Scott Morrison says the South Korea travel ban is in place to afford the best protection and slow down the rate of coronavirus transmission in Australia. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Scott Morrison says the South Korea travel ban is in place to afford the best protection and slow down the rate of coronavirus transmission in Australia. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
We’ll be back when parliament resumes at the end of the month for the last sitting until the budget is handed down in May. It’s back to the general political news pool for me tomorrow, and make sure you check back on the site for all the latest from Katharine Murphy, Mike Bowers, Paul Karp and Sarah Martin, and whatever a zombie-me manages to come up with tomorrow and next week.
A big thank you to everyone who helped keep this show on the road this sitting. It was ROUGH at times, but we got there. You can find me on the twits or the gram if you have a burning question, and you’ll find regular updates on all things politics in both places in between sittings.
As always, thank you very much to everyone who read and came along with us. Please take care of yourself, support your local Chinese if you can, stop being crazy over toilet papers and supplies and wash your hands. And most importantly – take care of you, and those around you.
This is absolutely outrageous. A Liberal minister accuses the first Muslim woman elected to parliament of thinking her diversity is 'better than others' during a debate on the importance of multiculturalism to Australian society #auspolpic.twitter.com/4IdgS3XiJl
Deputy PM Michael McCormack during question time in the House of Representatives in Parliament House Canberra this afternoon. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Everything is fine.
The prime minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg during question time in the House. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Butt-hurt over a letter to the editor
The member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, makes a personal explanation after question time. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Another motion.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese during question time in the House of Representatives. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
“Our 2018 national prevalence survey found that one in every three Australian workers had experienced sexual harassment in the last five years, up from one in five in 2012. We heard throughout the inquiry that workplace sexual harassment is pervasive. It occurs in every industry, in every location and at every level. This is not simply the story of a few bad apples. Women are still most at risk, but we also heard from men who’d been harassed at work ...
“Young people under the age of 30 are at the highest risk, as well as LGBTQI workers, workers with a disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers and migrant workers. We also now understand that some industries and environments create a higher risk of sexual harassment. We heard that gender inequality is the key power disparity that drives sexual harassment, along with other cultural and systemic factors.”
Jenkins noted “new” barriers to combatting sexual harassment including the impact of media reporting, the low rate of union membership and “the numbers of women in employment, if not in leadership”.
“We heard now more than ever making a complaint of sexual harassment can risk a complainant’s income, job prospects, mental health, family wellbeing and community connection.”
Jenkins noted workplace sexual harassment was estimated to cost $3.8bn in 2018.
Just back on the tone policing on Anne Aly from Alex Hawke there – which is what it was, let’s be clear here. Maybe he should consider some of what the Cowan MP has to face every day, as part of her heritage, including this, at the recent election.
Anyone who knows someone who is not white or white-passing, also knows what they personally face in this country on a regular basis.
The proposed Workplace Sexual Harassment Council would be chaired by the sex discrimination commissioner and draw members from the Fair Work Commission and ombudsman, Safe Work Australia and state and territory workplace health and safety and human rights bodies, to be supported by a permanent secretariat.
Jenkins said: “What we found when we looked across Australia is that we do have strong workplace laws and they tend to sit in the safety regime or the Fair Work system, or the human rights system, and there’s state and federal bodies. What we discovered was the system on sexual harassment for individuals, including employers and victims, was quite confusing as to where you go for what complaint. The purpose of that council was not to duplicate or create new bodies but bring those bodies together to ensure on sexual harassment we are all consistent, we understand what we’re trying to do ... and we can create a better system going forward.”
Jenkins noted the terms of reference include a three-year review of changes, and she would like “to have progressed as many [recommendations] as possible” in that period. Other high priorities nominated by Jenkins include:
Regulatory agencies giving out consistent information.
In workplaces, industry initiatives “seem to be where we get the most progress”, Jenkins said. “Industries like the universities, all 39 of them moving on the issue of sexual harassment has no doubt made a difference, we’ve seen it in the legal sector, I understand it’s being considered in the mining sector.”
Primary prevention initiatives, namely “broader education of young people and the broader community”.
Of the 55 recommendations of the landmark sexual harassment at work inquiry report, the sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins,nominated setting up the Workplace Sexual Harassment Council and “the legislative change we’ve proposed – particularly a positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act” as the top priorities. The proposed duty on employers is to “take reasonable steps and proportionate measure to eliminate sex discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation as far as possible”.
Jenkins said: “The refocus to the positive duty was because it was really clear our laws on sexual harassment have really only been triggered when someone makes a complaint, and the evidence was really clear that Australians don’t want to make a complaint, and if they do there is a high risk ... so our stats told us only 17% of people who’ve been harassed make a complaint. So it was really clear relying on the idea this only comes into play if someone complains is a system that will never work.”
Jenkins said employers have responded to a positive duty to create a safe workplace, and the same will apply with respect to sexual harassment. “Employers as a general [rule] have been very well-intentioned about sexual harassment ... but I do think it will be something that they’re comfortable with, in time,” she said.
Ken Wyatt is talking about the measures being taken to stop an outbreak of coronavirus in remote Indigenous communities to Patricia Karvelas on Afternoon Briefing:
In some cases you restrict the number of people visiting a community. Because often you will have public servants from state and commonwealth agencies. You will have tourists going through the area.
Now in discussions I’ve had with communities over a period of time, they will make a decision to shut down an area or will appeal to government agencies not to go out there during the most vulnerable period when the peak of any infection occurs.
... What they want to do is restrict access of entry, which is showing that they’re forward-thinking, they’re understanding what the implications are and they’re making a decision, because the community are doing it with their medical staff and with their community-controlled health services.
But equally, the committee that minister Hunt has established will provide advice for where they believe measures should be taken.
Now in this instance you’ve had a community take the decision themselves. And so they’re going to have a mix of those, Patricia, in the way that they deal with them and I have every confidence in our Indigenous leadership that are working with minister Hunt.
But equally, the chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has flagged as well his concern for vulnerable communities and remote communities, isolated communities for a couple of reasons.
One is their own health but the other is having access to the right people to provide the level of services. It is a good approach by the commonwealth and we’re being proactive.
Liberal MP accuses Anne Aly of having 'chip on shoulder' over diversity
Alex Hawke has attacked Anne Aly in the chamber during a matter of public importance on the strength of multiculturalism for “citing her diversity as being something better than other people’s diversity” and “ignoring reality”.
“[Many MPs] have had a parent or been born here ... myself and when the member opposite likes to cite her diversity than something better than other people’s diversity, she ignores reality.”
“This is outrageous,” Aly can be heard yelling back. Hawke smiles.
The minister for international and Pacific development, who has maternal grandparents from Greece, continued, despite the obvious, obvious discomfort of most of the people in the chamber, including Llew O’Brien, in the Speaker’s chair.
Hawke:
If I have offended you, then I withdraw. But your tone and the words you take into this House ...
... The member for Cowan should reflect that people have come from all parts of Australia, over many years, and just because you are a migrant from one country, doesn’t make you better than from another and the tone that you take, as you enter that debate, that just because you have arrived more recently, or you have more chips on your shoulder, that somehow you are better than others, is exactly the essence of what has happened in this debate from the member of Scullin [Andrew Giles, who introduced the MPI].
Aly was born in Egypt and moved to Australia when she was a young child. She is the first Muslim woman elected to the Australian parliament. She has often spoken of the very real struggle she and her family have experienced with racism and xenophobia.
Hawke’s contribution to this debate *is* outrageous.
The sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, is launching the sexual harassment report.
If you didn’t think workplace harassment was a problem anymore – oh boy. I hope you enjoy your cakes filled with rainbows and butterflies and your rose coloured glasses of privilege.
As Jenkins says:
I met a health executive who had humiliating pornographic comments directed at her. She hoped that she would be able to make her workplace better by complaining.
But instead, she was treated as the problem. Which has made it impossible for her to work in the industry again.
An older male rural worker told me he was touched on his leg and propositioned by his male boss while driving home one night. When he rejected the advance, his contract was terminated and he couldn’t get another job without a reference.
And I spoke with younger workers who told me the best places to work were ones that were respectful, with leaders that were trusted, and where men and women were treated equally.
These experiences speak of the impact that sexual harassment has on the lives of too many Australians – and on our productivity. They show how our laws, workplace practices and community attitudes have contributed to the surprisingly high rates of sexual harassment.
While the same experiences I heard, over and over again, were all different, the message was the same. Australians don’t want to complain about sexual harassment – they just want solutions to make it stop. And that is the purpose of this report – to improve how Australian workplaces prevent and respond to sexual harassment. To provide those solutions.
In the Age newspaper on the second of March, in the letters to the editor section it was represented that my comment, and I quote, “the evidence is clear – young Australians are living at a time when they are safer from climate disasters than any time in human history”, was made without any evidence in support of my statement.
Mr. Speaker, this is incorrect. My statement is in fact supported by evidence, evidence from the emergency events database known as EM-DAT, from the centre of research on [inaudible] on disasters...
And my statement is further supported by analyse of that data by Professor [Bjorn] Lomborg.
Anthony Albanese made a personal explanation at the end of question time in response to the attack from Scott Morrison that he was “too busy having selfies with sports stars” for a coronavirus briefing with Brendan Murphy last week:
Mr. Speaker today in Question Time, the prime minister repeated a claim he’s made outside this house that there was a refusal to have a briefing from the chief medical officer last Wednesday.
That is not true.
The facts of the case is at 7.25pm last Wednesday, the health minister’s office rang the shadow health minister, Chris Bowen, saying that they’d been mixed up in Brendan Murphy’s office, the CMO and that he had arrived at Parliament to give the opposition of briefing.
That briefing went ahead at 7.30pm with the shadow health minister, my chief of staff and my senior health advisor.
At that time, I was with the prime minister at the vigil for Hannah Clarke and her children. That’s where I was when that phone call was made. I was unaware of any of this until the next day. I know it confirmed with Brendan Murphy when I met with the CMO this week, that that was the effect.
Linda Burney is asking about people who have had to self-isolate, who don’t have leave entitlements:
The chief medical officer is recommending people that have potentially been exposed to the virus self-isolate for 14 days.
The health minister has said:
“It doesn’t matter if you’re an Australian citizen, a permanent resident or a visitor from Iran, the message is very clear – you are now required to self-isolate.”
This will be very difficult for people who need to work in order to pay bills and the rent. It will also be difficult if parents have to stay home because schools and child care centres are closed.
People will face a choice between self-isolating and potentially stopping the spread of the virus and earning an income to pay the rent.
Existing payments simply aren’t the answer, given this government has put in place a one week automatic wait for Newstart, AND the government is doubling the liquid asset waiting period for Newstart applicants.
Many aged care, NDIS, transport, retail and hospitality workers are casual and they will be left short changed if they self-isolate. Because they don’t have access to paid sick leave.
Today the UK PM, Boris Johnson, has increased paid sick leave because people should not be, and I quote:
“Penalised for doing the right thing.”
Why isn’t the government doing something similar in Australia?
We have known about the virus for some time now – wouldn’t it be better to act now and prevent it spreading? Rather than waiting to see if it gets worse?
Apparently the government is now looking at options.
Foreign nationals (excluding permanent residents of Australia) who are in the Republic of Korea on or after today will not be allowed to enter Australia for 14 days from the time they have left or transited through the Republic of Korea.
Australian citizens and permanent residents will still be able to enter Australia, as will their immediate family members (spouses, legal guardians or dependants only). They will be required to self-isolate at home for 14 days from the day they left the Republic of Korea.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will raise the level of the travel advisory for the Republic of Korea to ‘reconsider your need to travel’ (level 3 of 4) up from ‘exercise a high degree of caution’ (level 2).
The level of the travel advice will also be raised to ‘do not travel’ to Daegu (level 4 of 4) because of the significant outbreak of Covid-19 there. People in the Republic of Korea should monitor their health closely and follow the advice of local authorities.
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