Scott Morrison was sorry for a longstanding toxic culture, “generations of culture, in this place and in the building before it, of bullying and harassment”.
The prime minister was sorry that the place Brittany Higgins worked in, the people’s house, “turned out to be a nightmare”.
The sorrow was expressed in Tuesday’s statement of acknowledgment – a succession of well-crafted speeches from the presiding officers and the political leadership acknowledging that a powerful institution, the parliament of Australia, had failed its workforce far too often.
The prime minister was sorry for the toxic culture. Sorry for the danger that lurked unchecked in the supposedly safe place. Sorry for the hazardous by-products of occupational aggression.
And Morrison was “sorry for far more than that”.
This “more” sounded intriguing.
Would Morrison be sorry for treating Higgins like a political crisis to be managed?
Would the prime minister be sorry for launching a coded attack on the journalist who first reported Higgins’ allegation during a press conference last year that was supposed to be a mea culpa over his government’s handling of complaints from women?
Would he be sorry for having his wife clarify things that should have been clear to him?
Would the prime minister be sorry for failing a significant test of leadership over the preceding 12 months?
Would Australia’s prime minister be humble enough to read into Hansard precisely how he had failed, and would he be candid enough to share what he had learned?
Sorrow, after all, is one thing.
Self knowledge is quite another.
Morrison doesn’t apologise very often, so Tuesday’s apology was, of course, significant.
The parliament apologised on Tuesday because apologising was recommendation one of the Jenkins review: acknowledge the unacceptable history of workplace bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault in commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.
“We are sorry,” the prime minister told the chamber. To remove any ambiguity, the prime minister said: “I am sorry. I am sorry to Ms Higgins for the terrible things that took place here”.
No more “Brittany”.
Ms Higgins.
One lesson learned, perhaps. A woman who has been to hell and back in going public with her allegations has earned the dignity of formality.
A woman capable of shaming the most powerful institution in the country is an equal – not a daughter or a subordinate. One enduring lesson, perhaps.
Ms Higgins was watching on from above, a visitor in the visitors gallery of her former workplace. The former Liberal staffer, who was the primary catalyst for the ritualised act of repentance playing out below, had been invited to attend the event at the last minute, because while everyone is sorry, some basic blockages seem impossible to clear.
The first time Higgins saw the official statement of acknowledgment was on Tuesday afternoon when the independent MP Zali Steggall printed off a copy from the computer in her office. Clarity that she and a handful of others had been invited to attend the formalities in person only arrived on Monday night at 10.21pm.
Participants in the process felt themselves shunted on a travelator. The moment was being rushed to an arbitrary point in time and space. The government wanted the statement of acknowledgment to be delivered before Higgins and the 2021 Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, addressed the National Press Club on Wednesday. First mover advantage. Inclusion was the casualty of the deadline.
Higgins sat rigid and masked in the visitors gallery on Tuesday with other women who have raised their voices to change the toxic Downton Abbey culture of political staffing – including former aides Chelsey Potter, Rachelle Miller and Josie Coles. Some others weren’t invited at all.
Some women watching remotely raged and wept.
The collective sorrow – the fine words – didn’t magically erase the bullying, belittling and worse. And yet there was the sound of a line being drawn.
Parliament, institutionally, with multiparty unity, might be turning a page. But the staff who have endured trauma still live with their trauma, with their lack of resolution, with the measurable gap between what they wanted to happen, and what happened.
They also live with the knowledge of what it cost them to drag the prime minister and the parliament to Tuesday’s moment of collective recognition – just how deeply they needed to dig.
Higgins stuck it out resolutely in her seat for most of Tuesday’s acknowledgments. But as the repentance rolled on, she wept, and left the chamber when it became too much. Because most of the last 12 months, let’s be really honest, has been too much.
So what were the limits of a prime ministerial mea culpa?
The prime minister, on Tuesday, was sorry, for Ms Higgins, and for her antecedents, “for all of those who came before Ms Higgins and endured the same”.
Morrison also told the chamber that sorry was only the start of this collective reckoning. “That is our promise to those who are here today and those watching across Australia”.
“For those of us who are here now, we know we have that opportunity, and we must, and we can, and we will do better”.
Words are fine. Actions are better.
This isn’t over. Australians will be watching what you have learned. What you are prepared to change.
