Prime Minister Scott Morrison is under increasing pressure to address what’s been described as a toxic culture in Australia’s parliament, as police investigate an alleged rape in the 1980s.
The Australian Federal Police said this weekend that it had received a complaint in relation to a s.e.xual assault and would be working with state authorities. The alleged victim killed herself in June 2020, and details of the claims have been sent by her friends to two senators and the prime minister’s office.
Morrison was already under pressure over the workplace culture at Parliament House after a former government media adviser, Brittany Higgins, said last month that after a night of drinking with colleagues in 2019 she was raped by a fellow staffer in a minister’s office. Several female lawmakers have complained about a male-dominated and disempowering culture in the nation’s capital, Canberra.
“The prime minister needs to lead here, and so far his silence is deafening,” Greens Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young, who was sent documents detailing the 1988 alleged assault, told ABC radio on Monday. “Simply leaving it lingering there does not resolve the issue and creates a serious problem for this government of integrity and trust.
She called for the Cabinet minister, who has not been identified, to stand aside while the matter is investigated. Sixteen of Morrison’s 22-member Cabinet are men.
“It’s really important here that we understand that people are entitled to the presumption of innocence,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told reporters in Tasmania on Monday. “Everybody jumping on here and making these issues the subject of, as you say, further inquiry – leave that to the police.”
Anthony Albanese, leader of the main opposition Labor party, said that the matter was a test for Morrison and that it was up to him to judge whether the minister should remain in the Cabinet. “We need to make sure that these serious allegations, that they are investigated appropriately, and that these issues aren’t politically managed,” he told the ABC on Sunday.
In the past two weeks the prime minister has faced a barrage of questions in parliament about his knowledge of the Higgins case and about claims that she was not given adequate support. Morrison has not commented publicly since the latest allegation involving his Cabinet member. On Monday, his office did not immediately answer emailed questions regarding it.
The mistreatment of women in parliament made global headlines in 2012 when Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, accused opposition leader Tony Abbott of misogyny.
More recently, former foreign minister Julie Bishop criticized behavior by lawmakers that would not be “tolerated in any other workplaces across Australia.” Another lawmaker, Julia Banks, said bullying had driven her to decide to quit parliament, while a former senator was ordered to pay Hanson-Young A$120,000 ($93,000) in damages for a series of statements that she said had amounted to sexual discrimination.
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Source: IOL
