Brittany Higgins’ public rape claims — again, not the alleged rape itself, just her going public with it — has sparked a flurry of activity from the Liberal Party.
Member for Curtin Celia Hammond will review workplace culture and work with party whips and MPs to improve workplace standards and protect staff; deputy secretary of governance and public service reform Stephanie Foster will also look at the formal processes and links between the Department of Finance and parliamentary staff.
Why weren’t these processes established after the [email protected] report was released last year, and why has an internal figure been appointed to review complaints instead of an independent body?
Who is Celia Hammond?
Hammond was elected to the House of Representatives for Curtin, Western Australia, in 2019 after Julie Bishop resigned. Her appointment was somewhat controversial. Bishop reportedly wanted a moderate to replace her and clashed with then-finance minister Mathias Cormann over supporting Hammond, a conservative Catholic.
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Before joining politics, Hammond was a legal practitioner, law lecturer, and vice-chancellor at Notre Dame University in Fremantle. During her time as vice-chancellor, she led its response to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2017 report on sexual assault and harassment at universities, the key reason Prime Minister Scott Morrison picked her to look into Liberal Party culture.
The survey found 32% of NDU students reported being sexually harassed at the university or while travelling to and from the institution in 2016, and 1.1% had been assaulted on campus.
Despite representing an electorate that overwhelmingly supports marriage equality, Hammond has clashed with the LGBTIQ community during her time at NDU. She was accused of dragging her feet on a review into policies and practices which affected LGBTIQ students in 2016.
In 2017 Hammond sent an email to the student organisation at the Catholic university. In it she described the rainbow pride flag as politically charged, and didn’t approve of it being displayed on any other parts of the campus. Generously, she allowed two postage-stamp-sized flags to be shown in the student organisation’s windows.
She has also criticised sex before marriage, contraception, and abortion, labelling feminism as “anti-tradition, anti-men, anti-society, anti-family” and as being associated with “anti-everything agitators”.
Is her appointment appropriate?
Hammond’s and Foster’s appointments have drawn criticism: Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and Labor’s spokesperson for women, Tanya Plibersek, called for the review to be genuinely independent and led by an outside expert.
Research has shown parliamentary staff have found making complaints is too risky as it may affect their employment or perceived loyalty to the party.
Eleanor Campbell, from Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, tells Crikey there are plenty of intersectional feminists trained in trauma-informed policy well-placed to lead the review — and action is more important than more analysis.
“There are enough resources in society to respond without more fact-finding,” she said, although she welcomed the opportunity for women to be able to share their experiences.
“Reporting to a person in power at an organisation might not be a viable way to address and report these issues.
“There are issues around prevention. What is actively being done to prevent sexual violence in the workplace? What [the government’s response] speaks to is motivation.”
Has the Liberal Party implemented [email protected] recommendations?
The landmark inquiry into workplace sexual harassment delivered its report last year. It deems all workplace sexual harassment as a form of gender-based violence.
The inquiry, led by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, recommended governments have strategies to prevent violence against women based on national framework Change the Story.
It also recommended the government ratifies the International Labour Organisation’s Convention on Violence and Harassment in the world of work — which still hasn’t happened.
The prime minister’s office didn’t respond to Crikey’s questions about whether appointing an internal MP to review workplace culture was appropriate. It also didn’t respond to questions around which, if any, recommendations had been implemented from [email protected]
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Celia Hammond is exactly what Morrison wants. A tough, no-nonsense puritan who will slap the hysterical victims, tell them to stop whining and think of the Party, and who can advise the offending males on how to best to cover up the problem.
Perhaps she can convert him Frank so that he as the added bonus of the confessional.
All very Trump like behaviour. Stack with the person who will get the result you want
just what the enquiry needs, a raging papist/reactionary MP.. Scotty from Marketing has done it again.
He must have taken advice from Sir Humphrey of Yes Minister.
According to the myth peddled by the media, Morrison is a centrist who is dragged to the right by that wing of the party. They give his words more credence than his actions.
Perhaps Celia Hammond can stretch far enough outside her comfort zone to craft a statement like “Don’t rape your workmates.”
It’s wholly, wholly inappropriate. Not only it’s the fox guarding the henhouse situation, but with views like these which can not be squared into the Australian mainstream social views it’s an absolute disgrace and yet another message that they see this is a political issue only.
Perhaps she can appoint Bettina Arndt as her sidekick as icing on the cake.
I get putting someone like that on because it limits the worry of activist recommendations and accusations that night undermine the findings. They’re interested in a solution that’s gonna fit their side of politics. And if the bleeding heart lefties don’t think it’s enough, well that’s on them for making it political.
Whether the review will deliver meaningful and necessary changes is the danger of going partisan, but I can’t imagine that’ll trouble many of those who are more concerned about it getting out than that it happened.
Gee Kel, you’ll have to explain to me how the ‘bleeding heart lefties’ made it (the alleged rape) political. Perhaps I’m thick.
I think Kel is saying that when the report comes out it will not go far enough, and those who say so will be accused of politicising the situation.
I’m sure the confusion is on my end – that I didn’t express clearly enough that
I was talking about how the inevitable report from this process will almost certainly become a political asset from the right, with its (predictably) weak recommendations being an asset in the right’s culture wars. This is because the inevitable reaction to its inadequacies will bring the accusation that those on the left – the bleeding heart lefties – are making it political.
Whereas we already understand it as political, hence the appointment of a politically-convenient judge in this case.
It’s the same way that it’s always a “class war” when those Marxist unionist agitators bring up inequality, but it’s not when tax cuts for the wealthy are passed.