Is this Australia’s turning point on sexual harassment, assault?

Canberra, Australia – Australian politics appears set to face a reckoning after a wave of allegations of sexual assault and harassment committed by multiple politicians and staff at Parliament House in the country’s capital.

Allegations have so far been made against a male political staffer, alleged to have raped a female colleague in 2019, against Attorney-General Christian Porter, accused of sexually assaulting a female acquaintance when both were teenagers in 1988; and against a senior aide of a member of parliament, alleged to have sexually harassed several teenage girls.

“The 1990s saw a sudden rise in women in parliament, but even now, only a quarter of politicians are women,” Blair Williams, a research fellow at The Australian National University’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, told Al Jazeera.

“Our parliaments are about representation for men, by men. It is a toxic culture that excludes women, resulting in the enabling of what we’ve seen recently.”

Just weeks after child sexual abuse survivor Grace Tame was named Australian of the Year, former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins went public with allegations that she was raped in Parliament House in March 2019.

Higgins had just begun working for minister Linda Reynolds at the time. Less than a month into her role, Higgins says a senior male staffer assaulted her on a couch in Reynolds’ ministerial office late at night. The man was fired the following week for what Reynolds, who is now defence minister, described as a security breach.

Two issues are at the heart of this initial scandal: first, how a young woman could be raped inside Parliament House itself, and second, how the ruling Liberal Party handled the incident.

Higgins said she received little support and was made to feel that reporting the incident to the police would end her career and negatively affect the election that was just a few months away.

Three other women have since come forward with allegations against the same man.

Attorney-general faces questions

Barely a fortnight after Higgins made her allegations, Parliament House was rocked again. This time, a senior minister was accused of raping a 16-year-old woman during a debating competition trip in 1988.

The man was initially not named in the media due to Australia’s strong defamation laws, but after days of rumour, Attorney-General Christian Porter identified himself as the accused. Porter would have been 17 years old at the time of the incident.

Both Porter and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have repeatedly rejected the allegations. Morrison has also so far refused to hold an independent inquiry into whether Porter is a fit and proper person to hold the position of attorney-general, the nation’s first law officer.

“[Porter] is a fine attorney-general,” Morrison told the media on Wednesday. “He is an innocent man under the law.”

Porter’s accuser committed suicide in June 2019, meaning the allegations cannot be taken to a criminal court. Similar problems were encountered during the trial of former Melbourne Archbishop George Pell for child sexual abuse, in which one of two alleged victims had also taken their own life.

Meanwhile, allegations have also emerged against Frank Zumbo, a senior aide to Craig Kelly, an MP for the Liberals. Six young women have made formal police complaints against Zumbo, saying he was physically and verbally inappropriate with them.

One woman, Anna Hobson, was just 16 years old when she interned in Zumbo’s office. Hobson told ABC Australia that young female interns were required to greet Zumbo with hugs and kisses, and that he inappropriately touched her on multiple occasions.

Parliament’s working culture

Zumbo has denied all allegations but has been under police investigation since April 2019. An apprehended violence order that forbids him from going within 100 metres of one former intern has already been granted.

The Morrison government has now appointed Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins to lead a review into parliament’s working culture. She is expected to file a preliminary report by July and the full findings by November.

“In my time working in this area and particularly looking in workplaces over the 30 years, I’ve never seen any moment like this,” Jenkins said in an interview with the ABC.

“We’re at a turning point.”

Accusations that Australia’s political culture is sexist and unsafe for women are nothing new. In October 2012, then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard accused then-Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of sexist behaviour towards her. Gillard was frequently targeted not only for being a woman, but also for being unmarried and not having children.

“I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man; I will not,” Gillard said in her famous speech. “If he [Abbott] wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror.”

Gillard made the speech not long after the speaker of the house, Peter Slipper, was accused of sending sexually explicit messages to a male aide. Slipper later resigned.

Toxic environment

Experts say women’s participation in Australian politics has never been truly welcomed, and that has contributed to the continued toxic environment.

ANU’s Williams points towards a viral petition from current and former students in the state of New South Wales that is calling for education on sexual consent to start earlier. Thousands of women’s testimonies on the petition say they were sexually assaulted and harassed by students of boys-only private and selective schools.

“These schools are where the men becoming politicians are coming from,” Williams explained.

“It’s no wonder what happens at Parliament House, seeing as it happens that the schools that channel men to Parliament House.

“Men want to be in charge, so they create supporting institutions and networks that foster men’s power over others,” she added.

“Porter has wanted to be PM since he was a child … it’s fostered in them that they’re there to rule over others.”

‘Boys’ clubs’

Women’s rights advocates across the country have expressed their dismay that institutional cultures supporting sexual violence still exist in Australia in 2021.

“We can’t just rely on politicians alone to regulate themselves and make parliaments safe,” said Tanja Kovac, CEO of Gender Equity Victoria.

“If parliaments continue to ignore the ways in which they entrench gender inequality by their own conduct and rules, we will continue to see cultural problems leading to sexual and gendered violence.”

The Greens’ Spokesperson for Women, Larissa Waters, agrees that the government needs to do more to change institutional tendencies towards becoming “boys’ clubs”.

“Mr Porter’s statement is a message to all survivors of sexual assault and rape that this government does not believe them. It will have a chilling effect on survivors and will almost certainly dissuade others from coming forward,” Waters said.

At the March 3 press conference where he tearfully denied all accusations, Porter said he had “always followed the rules” and said he was being unfairly targeted.

“If I stand down from my position as attorney-general because of an allegation about something that simply did not happen, then any person in Australia can lose their career, their job, their life’s work, based on nothing more than an accusation that appears in print,” Porter said.

“My guess is that if I were to resign and that set a new standard, there wouldn’t be much need for an attorney-general anyway, because there would be no rule of law left to protect in this country.”

Sexual harassment and violence is rife across all areas of Australian life.

One in two women and one in four men have been sexually harassed in Australia, according to the 2016 Personal Safety Survey.

In 2017, police recorded 25,000 victims of sexual assault, while data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that 17 percent of women had experienced sexual violence.

Indigenous activists say no one should really be surprised at the allegations of sexual violence now being made against Australia’s political class.

“This country is unsafe for women, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary people. Even more so if you are transgender, have no money or are Aboriginal, and the Prime Minister’s comments reinforce the toxic culture that made this happen,” wrote Indigenous activist Meriki Onus in IndigenousX.

“Those that seek to silence us fail to see how related all facets of violence and injustice are and the origins of them in this country. The predatory sexual violence that we see happening [today], started with colonisers.”

ANU’s Williams is also keen emphasise that sexual violence is not limited to one political party alone, nor just to politics itself.

“It’s a wider societal problem of rape culture, misogyny and the patriarchy,” she said.

“These are the issues we need to tackle at all stages of life, from young childhood, to get the message across that sexual violence is not OK.”

Nationwide protests are planned for March 14 and 15, including at Parliament House, Canberra.

Thousands of people are expected to join.

“The current uprising is something I thought I would never live to see,” said Biff Ward, a women’s activist since the 1970s who will be speaking at the Canberra march.

“Every wave does something profound that builds on what has come before.”

这是澳大利亚在性骚扰，性侵犯上的转折点吗？

澳大利亚堪培拉–在该国首都国会大厦的多名政治人物和工作人员对性侵犯和性骚扰的指控浪潮过后，澳大利亚的政治似乎将面临沉思。

迄今为止，已指控一名男性政治工作人员，据称于2019年强奸了一位女同事，还指控总检察长克里斯蒂安·波特（Christian Porter），后者被指控在1988年都是少年时对女性熟人进行性侵犯；并反对据称对几个少女进行性骚扰的国会议员的高级助手。

澳大利亚国立大学全球女性领导力研究所研究员布莱尔·威廉姆斯（Blair Williams）告诉半岛电视台：“ 1990年代，议会中的女性突然增多，但直到现在，只有四分之一的政治人物是女性。”

“我们的议会是关于男子代表。这是一种排斥妇女的有毒文化，导致我们最近所看到的成为可能。”

儿童性虐待幸存者格蕾丝·坦姆（Grace Tame）被评为年度澳大利亚人仅几周后，前自由党工作人员布列塔尼·希金斯（Brittany Higgins）公开指控她于2019年3月在国会大厦被强奸。

希金斯当时刚刚开始为部长琳达·雷诺兹（Linda Reynolds）工作。希金斯上任不到一个月，她说一位高级男职员在深夜袭击了她在雷诺兹部长办公室的沙发上。该名男子下周因现任国防部长雷诺德（Reynolds）所说的安全漏洞而被解雇。

最初的丑闻有两个问题：第一，如何在国会大厦内部强奸一名年轻女子，第二，执政的自由党如何处理这一事件。

希金斯说，她得到的支持很少，并且让她感到向警察举报该事件将终止她的职业生涯，并对距离几个月后的选举产生负面影响。

此后，另外三名妇女提出了针对同一男子的指控。

总检察长面临问题

在希金斯提出指控后的短短两周，国会大厦再次被震撼。这次，一位高级部长被指控在1988年的一次辩论比赛中强奸了一名16岁的女人。

由于澳大利亚严格的诽谤法，该名男子最初并未在媒体上被指名，但经过几天的谣言，司法部长克里斯蒂安·波特（Christian Porter）认定自己是被告。事件发生时，波特本来应该17岁。

波特和总理斯科特·莫里森都一再拒绝指控。到目前为止，莫里森还拒绝就波特是否是担任美国第一任司法部长的总检察长的合适人选进行独立调查。

“ [波特]是一名优秀的总检察长，”莫里森周三对媒体说。“根据法律，他是一个无辜的人。”

波特的原告于2019年6月自杀，这意味着这些指控无法提交刑事法院。在前墨尔本大主教乔治·佩尔（George Pell）对儿童进行性虐待的审判中，也遇到了类似的问题，两名据称受害者中的一名也自杀了。

同时，针对自由党议员克雷格·凯利（Craig Kelly）的高级助手弗兰克·赞博（Frank Zumbo）也提出了指控。六名年轻妇女对Zumbo进行了正式的警察投诉，称他对Zumbo身体和语言上都不适当。

安娜·霍布森（Anna Hobson）的一名妇女在Zumbo的办公室实习时才16岁。霍布森告诉澳洲广播公司（ABC Australia），要求年轻的女实习生拥抱和亲吻Zumbo，并且他多次不适当地抚摸她。

议会的工作文化

Zumbo否认了所有指控，但自2019年4月以来一直在接受警方调查。一份被禁止的暴力令已被禁止，禁止他进入一名前实习生的100米范围之内。

莫里森政府现已任命性别歧视专员凯特·詹金斯（Kate Jenkins）领导对议会工作文化的审查。预计她将在7月份提交初步报告，在11月份提交全部调查结果。

詹金斯在接受美国广播公司（ABC）采访时说：“在我从事这一领域的工作期间，尤其是在过去30年中，我从未见过这样的时刻。”

“我们正处于一个转折点。”

指责澳大利亚的政治文化是性别歧视并且对妇女不安全的指控并不新鲜。2012年10月，时任总理朱莉亚·吉拉德（Julia Gillard）指责时任反对党领袖托尼·阿伯特（Tony Abbott）对她的性别歧视行为。吉拉德（Gillard）经常不仅是成为女性的目标，而且还因为未婚和没有孩子而成为目标。

“这个男人不会教我有关性别歧视和厌女症的；我不会。”吉拉德在她著名的演讲中说。“如果他（阿博特）想知道现代澳大利亚的厌女症是什么样，那么他不需要在众议院提出议案，就需要一面镜子。”

吉拉德（Gillard）在众议院议长彼得·斯利珀（Peter Slipper）被指控向男性助手发送性暗示信息后不久发表讲话。拖鞋后来辞职了。

有毒环境

专家说，从未真正欢迎妇女参与澳大利亚政治，这造成了持续的有毒环境。

澳大利亚国立大学的威廉姆斯指出，新南威尔士州现任和前任学生的病毒式请愿书要求对性同意的教育提早开始。成千上万名妇女在请愿书中的证词说，她们受到男生私立和精选学校学生的性侵犯和骚扰。

威廉姆斯解释说：“这些学校正是那些成为政治家的人来自的地方。”

“难怪在国会大厦发生了什么事，因为看到了将人引导到国会大厦的学校。

她补充说：“男人想负责，所以他们创建了支持机构和网络，以增强男人对他人的力量。”

“波特从小就一直想成为PM。。。他们的内心深处是，他们在那里统治着别人。”

“男孩俱乐部”

全国各地的妇女权利倡导者对2021年澳大利亚仍然存在支持性暴力的体制文化表示沮丧。

Gender Equity Victoria首席执行官Tanja Kovac表示：“我们不能仅仅依靠政客来规范自己和确保议会安全。”

“如果议会继续以自己的行为和规则无视他们加剧性别不平等的方式，我们将继续看到导致性暴力和性别暴力的文化问题。”

绿党妇女发言人拉里萨·沃特斯（Larissa Waters）同意，政府需要做更多的工作来改变体制倾向，以成为“男孩俱乐部”。

波特先生的声明是向所有性侵犯和强奸幸存者传达的信息，即本届政府不相信他们。它将对幸存者产生令人生畏的影响，几乎可以肯定会阻止其他人挺身而出。”沃特斯说。

在3月3日的新闻发布会上，波特含泪地否认了所有指控，波特说他“一直遵守规则”，并说自己遭到了不公正的攻击。

“如果我因为对某件事根本没有发生的指控而从总检察长的职位上退下来，那么在澳大利亚，任何人都可能会基于一项指控而失去自己的职业，工作和一生的工作。印刷中，”波特说。

“我的猜测是，如果我辞职并设定了新的标准，那么总的来说就不会有总检察长的需要，因为在这个国家，没有法律可以保护。”

性骚扰和暴力在澳大利亚生活的各个领域都盛行。

根据2016年《个人安全调查》，澳大利亚有两分之一的女性和四分之一的男性受到性骚扰。

2017年，警方记录了25,000名性侵犯的受害者，而澳大利亚卫生与福利研究所的数据发现，有17％的妇女经历了性暴力。

土著活动家说，现在没有人会对澳大利亚政治阶层遭到性暴力指控感到惊讶。

“这个国家对妇女，性别不符合和非二元化的人来说是不安全的。如果您是变性人，没有钱或原住民，则更是如此。总理的言论加强了造成这种情况的有毒文化。”土著活动家Meriki Onus在IndigenousX中写道。

“那些试图让我们保持沉默的人无法看到暴力和不公正的所有方面之间的相关性以及它们在这个国家的起源。我们今天看到的掠夺性性暴力始于殖民者。”

澳大利亚国立大学的威廉姆斯还敏锐地强调，性暴力不仅限于一个政党，也不仅限于政治本身。

她说：“这是强奸文化，厌女症和父权制的更广泛的社会问题。”

“这些是我们从小就必须在生活的各个阶段解决的问题，以使人们明白，性暴力是行不通的。”

全国抗议活动计划于3月14日至15日在堪培拉的国会大厦举行。

预计将有成千上万的人加入。

自从1970年代开始担任女性活动家的比夫·沃德（Biff Ward）表示：“目前的起义令我以为我永远活不下去。”

“每一次浪潮都基于过去的成就做出了深刻的贡献。”