Australia’s parliament faces serious complaints

Sexual assault, stalking and intimidation: 30 complaints filed in Australia’s parliament workplace

SYDNEY:

Over a nine-month period, staff at Australia’s parliament filed 30 complaints of serious workplace offences, including sexual assault, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The complaints were made to the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, which was set up in October 2023 as a confidential support service for federal parliament workers.

The service received a total of 339 cases between October 2023 and June 2024, with 30 involving serious allegations, such as sexual assault, stalking, and intimidation. The article did not clarify whether any cases had been referred to the police or were under prosecution.

The service was created following a 2021 government report revealing that one in three parliament workers had experienced sexual harassment. In 2023, an Australian senator reported being followed, propositioned, and touched inappropriately by another senator.

In April 2023, an Australian judge convicted a former government adviser of raping a colleague in a Parliament House office, dismissing a defamation suit. The case drew national attention amid the wave of #MeToo allegations in 2022. The service did not provide comments outside of business hours.