Gleeso: It’s not just male LNP MPs scarred by allegations of sexual harassment — Labor must be in the spotlight too

When it comes to sexual harassment in Canberra, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, but don’t expect it to remain so politically one-sided, writes Peter Gleeson.

How dare the Left lecture us about sexual discrimination and harassment in the workplace. How dare Labor preach about the evils of misogyny and inappropriate behaviour against women.

How dare GetUp give us bald-faced lies and platitudes about the way it treated South Australian MP Nicolle Flint, waging a jihad against the poor woman which has contributed to her leaving politics way too early. This is not a binary debate.

GetUp’s harassment of Nicolle Flint contributed to her abandoning her political career. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

The conservatives have far from a mortgage on poor workplace behaviour in politics. In fact, when it comes to sexual harassment at Parliament House in Canberra, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. The question now is – which major political party will be scarred most by the claims and allegations being made against MPs and male staffers?

Clearly, the allegations against Christian Porter, which he’s denied, has hurt the LNP.

The fact that he is pursuing defamation action against the ABC is a clever move. Porter will now get his day in court but on his terms with possibly the best defamation legal team in the country.

In what is shaping up to be one of the hot button political issues of our time, there’s one burning question doing the corridors of power in Canberra that hasn’t been answered thus far. Where is the sisterhood on the sickening and abhorrent allegations doing the rounds against Labor politicians? Are we likely to see an ABC special investigation into claims from former Labor staffer Anna Jabour about the toxic sexual harassment culture which clearly pervades the ALP?

Australia's attorney general Christian Porter leaves a press conference after he outed himself as the unnamed cabinet minister accused of raping a 16-year-old girl. Picture: Stefan Gosatti / AFP

Are we likely to see the same treatment we saw meted out to Porter and Alan Tudge in a recent Four Corners report, which accused them of inappropriate sexual behaviour?

Don’t hold your breath.

Prima facie, the claims made in a group chat by female Labor staffers is confronting and revolting. The women claim they were subjected to sex without proper consent, power imbalances and forced kisses, aimed at current and former Labor staffers. They have vowed that they can no longer “keep their secrets’’, listing abhorrent accusations, including those of a man who punches the wall next to his female staffer’s head calling her a “f---ing c —t” when she passes on news he doesn’t want to hear.

Another man calls his female colleague a “pig dog” when she disagrees with him and says in front of her staff “that’s why no one wants to f —k you”.

Member for Sydney Tanya Plibersek wipes away a tear at the March4Justice protest in Canberra. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

Another man who says he’d “never f —k a woman without a thigh gap” and a married man who plied a young woman with drinks until she had no idea what was happening. He promised others at the gathering he would get her home safely but before putting her in the cab he had sex with her when she had no ability to consent.

The next day he texted to demand she take the morning after pill and blamed her for what happened saying she was so drunk that she came onto him. He threatened “tell no one”.

There’s a married man who harasses a female staffer by sending her over 50 text messages in a night asking her to meet him, to have sex with him and when he hears nothing back sends aggressive texts warning her not to tell anyone he’s contacted her. There’s the married man who begs “Please don’t tell my wife. It won’t happen again.”

Brittany Higgins was right to blow the whistle on poor workplace behaviour, including alleged rape, in the office of a federal Liberal minister. So too Anna Jabour has demonstrated courage and conviction for exposing similar behaviour in Labor circles.

Poor behaviour by male politicians is party agnostic. With the genie out of the bottle, expect the blowtorch to get even hotter – on both sides of the political fence.