Collaboration is making Parliament House a safer workplace, Jenkins tells Comcare

Former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins is adamant that Parliament House is a much safer place for women to work since the release of her groundbreaking independent review of Commonwealth workplaces.

Addressing the Comcare National Conference before an audience largely made up of public servants in Canberra on Tuesday (20 August), Ms Jenkins said one big key to bringing about change was that all sides of politics agreed it needed to happen.

Her 2021 report, Set the Standard, explored the culture of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault at Parliament House.

The report made 28 recommendations, which the government committed to implementing.

But before that report, Ms Jenkins conducted the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces, resulting in the Respect@Work Report.

That inquiry found sexual harassment to be a pervasive issue in Australian workplaces and set out 55 recommendations addressed to federal, state and territory governments, as well as employers and industry groups, to prevent and address sexual harassment at work.

“The most important finding was that the system for dealing with sexual harassment had really been a system of responding to sexual harassment,” Ms Jenkins told the Comcare conference in her keynote address.

“When we talked with managers about what they were doing in dealing with sexual harassment, they would say, ‘We’ve got a policy, we’ve got training, and we’ve got a complaints procedure’.

“The focus wasn’t ‘it’s your job to prevent sexual harassment’. Often, it was, ‘It’s your job to prevent complaints’ or, in more recent times, ‘it’s your job to really make this a place where people feel comfortable to complain’.

“If your focus is on after people complain about psychosocial concern, then your focus is not on preventing it.

“A lot of leaders are panicking about sexual harassment and wondering, ‘Why don’t people come forward?’ when it should be ‘Why is this happening and what can we do to make a difference?’”

Specifically, in her review of parliament, Ms Jenkins said the reality was that there was a “moment in time” when the government and the opposition of the day agreed there was a workplace dysfunction that needed addressing.

“Both parties wanted this inquiry. They said to us that workplace needs help because they knew that some of this behaviour had become very normalised,” Ms Jenkins said.

“There are drivers across all workplaces, but there are also always some industry-specific factors at play.”

Ms Jenkins, a lawyer who also chairs the Australian Sports Commission and who continues to champion reforms for equality and improved workplace behaviour, said the inquiry and its report made a difference.

The Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce – which includes Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Greens and independent parliamentarians – got straight to work implementing change.

Among other initiatives in response to the Set the Standard report, the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service was established as an independent statutory agency.

It provides support and resources to professionalise management practices in offices; access to coaching and early intervention supports, including policy, process, and guidance to manage suspension and termination decisions; and training and guidance for the implementation of the code of conduct and behavioural standards.

Its chief executive officer is not subject to direction by any person in relation to the functions of the service.

In sharing her insights on leadership and better approaches to guiding critical workplace cultural change, Ms Jenkins said a workplace culture isn’t necessarily bad or good, it’s how a workplace operates that matters.

She said Parliament House still has work to do to improve the safety of all those who work there, but it is already far safer for employees than it was just a few years ago.

“While the media might sometimes report that nothing has changed, I assure you that things have changed significantly,” she said.

“Does that mean it is perfect? No, it does not. But there is a collaboration on this that has brought about changes.

“You know the old saying, ‘if you want to go fast go alone, but if you want to go far go together.”

The Comcare National Conference continues today (21 August).