Australian parliament staff report workplace offenses as it seeks to address sexual harassment

By Reuters November 9, 2024 | 10:09 pm PT

A general view of the forecourt of Australia's Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on Oct. 16, 2017. Photo by Reuters

Staff at Australia's parliament made 30 complaints of serious workplace offenses such as sexual assault over nine months, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Sunday, as the legislature struggles to address a wave of scandals.

The Parliamentary Workplace Support Service opened in October 2023 as a confidential service for federal parliament workers. It received 30 reports of serious wrongdoing out of 339 total cases in its initial nine months of operation, October 2023 to June 2024, the newspaper said.

The claims of serious wrongdoing included sexual assault, stalking and intimidation, the newspaper said. It did not say whether any of the cases had been referred to police or were being prosecuted.

The service was established after a 2021 government report found one in three people working in Australia's parliament, located in the capital Canberra, experienced sexual harassment.

In 2023, an Australian senator said she had been followed, aggressively propositioned and inappropriately touched by another senator.

The service did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of business hours.

In April, an Australian judge found that a former government adviser raped a colleague in a Parliament House office, dismissing a defamation suit in a case that gripped the nation, which experienced a wave of #MeToo allegations in 2022.