The Sketch: A stain on a desk; a pox on the house

Spare a thought for Brittany ­Higgins. Imagine hearing Scott Morrison being more outraged about a piece of furniture with some jizz on it than your alle­gations of rape.

Did Jenny ask the Prime ­Minister to imagine that it was his desk? If only it had access to NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller’s consent app! At least no one asked what the desk was wearing. Or if it had too much to drink. That’s progress, right?

“The young fellow concerned, you know, he was a really good worker and he loved the place,” assistant minister Michelle Landry said hours after the pencil-pushing desk wanker was sacked.

“And I feel bad for him about this but, you know, it’s unacceptable behaviour.”

Hours after the staffer was ­literally exposed by this newspaper, a fed-up female staffer ­organised a sit-in protest. Where? The ­infamous prayer-slash-meditation-slash-bonking room.

There’s not a single sign pointing the way to the tiny room with a debaucherous rap sheet. It is located on its own mezzanine level and accessible by only one lift. We can’t show you pictures as it falls within the photography-banned majority of the building.

Inside, it’s eerily quiet. There’s a range of religious books, a sign pointing to Mecca and three sunken nooks where occupants are hidden from view. The unspoken protocol is to place your shoes at the bottom of the steps as a signal the couch is occupied.

“If you were to shine blue light at Parliament House, it would light up like a Jackson Pollock,” a politician once told me years ago, in reference to the architectural oddity.

The latest revelations aren’t new, but a clickbait distraction from the real need for change.

Nearly 30 male and female staff members from Labor and the Greens attended the sit-in on Tuesday morning, calling for compulsory consent and misconduct training for all politicians and staff. The Liberals and Nats were invited but had their own staff meeting to attend. And in a telling indication of how distrustful Coalition staff are of the Prime Minister and his team, not one person got up when invited to ask questions or vent frustrations.

“We’re angry,” Labor adviser Georgia Tree said.

“It’s disgusting. It’s humiliating for us as women. I don’t know how I’m going to go back home and look my grandparents in the eye after working in this building this week.”

This could have been Morrison’s “Real Julia” moment. Instead, it took just 11 minutes for the Prime Minister to transition from tears to snears.

“We must get this house in order,” his attempted mea culpa started. “For me in my house, where I work, we must do better.”

Yet, the PR PM came without anything to announce — and in a snap decision he turned his stones to the media.

“So let’s not all of us who sit in glass houses here start getting into that,” he threatened after he weaponised a false hearsay HR complaint from a journalist in parliament. Is it any wonder women don’t come forward?

Dear Prime Minister I am not your wife/mother/daughter. I am a female Liberal MP. I know you love family as do I - and mean well but you clearly do not understand anything about our political experiences. Pls talk your women MPs. If they feel safe- they will tell you!

— Catherine Cusack (@katieqs) March 23, 2021