Karen Andrews says gender quotas need to be considered

A female Morrison government minister says she’s had an ‘absolute gutful’ of misogynistic behaviour within Parliament House.

A cabinet minister says she’s had an “absolute gutful” of sexist behaviour in parliament and declared the Coalition should give serious consideration to gender quotas.

Parliament House has been rocked by a slew of allegations over men’s mistreatment of women, ranging from rape allegations to sex scandals.

Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said on Tuesday she would no longer be silent.

“I have had an absolute gutful and my conscience will not allow me to remain quiet,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

“While the spotlight has definitely been on behaviours within this building in Canberra, we should not lose sight of the fact that there are numerous stories of many women right across Australia, that speak to the disrespect of women in the workplace.”

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Karen Andrews says she’s had a ‘gutful’ of sexist behaviour in parliament. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

Ms Andrews has shifted her opinion in recent months on the need for gender quotas within Parliament House.

She is now “certainly open to a discussion” on quotas, saying parliament needed more women to reflect the broader population.

“I’ve always been quite anti-quota. I felt they were a disadvantage to women, because they would be perceived as only getting promoted, only getting a job, because they were a number,” she said.

“The point that I’m at now is that our processes to attract more women into my party, and into the parliament, has not been as successful as they need to be, and we can’t continue doing the same thing and expecting other outcomes.”

The comments come after a Coalition staffer was sacked on Monday for filming himself performing a lewd act on a female MP’s desk and sending it with a group in which similar images were regularly shared.

Karen Andrews says the Morrison government should consider gender quotas to fix parliament’s culture. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Nicole Cleary

Ms Reynolds said the behaviour, first reported by Channel 10, was “unacceptable on so many levels” and it was disappointing it took a whistleblower to break the story.

“What does it say about an individual that thinks that sort of behaviour is OK? What does it say about a group of people, seems to be men, who passed around those sorts of photographs and thought that that was OK?” Ms Reynolds said.

She claimed the identity of other members of the group was common knowledge, and demanded they jumped before they were pushed.

“I really do think that those individuals who have been involved actually need to show a bit of integrity and walk themselves out the door, not wait until their uncovered,” she said.

“Those people know who they are, so stop hiding. Stand up, get out of the building. It’s time to go.”