Australian Politics Has a Sexual Harassment Problem

This article originally appeared on VICE Australia.

Australian politics is full of smart, ambitious women. Female staffers and advisors work hard behind the scenes, but the people in charge—the MPs, the ministers, and the party bosses—are still overwhelmingly men. This power imbalance creates a toxic culture wherein women feel they can't speak out about sexual harassment for fear of jeopardizing their careers. I know this because I worked in politics.

During my time as a staffer for the Greens, I heard stories of serious sexual harassment committed by high profile people across the political spectrum. None of them was ever made public. Once a state MP's chief of staff was accused of harassing and stalking a female employee and even breaking into her home. He eventually left his job but never faced disciplinary action. Speak to almost anyone involved in Australian politics and he or she will tell you the same thing: What's been publicly reported is only the tip of the iceberg.

According to nearly a dozen current and former staffers, party officials, and MPs I spoke to for this story, a powerful protection racket exists designed to shield politicians and power brokers in all the major political parties from claims of sexual harassment. It's just standard procedure when a woman speaks up about inappropriate behavior.

One former staffer, who had complained about harassment by her boss, explained to me that, "As a staffer you're expected to put up with anything. You're exempt from workplace protections. You have your job because of loyalty but it's often loyalty that goes one way."

In politics, victims of harassment are regularly hushed by senior figures in their parties, who are the people they work for and look up to. Even if there's no direct order to not talk, most staffers and MPs told me they always have the impression they couldn't go public without risking getting fired. "It's all about loyalty," one said. "If you make a complaint you're disloyal, and you will be accused of making it up."

The fear of backlash is widespread. Almost all of the women I spoke to didn't want to speak on the record, because of the way they've seen other women treated by politicians and the media.

When staffer Stefanie Jones first accused former NSW Labor General Secretary Jamie Clements of harassment, she had no idea it would spark an internal brawl that would go all the way to the top of the ALP. Jones alleged that Clements entered her workplace after hours, prevented her from leaving, and demanded she kiss him. (Clements has never been charged and denies the allegations.) Only one Labor MP, Lynda Voltz, spoke up to publicly defend Jones and to demand Clements stand aside for an independent investigation.

Voltz told me that too many Labor politicians relied on Jamie Clements and the power he wielded for their jobs, and that's why they were unwilling to speak out. "MPs won't speak up in order to protect themselves. Certain politicians are only there because of Jamie Clements." Voltz said. "It goes on unabated. Women are vulnerable because when you have a dynamic as you do in politics there's a power imbalance."

Eventually the matter came to a head when Jones gave a tell-all interview to the Daily Telegraph, detailing the way powerful party figures attempted to shut her down and "make it go away." On the day Jones went public, Bill Shorten demanded Clements' resignation. But the allegations against Clements had been publicized in major media outlets for months. There is no way that Shorten, or any other Labor official, didn't know about them before the story broke.

Although NSW Labor is now considering better ways to deal with future allegations, everyone I spoke to inside the party agreed the damage was already done. Other women have been deterred from making sexual harassment claims against senior Labor officials, one source told me. They were scared off by the way Jones was treated. "What woman would ever come forward after what happened to Stefanie?" another added.

From what I saw in politics it's almost always the men who decide what should happen when a female employee complains about inappropriate behavior. Men who are statistically far less likely to ever face sexual harassment themselves.

While the Clements saga played out, another Jamie stirred controversy, this time on the Liberal side of the aisle. In late 2015, a 26-year-old female DFAT staffer made accusations of inappropriate behavior against Jamie Briggs, whose biggest political achievement to date was breaking that expensive marble table at Abbott's rowdy goodbye party. Following an internal investigation, Briggs was forced to resign but unfortunately the story didn't end there. He responded by texting a photo of the woman to "a few colleagues" after she made a formal complaint. The photos found their way to media along with anonymous comments suggesting the whole thing was a conspiracy designed to denigrate Briggs. Sound familiar?

When news broke that a Liberal minister was embroiled in a harassment scandal, the Labor party was eager to speak out about the issue but remained largely silent about the fact Jamie Clements, its own senior party official, also stood accused. There's no desire in any party to actually act on this issue, only to use it as a political football and score points against opponents.

Of course, sexual harassment isn't limited to politicians but, speaking from personal experience, politics is a unique workplace. There's constant intense media scrutiny and a level of loyalty demanded from staffers that you wouldn't experience in many other jobs. This all plays out against the background that the accused MPs are those we trust to make laws, including those that should protect people from sexual harassment. For every story we read about in the news, you can guarantee that there are more that haven't made it out there. Most businesses now have policies in place on dealing with incidents of sexual harassment. In politics, the only rule is protecting your own.

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