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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-11-16 Daily Xml
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Motions

Review of Harassment in the South Australian Parliament Workplace

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (16:46): By leave, I move my motion in an amended form.

That the report of the Joint Committee on the Recommendations Arising from the Equal Opportunity Commissioner's Report into Harassment in the Parliament Workplace, be noted, and that the recommendations of the joint committee that the code of conduct for members of parliament be adopted and that the standing orders of the assembly be amended to incorporate the code of conduct within the standing orders and that upon the code of conduct being adopted by the House of Assembly, the statement of principles previously adopted be superseded by the code of conduct, be agreed to.

All members understand that a range of matters have arisen over the last few years that have brought attention to this matter. I am told there is certainly fantastic work and fantastic agreement between the bipartisan committee that made up the report looking into this. I have spoken to members of that committee on both sides of the chamber who say that they are in complete agreement with regard to these recommendations. It is the position of the government and, I understand, the position of the Labor members of the opposition as well that the work of this committee be put into practice.

I have read most of the report and the recommendations make perfect sense to me. I encourage members to go to attachment C in the report, which is actually the fundamental information we collectively are proposing be put into the standing orders. I personally support what has been proposed and the government supports what has been proposed, and I believe the house will do the same, but I look forward to comments from other speakers as well.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (16:48): I rise with some brief remarks in relation to the report of the joint committee and with a focus on the core outcome of the committee's work being the code of conduct that is expressed at appendix C, as the minister has just identified.

I was honoured to be elected as Chairperson of the committee and I want to recognise the contributions of those other members of the committee, which comprised members from all parties and of both houses. They were, as well as me: the Hon. John Dawkins MLC, the President of the Legislative Council; the Hon. Connie Bonaros MLC; the Hon. Rob Lucas MLC; the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos MLC; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the member for Port Adelaide; the member for King; and the member for Mount Gambier.

The committee, as members will recall, conducted its work as an outcome of, and following the conclusion of, the work of the then acting equal opportunity commissioner, Ms Emily Strickland, who conducted a review of harassment in the parliamentary workplace. That review will be well known to members.

It made many recommendations following the conduct of inquiries into the incidents of harassment in our workplace—16 in all, one of which was the focus of the work of the Equal Opportunity Committee: that is, recommendation 12, being the recommendation to institute a code of conduct for members. I will address in a moment that focus of the committee's work.

In the context of the review, I will just make the observation that in the time since the review, there has been a range of work in the parliament and across both houses that is in part responsive to the review and in part, generally, conducting the ongoing work of reform in this area. That has included amendments to the Equal Opportunity Act that were passed by this parliament last year, the implementation by the houses of other of the review's recommendations, and I will say, importantly, the resolution to establish a people and culture unit, which was the subject of several of the review's recommendations and which will constitute an important addition to the capacity of the houses to deal with these matters and, in turn, improve the culture within the parliament, and then the work of the committee being the development of the code.

The committee received, in all, 19 written submissions—those are described at appendix A—and heard from six witnesses—those are set out at appendix B. In terms of the approach towards the preparation and settling of the code, the committee went about the work by way of amending, updating and ultimately superseding the statement of principles which has been in place now for 15 or so years following the work of another committee in 2003 and 2004.

The code will be recognisable to those familiar with the Statement of Principles and the code continues, in part, statements of principle that are relevant and applicable and includes, then, a number of matters that are the subject of the code that are specific matters that are able to be identified and sanctioned in the breach, as opposed to statements of general principle. So that is the structure that we see in the code that is expressed at appendix C to the report, and that is at page 50 of the report.

One thing I want to highlight in particular, because it goes to the core of the nature of the role of a member of parliament, is the passage that is at the opening of the statement of principles and it is retained as the statement at the opening of the proposed code of conduct. It is found at the outset at page 50 of the report at the top of appendix C, and that is the unique position of members of parliament in that they are elected by the people and are accountable to their electorate. In that way, members of parliament are in a unique position in that, ultimately, they are held to account by their electors at elections.

I draw members' attention to the analogy that was drawn in the course of the committee's work to that of judicial officers for whom sanctions are available through legislation. The analogy was drawn to the way in which misconduct by judicial officers may be dealt with by reference to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner.

The committee drew an important distinction between those two roles, which is expressed briefly at page 44 of the report and is fleshed out in the body of the committee's report, and I commend that aspect to members, expressing as it does that unique dynamic that there exists between the member and their electors and, in turn, the particular challenges in identifying appropriate ways to sanction the conduct, and particularly misconduct, of members.

So the code is there. It is indeed an advance in relation to the regulation of the conduct of members of this place. I am proud to have been a contributor to the work of the committee and I commend the code to the house.

In closing, I want to thank in particular the Clerks of both houses who acted as joint secretaries to the committee, and perhaps most significantly the committee's research officer, Ms Alyona Haines, who was seconded from her legal work to be dedicated to the committee's assistance for the duration of the committee's work. Ms Haines, with respect to her, provided expert assistance that was of particular help to me as Chair and I am sure I can safely say to all members of the committee in the course of their work.

The remarks by way of the Chair's overview and executive summary are there for members to consider and I will not repeat them, but I otherwise again thank all members of the committee. I commend the code to the house.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:58): I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak to the report and also to the code specifically. I indicate that we will, of course, on this side be supporting the noting of the report and in due course the inclusion of the code in standing orders. This has in many ways been a very long time coming. There has been, I think, a discussion, a call—almost at times a demand—for some sort of set of guidelines and rules that govern the behaviour of members of parliament to which we can be held to account.

There is, of course, the complexity of interaction between parliamentary privilege, the unusual if not unique circumstances of employment that pertain to people who work in and around and associated with Parliament House, and also the employment of members themselves, which is ultimately governed by the people who elect them, and the idea of having what would be an expected process in the Public Service of a code of conduct.

For some time, the way in which this parliament chose to address those issues was to have a statement of principles which was reasonably articulate about much of the standards expected although not all. That became an unsustainable position as we started to have to accept that Parliament House is not always a safe place to work, particularly not for female staff and at times female MPs, but not exclusively female.

The report of the former equal opportunity commissioner, Ms Emily Strickland, into harassment in the parliamentary workplace made very clear that it was not sustainable for any member of parliament to claim that we are in a well-functioning and safe workplace and made a number of recommendations, all of which I think have been broadly, if not specifically, accepted by all sides of parliament. One of the recommendations that had enormous weight was, of course, this question of a code of conduct, which would be able to be judged by an external body of some sort, unlike the statement of principles which is only governed internally.

There were stories in Ms Strickland's report that were extremely disturbing. They have not been pursued for investigation, but they revealed behaviour at times that is clearly unacceptable by community standards and, I would say, by the standards of the vast majority of members of parliament and staff here—disturbing stories that made it clear we must act and that we must act in accordance with that report.

This committee was set up with crossbench, opposition and government support, and the committee's intention or purpose was to look at all the recommendations and the way in which they are being implemented, specifically to develop a code of conduct at long last. The report canvasses, therefore, the actions that relate to each of those recommendations, and of course not all of them have yet been completed. In particular, there is the reasonably complex task that is set for parliament itself to establish a people and culture unit that would act as a form of human resources support for staff who work in and associated with this parliament.

In the course of considering how well the recommendations have been acted on, the committee received a number of submissions from the various entities that are associated and also had some people come in and speak to us to give evidence in person, including Ann Vanstone, the anticorruption commissioner. Ms Strickland also gave a very detailed presentation and Treasury came and spoke about the way in which electorate office staff are supported and managed.

In all, we were satisfied that there is progress being made, that there is acceptance the recommendations need to be acted on and that action is occurring. That will require checking after the election. We have this awkwardness of the hiatus—although perhaps not such a long hiatus between now and post election and the new parliament—but we will have to collectively as a parliament make sure that we continue to pay attention to whether those recommendations have been acted on appropriately.

I think it is fair to say that the bulk of the work of the committee is dedicated to the code of conduct and we looked far and wide. The research officer, as the member for Heysen said, did an excellent job—extremely intelligent, able and swift. She was able to draw together an analysis of codes that exist around the country, the recommendations made by Ms Ann Vanstone and also a comparison to the current statement of principles which, although not a code of conduct, has broad support and has had quite a lot of consideration in this parliament.

We have this code of conduct that has been drawn up as a result of those deliberations, including a preamble, which is not formally part of the code of conduct, in the sense that it is not subject to the Ombudsman Act, but does establish the parameters of the kind of behaviour and standards that are expected and how to describe being a good and useful and considered member of parliament. Then there is the code itself, which goes into some detail about the standards that are to be expected.

In a sense, the new section is the standards of behaviour that states that members of parliament must not harass, sexually harass or discriminate against a member of their staff, another member of parliament, a member of staff of another member of parliament, an officer or member of the staff of the parliament, or any other person who, in the course of employment, performs duties at Parliament House.

That relatively simple paragraph took a lot of effort and consideration and a lot of due care, in making sure we were reflecting the complexity of this workplace. It is not about a manager not discriminating against a staff member; of course, we must not do that, but we have staff members of other people we must also make sure we treat with dignity and respect.

As members of parliament, we carry a huge amount of power. We do not all act as if we are the masters of our domain. We do not all act as if we have the amount of power that is, in fact, invested in us, the amount of authority that is invested in us, but people who work in and around Parliament House certainly feel it. There is a huge gap between the voice of a member of parliament and the voice of a person who works in an electorate office, or who works making sure we are fed properly when we are sitting late or who serves drinks to us in the Blue Room.

That disparity in power must be acknowledged and therefore our responsibility to treat staff appropriately, as well as treating each other appropriately and fairly. That paragraph is doing much of the work of what was expected, not only by Ms Strickland in her report but by everyone who read or reacted to that report and recognised that this can be a complex and difficult place to work.

With that, I endorse the code and want to thank the committee. It was chaired very ably by the member for Heysen, as one would expect, and continued to be chaired, despite some disruptions in his day job, with enormous dignity. I pay tribute to him for maintaining that role despite that shift in his own circumstances. I also thank the President, Mr Dawkins from the other place; the members from the upper house, being Connie Bonaros and Irene Pnevmatikos; and of course the Treasurer, the Hon. Rob Lucas.

On our side, the member for King was a very assiduous member of this committee who paid a lot of attention and offered lots of suggestions. Without wishing to speak for her, I think she came to a position of endorsing and supporting in some detail the report and the code as well. Of course, the member for Mount Gambier did an excellent job as one of the crossbenchers, along with Connie Bonaros from the other place, to make sure it was not simply about opposition and government but, in fact, a considered view from multiple parties and multiple perspectives.

The Clerks of both chambers, acting as joint secretaries, were required to support the research officer and not only make sure that work was occurring but also that we were well advised on the implications of the decisions we were making and the mechanics for delivering them. This has now resulted, after some back and forth, in this two-motion process of accepting the report and then adopting it into the standing orders.

In many ways, this is not a proud and glorious day. This is a day I think most people would suspect is long overdue. It is, however, a step forward. It is a clear step of acknowledging that, while ministers have a code of conduct and have had for some time to which they can be held account, the role of a member of parliament requires us to act appropriately and be seen to act appropriately and be able to have our actions judged by the appropriate authorities.

That is a step forward for this parliament and I hope will not only make a material difference to the way in which each of us makes a judgement about how we treat people in this place but also contribute to the recognition that this can and will be a safe workplace for people to choose.

One of the consequences of the discussion that disturbed me very much about behaviour that has occurred before and then was captured in that report was the number of particularly young women, but young people generally, who gave me the feedback that it made it difficult for them to think that this was a profession they ought to consider.

It did not help, of course, that there was some truly dreadful behaviour also being discussed in the context of the Australian parliament. That behaviour, broadcast loudly in the media, combined with our report, combined with previous allegations that had been made, made it very difficult for people to think this was a profession to which they should aspire if they wanted to have a safe workplace, which is the last thing we ought to want people to think about parliament.

We need the best of people. We need the most thoughtful and those who believe in good conduct and treating each other well. We need those people to consider becoming members of parliament, and if they are the ones who are put off by fear that this is not a safe workplace then that is bad for our democracy. I hope, as I say, that not only will this make a material difference to the way in which each of us judges our behaviour but it will also make a significant difference to the way in which we are perceived because the perception of our democracy matters.

I hope that we do not ever have the situation where the Ombudsman is required to make a finding. I hope that we do not have to have a privileges committee that perhaps even recommends sanctions against an MP for breaching the code of conduct because I hope that none of the members of parliament ever do behave in a way that breaches this conduct of conduct in the future. However, it comforts me to know that we have it. It comforts me to know that we have articulated what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and that there is that failsafe that says that if something does go wrong there are avenues for people to make legitimate complaints and have them heard properly.

With that I endorse the recommendations of this report and indicate that I will not be speaking again but that I also support the second motion.

Motion carried.

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