The government has just three months to establish and enforce a code of conduct for parliamentarians in line with sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins’ recommendations to improve workplace culture.
It comes as details of a settlement between the Commonwealth and former Liberal staffer Rachelle Miller are released. She has received $650,000 following allegations she experienced abuse and harassment by her former boss and then Morrison government minister Alan Tudge. Miller accused Tudge of being emotionally and, on one occasion, physically abusive to her while they were involved in a consensual affair in 2017. Tudge and Senator Michaelia Cash, who was also named in the no admissions settlement, deny the allegations.
Miller went public late last year as Parliament faced a sexual reckoning: Jenkins’ review into parliamentary workplace culture exposed a culture of abuse and secrecy, finding one in three parliamentary staff had been sexually harassed at work. The report made 28 recommendations, which have been accepted by the Albanese government — including developing a code of conduct for parliamentarians.
The code would extend to anyone who works in Parliament, not just ministers. It would be overseen by an independent parliamentary standards commission to address the culture of secrecy and coverup. Independent MP Kylea Tink has pushed for MPs to be expelled from Parliament for extreme breaches of the new code.
Members of the parliamentary leadership taskforce are accepting submissions for the code but just two have made it online — one by independent MP Sophie Scamps. Submissions close this Friday.
Independent Zali Steggall is a member of the taskforce and told Crikey she was confident the code was progressing as planned. Speaking on both the former and current Parliament, Steggall said having only a ministerial code of conduct presented a “big gap” in workplace culture.
“My overwhelming impression was this is an environment that’s way behind modern workforce practices in terms of respect, and in terms of how board meetings are conducted … and how mediations and discussions are conducted,” she said.
“There’s currently no obligation as a member of Parliament to first and foremost must uphold the reputation of the Parliament … It’s shocking.”
Currently staff are only bound by the weaker ministerial code of conduct which relies on the ethics of each prime minister and is often poorly enforced.
An independent Inquiry into Miller’s allegations found Tudge had breached ministerial standards by engaging in a sexual relationship with a staffer, as well as the Australian public service code of conduct regarding avoiding a conflict of interest. Miller didn’t participate in the inquiry and potential code breaches regarding allegations of abuse weren’t investigated.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a new ministerial code in July, requiring politicians and their staff members to take anti-bullying and harassment training, banning ministers from holding interests in blind trusts, and requiring frontbenchers to divest themselves of shareholdings once promoted to the ministry.
Already a member of his party has breached the code: Labor Minister Kristy McBain passed shares on to her husband instead of divesting them, but has since rectified that.
“Independent MP Kylea Tink has pushed for MPs to be expelled from Parliament for extreme breaches of the new code.”
Any government would be delighted to be handed a way to get rid of selected MPs, or at least to threaten and harass them, and if such power is instead given to a parliamentary committee it will still be a source of endless mischief and malicious point-scoring. Tink’s idea is dangerous and ill-considered. In general the person, or persons, who gives someone a job is also the person, or persons, who has authority to remove them from the job. It’s nobody else’s business. MPs are elected by their constituents. If they are removed, it should only be done by their constituents. It might be worthwhile having a mechanism allowing constituents to recall an MP and have by-election in some circumstances so they do not have to wait for the next general election, but that is it.
Spot on SSR. Also leave SCOMO there but keep up the pressure. He is taking a lot of the prejudicial partisan pressure off the current Government by the easily misdirected media.
yeah, the ability to allow constituents to recall an MP via a by-election would, one would hope, certainly get these entitled offenders to clean up their act
Why are we paying this woman a handout, what reasons were given by the previous govt, cos I didn’t hear any!!
Fancy having a system that relies on the ethics of a prime minister. What could possibly go wrong?
Don’t forget neither Tudgie (or is it Tudgeo) and hide behind the whiteboard Cash are paying-we taxpayers are footing the bill
“Already a member of his party has breached the code: Labor Minister Kristy McBain passed shares on to her husband instead of divesting them, but has since rectified that.”
Innocent or not – it’s a bad look and not a good start.
I was very pleased to hear from Ms Miller on the payout this morning. She made a very important point. The very public nature of her case meant that she was not restricted by a non-disclosure agreement but cases that do not find their way into the public arena can be covered up by non-disclosure agreements. We need a mechanism that ensures we hear about all such behaviour and their associated payouts.
She was indeed honest enough to make no claim she refused to sign an NDA. She said signing an NDA had become moot because after so much public discussion it was viewed as unenforceable. It is just a recognition of the obvious: an NDA cannot work for things that are already disclosed.
The use of NDAs to suppress discussion of all sorts of misconduct remains a huge problem. They used to be used mostly for legitimate purposes such as keeping commercial matters confidential from commercial rivals. Now they are routinely used to protect the wealthy from any consequences of their wrong-doing. Perhaps there could be legislation that makes any NDA unenforceable so far as it relates to matters of impropriety, misconduct, malfeasance or criminality; though there could be some unpleasant consequences from that.