers and trying to talk them out of suicide.
If we want to make real and lasting changes to parliamentary workplaces, we can’t observe them through rose-coloured glasses. We must examine them unflinchingly, acknowledge uncomfortable realities, and confront problems head on. Until our leaders are willing to do that, our parliament will remain toxic.
- If you’re currently in distress, please head to 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) for support.
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