A FEDERAL Election is looming and a date is expected to be announced soon.
What a year it has been.
How surprising to discover in the 21st century that workplace laws, regulations and codes of behaviour don’t exist in the workplace of Australia’s highest office.
Or if they did, nobody with authority saw any need to apply them, or that ‘rules’ supposedly designed to protect workers in our national parliament are so weak that no action can be taken to prevent breaches.
I am shocked.
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The courage of outspoken victims Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins prompted tens of thousands of supporters to rally at a Women’s March for Justice last March.
It took last month’s damning report by federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins for all that happens in the ‘Canberra bubble’ to be officially revealed.
It found that one in every three women working in Federal Parliament reported that they had been sexually harassed.
The term ‘Canberra bubble’ initially had two meanings – one given to it by the Prime Minister who regarded complaints as gossip that nobody really cared about.
The other view was that ‘what happens in Canberra stays in Canberra’.
Ms Jenkins dispelled that politically self-serving myth in one fell swoop with her damning Australian Human Rights Commission Report Set the Standard tabled in Federal Parliament last month.
The contents are shocking – a sad indictment of years of neglect and lack of strong parliamentary leadership.
The Prime Minister’s job is to do something about it, and I say bring on the election because it will be one of our most important for decades.
Toodyay’s electoral boundaries have changed, and local member Christian Porter – who stepped aside as Federal Attorney General last March after denying allegations of sexual misconduct – says he will not recontest the next Federal Election.
A redistribution of electoral boundaries has seen Toodyay move from Mr Porter’s former seat of Pearce into Durack, which has a sitting member that Toodyay voters know very little about.
The Prime Minister said recently that he wanted to see a kinder, gentler parliament.
Most of us, would like to see a kinder, gentler world.
Australians are limited in every other workplace by the amount of alcohol they can drink on the job (usually none) and they are expected to adopt and apply workplace organisational values (respect).
By definition, leadership starts at the top, and actions speak louder than words.
I look forward to better leadership from our next batch of elected federal representatives in 2022.
Helen Shanks
Toodyay
