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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

Parliament is struggling with how to handle the case of Senator David Van, who continues to strenuously deny allegations of sexual harassment and assault, levelled by Senator Lidia Thorpe and others.

The case shows how, over a year after the Jenkins review into the culture at parliament house, it remains uniquely incapable of handling complaints, finding the truth, and providing a safe workplace for all.

Today, Chief Political Correspondent at The Saturday Paper, Karen Middleton, on why people can stay in parliament – long after they’ve been accused of sexual assault.

It’s Wednesday, June 28.

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RUBY:

Karen over a week ago now, Liberal Senator David Van was accused of sexual misconduct, first by Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe, and then by two other women. Since those allegations emerged, what has happened to Van?

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“As such I met with Senator Van this morning, and a short time ago I advised Senator Van of my decision that he should no longer sit in the Liberal Party party room…”

KAREN:

Well, first of all, the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton kicked him out of the Coalition party room.

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“I want to make clear, very clear, that I'm not making a judgement on the veracity of allegations or any individual's guilt or innocence…”

KAREN:

Peter Dutton doesn't have a wide range of powers because of the way the Liberal Party is structured. It's structured with a lot of state divisions, and then the federal overarching body. But what he did do was say “you are no longer welcome to sit in the Liberal Party room, in the joint party room.”

Archival tape – News Reporter (7News):

“She wanted to keep her story private, but Amanda Stoker says she felt she could no longer stay silent…”

KAREN:

Now, after Senator Lidia Thorpe first made her allegation against Senator Van, we then saw former Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker, come forward and allege that Senator Van had touched her inappropriately at a parliamentary function three years ago.

Archival tape – News Reporter (7News):

“Well she’s released a statement detailing what she says happened at a social gathering in a Parliamentary office in November three years ago. She says Senator Van inappropriately touched her at that party…”

KAREN:

And that she had objected strongly, had a meeting with him the next day, he had agreed it would never happen again.

Archival tape – Ray Hadley:

“You just said ‘allegations’, on the Today Show this morning, you raised the spectre of another complaint apart from that made by Amanda Stoker, now that’s obviously, what, a member of your party?”

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“Ray, I don’t want to go into the detail because it’s a person who, I understand, doesn’t want to be identified…”

KAREN:

There was also a third allegation that Peter Dutton said he'd received from an unnamed parliamentarian.

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“They’re allegations of a similar nature to those related to Senator Stoker, and it caused me great concern…”

KAREN:

Senator Van protested strongly, and said that he had done nothing wrong. He denied the allegations. He was then under pressure to resign from the Liberal Party altogether, and in fact, he did that before the party, at the Victorian level, could expel him.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“I've got to say, I wasn't really aware, I don't think, terribly, that he was ever in the Senate.”

Archival tape – Clint Stanaway:

“So, you hadn't heard of any bad behaviour or?”

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“No, I'd never heard of him, really, to tell you the truth.”

Archival tape – Clint Stanaway:

“Sheesh, should be name tags in Canberra.”

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“And I'd be very comfortable if he never returned to the Senate.”

Archival tape – Lauren Phillips:

"There you go.”

KAREN:

After that, he faced pressure to quit the Parliament. Now he, as a senator, can stay on in the Parliament, even if he's no longer a member of the party that he belonged to when he was elected. He can sit on the crossbench, and that seems to be what he's planning to do. But a range of people from Peter Dutton to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and the Opposition Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, all called on him to quit the Parliament. But for the time being he's remaining within the Parliament, but as an independent.

RUBY:

Okay, so despite significant pressure then, from both sides of politics, and from the leader of his former party, Senator Van hasn't quit parliament. Why is he resisting taking that step?

KAREN:

Well, he insists he's done nothing wrong. He said he also hasn't been afforded procedural fairness in the statements that Peter Dutton made when he removed Senator Van from the party room. And the senator doesn't have to quit the parliament. And this is one of the quirks, I guess, of the constitutional system. Under our Constitution, members of the House of Representatives and members of the Senate have a range of things they have to uphold in order to stay members. They have to be Australian citizens, and can't be citizens of another country. They can't have an office of profit under the Crown. They can't be working for the government in another capacity. They can't be subject to allegations of treason, and they can't be convicted of an offence that is punishable by a year or more in jail. But short of that, if they face other allegations that haven't been tested and proven in a court of law, then they can stay on. And that's what Senator Van is relying on when he says he doesn't need to go anywhere. He feels that he has a contribution to make. His term is not up yet, and he will stay in the parliament until that term is up. Now, because he's left the Liberal Party, the Liberal Party will preselect someone else for the next federal election involving the Senate, and David Van would have to think about whether he contests that seat as an independent. It's unlikely he would win it. So he's now on borrowed time in the Senate, but he will spend that time on the crossbench.

RUBY:

Right. So to be clear then, Karen, is it the case if allegations of sexual misconduct are made against a person when it comes to Parliament as a workplace and how it handles those allegations - there is no mechanism to force someone who has been voted in by the public, to stand aside.

KAREN:

That's right. The public are the arbiters. The voters put people into parliament, and the voters remove people unless they decide to remove themselves by resigning. So in this case, Peter Dutton took the steps that, really, were the only steps available to him at the moment; he suspended David Van from his party room, and then he referred the allegations to this new body, a new authority that's been set up within Parliament.

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“The allegations that have been brought to my attention, I referred to the Parliamentary Workplace Authority in the Parliament, which is independent of the parties…”

KAREN:

The Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, also known as the PWSS, and that is a body that is really set up to mediate, and has some limited powers of investigation, but really can't go a lot further than that.

RUBY:

Right so, Opposition Leader Dutton has referred the allegations against Van to the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, but that is a body with limited investigative powers. So why is it that that body is the only option available?

KAREN:

In the wake of the allegations that were raised about the culture in Parliament House, and parliamentary workplaces in general, back in 2021, after the former Liberal advisor Brittany Higgins levelled an allegation relating to an incident in Parliament House, we saw a huge outpouring of anger about attitudes to women in general, and particularly within the building. And what resulted from that were a series of processes, including the report by the then Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, entitled Set the Standard. And that made a series of recommendations about what should happen in Parliament House. The implementation of those are underway, but they're not completed yet.

So what we have at the moment is one body — the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service — which is designed as a body to mediate where there are disputes among employers in the building, who are the parliamentarians mostly, and employees, their staff. Sometimes it can mediate in disputes between parliamentarians themselves, and that's, I guess, what this case would be. It's really focussed mostly on mediation. It isn't a body that has enforcement powers. It doesn't have the power to undertake a full blown investigation. It does have some limited investigatory powers, but it doesn't have any powers to punish somebody, to apply any kind of sanctions.

So while Peter Dutton has referred these allegations to really the only body that does exist at the moment in the Parliament to deal with any kinds of disputes in the workplace, it's not a body that can really do a lot about it, and it certainly can't issue any kind of penalty.

There are other changes that are in the works that could ultimately lead to a more full blown investigation — and potentially sanctions— but they are still being negotiated.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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Karen, we’ve been talking about what's actually available in Parliament to deal with allegations of harassment made against parliamentarians. And it seems, currently, there is a void there. But you said there are moves underway that could ultimately lead to a more full blown investigation when accusations are made. So tell me more about that. What are we likely to see?

KAREN:

Yes, Kate Jenkins recommended that we see the establishment of a body that she said should be called the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.

Archival tape – Kate Jenkins:

“Misconduct is often dealt with as a political problem, rather than as a people issue. As a result, we heard that people are often punished for reporting misconduct, while others are protected, rewarded, or even promoted for engaging in misconduct…”

KAREN:

And that would be a body that would enforce a code of conduct on the occupants in parliamentary workplaces. Now, there's never been a formal code of conduct for members of Parliament and senators before. There is a code of conduct that applies to ministers, but nothing that applies broadly across the parliament to MPs and senators, nothing that applies to people in other jobs within the Parliament, in other roles.

Those codes of conduct have now been drafted and agreed upon between parties and independents across the Parliament, which is quite an achievement, but they haven't yet been legislated in any form, and the body that will oversee them, enforce them, and then determine whether they've been breached, and what sanctions should be applied, has not yet been set up. And part of the reason for that is that those processes have not yet been agreed. So while the code of conduct has been agreed, the process for investigating if there's been a breach hasn't been agreed yet, and they haven't agreed yet on what should be the sanctions, whether somebody could be removed from a particular parliamentary position, like the chair of a committee, or from an overseas delegation, whether they could have their pay docked, or some other kind of sanction that might be applied.

And this is where things will get more complicated because those negotiations still have to take place between all the members of the various parties in the parliament, and the independents. And they are all represented on a taskforce that was set up to start to deal with these things. So they still have those matters to negotiate and agree.

And there are some other matters too, relating to the legislation that governs the way employers and employees operate in the building, the way that parliamentarians and their staff interact, and the various rights and obligations of each. The Members of Parliament Staff Act is the legislation, and there'll be some amendments coming forward to that as well to make sure that those roles are clarified.

And they also have to be changed to reflect changes in workplace law broadly, that now imposes a positive obligation on employers to have a workplace that is safe from sexual harassment and bullying, and other kinds of intimidation of employees. It's not enough to just say, anymore, that as an employee you weren't aware that things were going on. You have to positively provide a workplace where they're not going on, and the members of Parliament Staff Act has to be amended to reflect that as well.

RUBY:

And you mentioned the Parliamentary Leadership Task Force, which is a group of MPs and senators from across party lines. And their job is to implement the recommendations of the Jenkins review. I know that you've been talking to some of those taskforce members since the allegations against David Van were made. Can you tell me a bit about those conversations, what they've made of it, and do they think that more needs to change for Parliament to be able to handle allegations like this, in Parliament?

KAREN:

Yes. So that task force is being led by Vivienne Thom, who is a former senior bureaucrat. And it involves representatives of the parties and independents across the parliament. And Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Women, is the most senior of those. Now, Senator Gallagher says that the government is working very hard to get through all of Kate Jenkins' recommendations and that it has got support across the Parliament to do that, which she's welcomed very much. She's saying the structures are being put in place so that the changes that they introduce will last, and that it's very important to have the buy in of the various parties to make sure that that occurs. And she says the Government is very committed to that occurring. The Opposition, equally, has similar sentiments, saying that it's very committed to making sure that these things are negotiated carefully, and slowly, and with everybody's agreement so that you don't see things break down, and aspects of them abandoned in the future.

Where there is some hesitation, I guess, is among crossbenchers, who are slightly concerned that things aren't moving along as quickly as they should. When Kate Jenkins' report came out in November 2021, she recommended that these changes be in place within 12 months. So of course, we're now almost two years on from that, and we're still seeing the negotiation. Part of that is because there was a federal election in the middle, and that always disrupts the processes of parliament, including this sort of thing. But I think there's a sense now from some in the crossbench and some in the Greens that they need to get on with it. And I suppose the allegations that have emerged in the last couple of weeks against Senator Van, have highlighted that these processes are still churning their way through, and haven't yet been nailed down.

RUBY:

Yeah, it does seem to be taking a long time, Karen, I mean, it's been years since Brittany Higgins first raised her allegations. And this conversation about women's safety in Canberra, that was happening even before then. And so I think it kind of begs the question that despite all of this talk about needing change, if the reality is that Parliament House continues to be a workplace in which someone who is accused of sexual misconduct cannot be stood down while being investigated, then can it really be taken as seriously as it needs to be?

KAREN:

Well, it is difficult. It's a complicated process and it is important — and this is what Senator Van has said — to have due process and fair processes as well, you need to have a process that both respects a person making a complaint, and the person against whom the complaint is made. And that's where the difficulty comes in. It's a strange atmosphere in Parliament House. It's a strangely set up building, because each of those MPs and senators are technically small business employers. Each of them is deemed to be the employer of their staff, and that in itself has made it really difficult to mediate in disputes within the offices, let alone when they get to the level of an allegation of this nature or even worse.

So, it is a difficult process, it is a strange workplace. But I think equally it's time now that they got on with it to make sure that these processes are in place, because the credibility of their assurances about enacting what Kate Jenkins said was so important is on the line. And I think all the parliamentarians want to keep faith with the public who express their view very strongly at the time that think they all had to do better.

RUBY:

Karen, thank you for your time.

KAREN:

Thanks, Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

New South Wales police say they’re treating the murder of a man in Sydney’s eastern suburbs as an organised crime hit.

Police say they believe two shooters were involved in the murder of Alen Moradian, who was shot dead in his car in an underground car park in Bondi Junction yesterday morning.

Moradian was a convicted drug kingpin with close links to the Commanchero outlaw motorcycle gang.

And

NDIS Minister, Bill Shorten, has vowed to investigate allegations of widespread underpayment of disability support workers.

The commitment comes after the New South Wales and ACT branch of the Australian Services Union, claimed some members involved in the NDIS have been paid less than the minimum wage.

The Union says wage theft in the sector is rampant.

I’m Ruby Jones. See you tomorrow.

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