THE Nationals’ Member for Mallee Anne Webster says she was left “gob-smacked” and “speechless” following a conversation that led to her lodging a sexual harassment complaint with the party hierarchy.
Dr Webster said the alleged verbal sexual harassment by the unidentified man in the House of Representatives chamber during sitting time had outraged her staff and family and left her in a “stupefied place for a little while”.
She sad there were four people present when the offending remarks were made by the colleague, who has since apologised to the Mallee MP.
“I thought ‘you cannot possibly be saying this to me right now’,” Dr Webster said.
“Honestly, I was speechless and when I came out and told my staff member they were angry and outraged, when I told my husband he was just horrified and his question was ‘Where has he been? Has he been living under a rock?’
“My adult kids were angry and outraged — it’s fair to say it was not acceptable on any level.”
Dr Webster said the alleged behaviour was “somewhat gob-smacking given the environment that we’re all currently walking through”, following weeks of inner turmoil and allegations of sexual assault and harassment.
She said she had been asked by Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack several weeks ago to be a point of contact for staff, former staff and parliamentary members to assist them through the process if they wished to make a complaint about inappropriate behaviour.
“I was just in this stupefied place for a little while and wasn’t quite sure what I would do with it … and then of course those processes that I’m encouraging other people to take became apparent to me again,” she said.
“The person who the issue was about called me and apologised and said that wouldn’t happen again, so I’ve taken that on face value, but it’s certainly been a wake-up call in terms of processes.
“I’m now leaving it to those who have leadership to follow through appropriately and my conversation with the person is done as far as I’m concerned.”
Dr Webster said that while she would not have wished to have to have had the experience, it had been useful to go through the process herself.
But she said the experience had highlighted the issue about inappropriate behaviour both within parliament and the outside world as well as what processes were needed to help to change culture.
“In the past six weeks there has been an awful lot of ‘my giddy aunt, what are we doing?’ in terms of have we got processes?” she said.
“Yes, we do, but for me this is about changing culture, not just in Parliament House — it is beyond that.
“It’s not OK. We’re done, we’re done with this … and we (parliamentarians) need to lead from the front.”
Dr Webster said Prime Minister Scott Morrison had had an unenviable task to manage “things that are coming out of the woodwork”.
“This has been a significant issue that must be addressed,” she said.
“This occurs in every walk of life and women across the country are saying ‘enough’.
“We need men stepping up and stepping forward and calling it out when they see it as opposed to laughing about it and women having the courage to recognise that because we speak up we are not the problem.
“We need to adjust our thinking about welcoming the spotlight shining on these areas.”
Dr Webster acknowledged that forcing a change of attitude would not be a simple process.
“It is incredibly ridiculous to make something that is so complex a simple ‘just do this and it will solve it’, it’s not like that — there is no panacea,” she said.
“It’s the same in every office space — there’s just the odd person who, for whatever reason, can’t seem to get on the program of respectful relationships.
“But unless we start calling this behaviour out, it will go on and people who behave that way will continue to think it’s OK.”
