A new bill introduced by the Albanese Government will aim to improve the workplace behaviour and culture at Parliament House. Once in place, politicians who misbehave could see themselves cop serious punishments, as opposed to a slap on the wrist.
Minister for Women Katy Gallagher revealed new legislation on Wednesday that would establish an Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (IPSC), and considerably increase the consequences MPs and their staff face for unacceptable workplace behaviour.
The bill is an answer to the recommendations made by the Set The Standard Report from 2021, which investigated the complaints about poor workplace culture in Parliament, with allegations of bullying and sexual harassment running rife.
Notably, the report was published after Brittany Higgins publicly alleged she was raped in a minister’s office by a fellow staffer in 2019. In 2024 a federal court judge said the staffer, Bruce Lehrmann, had committed the sexual assault on a balance of probabilities. Lehrmann vehemently denies the allegations.
“The 2021 Set the Standard report laid bare the serious issues of bullying, sexual harassment, and sexual assault at Parliamentary workplaces,” said Gallagher.
“Since coming to Government and in conjunction with the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce we’ve been working hard to put the systems in place so that people can raise workplace complaints, and when complaints are substantiated, that both staff and parliamentarians are held to account for their behaviour.”
The Set The Standards Report called for an independent body to be set up that would investigate complaints about misconduct within Parliament House, and doll out the punishments too. And that’s exactly what the IPSC aims to do.
But what exactly are the punishments, and what are the standards of behaviour expected of our politicians? Also, how effective will it really be, and what limits does it have?
Here’s everything we know so far about the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.
How will the independent commission work?
Once the independent body is set up, complaints about MPS and staffers will be received by individual commissioners who then consider the severity of the complaint with a panel of commissioners.
All parties and individuals involved in a complaint will have the right to reply during an investigation, and the entire process will be kept confidential.
In the case of serious offences, the police would be notified and pick up the investigation.
Complaints can be made about anything that comes under the jurisdiction of the parliamentary workplace, sort of like how an HR department would work.
Notably though, it would not be allowed to apply to what MPs say to each other while under parliamentary privilege (more on that later).
If a politician or staffer does end up receiving a punishment, that is when the public would most likely find out about a complaint.
But what are the potential punishments?
What punishments might politicians receive?
An early leak of the bill shared that one of the punishments that a staffer or politician may receive includes a pay cut of up to five per cent of their salary.
However, at the time Katy Gallagher shared that the specific amount of pay being deducted was still up for debate.
“We put a proposition on the table, we’ll get feedback about that,” Gallagher said.
“Obviously, the rate of sanctions, whether there are financial penalties, what is the publication of complaints if complaints are substantiated – they are all, I guess, mechanisms that could be used to make sure that people are held to account for their behaviour in this place.”
Other sanctions that offenders could face include:
- restricted access to Parliament.
- suspensions.
- fines.
- being kicked out of Parliamentary committees.
“What the final form of that looks like is still to be determined, but I’m working across the parliament with independents, the Greens, the opposition, to make sure that we get this landed,” said the Minister for Women.
Greens’ senator Larissa Waters said that the legislation has been “a long time coming” and celebrated the new consequences.
“Finally with this new body, parliamentarians will face consequences for bad behaviour,” Waters said in a statement.
“Parliament should be setting the standard for other workplaces around the country, but instead it’s been a national shame.”
Is politicians’ behaviour really that bad?
According to the findings from the Set The Standard Report, the workplace culture at Parliament House is a disgrace. In fact, it literally opens by stating that Parliament should be raising the standard, but instead it is at “the floor of what culture should be”.
The report famously found that a shocking 33 per cent of staffers reported being sexual harassment in the building.
Just this week a number of the teal independent MPs called out the poor behaviour from male members of the Coalition during question time, labelling the behaviour they’d witnessed as “condescending”, “aggressive”, and “misogynistic”.
Or we could turn back the clock and think about the appalling sexism that Julia Gillard called out in her famous “Not now not ever” speech.
This appalling behaviour has been happening for years, to the women in power as well as the staffers, with Larissa Waters saying that it’s resulted in women feeling unsafe at what should be the safest workplace in the country.
“Women and staff have been unsafe in parliament for far too long. Parliamentarians have been getting away with blue murder, as there has been no way of holding them to account for bad behaviour,” said the Greens’ spokesperson for women.
Unfortunately, the behaviour in question time won’t yet be able to be investigated by or complained about by the IPSC, due to everything that pollies say they are being protected by parliamentary privilege.
While there is a long way to go before the workplace culture in Parliament House is fixed, setting up an independent investigating body is a necessary bloody start.
“I look forward to working across the Parliament to pass this legislation as soon as possible,” said Katy Gallagher.
The Government has committed to funding the creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission with a $3.8 million package from October 1, 2024, should the legislation pass.
[Image: Getty]
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