This is a bloke problem, says Melissa Price

Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price has declared men “need to be better” and called for an overhaul of federal parliament’s human resources procedures and training.

Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price. Picture: AAP

Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price has declared men “need to be better” and called for an overhaul of federal parliament’s human resources procedures and training, as women participating in the building’s workplace culture review were guaranteed full privacy.

The Senate on Thursday night passed legislation to prevent all documents relating to Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’s review from being published through Freedom of Information requests or 20 years later by the National Archives.

The bolstered privacy protections were demanded by a bipartisan group of political staffers, who said possible publication of women’s experiences could exacerbate trauma or “significantly damage” a victim’s career.

With federal parliament continuing to debate the treatment of women more than a month after former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins revealed she was allegedly raped in parliament, Ms Price conceded “this time things are different”.

Ms Price, who unlike Scott Morrison and Minister for Women Marise Payne attended a March 4 Justice rally in Canberra on Monday, said she heard women across the country rallying against sexual assault, discrimination and harassment.

“It’s time for things to change,” she writes in The Australian. “Let me be clear — this is a bloke problem, not a woman problem. Too often we hear about the number of women who have been raped rather than the number of men who have raped women. It is men who need to be better.”

“Parliament House is a unique workplace. People from across the country come to Canberra for up to 20 weeks a year, away from home, away from families. It’s a stressful environment. But it is still a place of work, and everyone who works there deserves to be safe. Human resources procedures, including training, do need to improve. And, as MPs, we must be the ones to lead by example.”

As the Prime Minister dismissed Labor questions about what his departmental secretary’s review into what his office knew about Ms Higgins’s rape allegation and why it was taking so long and whether it would be released, an emotional Nicolle Flint appealed to online trolls to “stop” their abuse of her.

After publicly outlining again this week the abuse she experienced during the 2019 election campaign and accusing senior Labor MPs of failing to condemn the treatment of her by GetUp, union and ALP supporters, Ms Flint, who won’t contest the next election, said she had received “disgusting” responses.

GetUp campaign director Ruby-Rose O’Halloran questioned the timing of Ms Flint and NSW Liberal MP Fiona Martin speaking out about their alleged treatment by GetUp campaigners. “The reason for that is they’re trying to distract from the fact that the Attorney-General … has been accused of rape and the Prime Minister is standing behind him,” she told ABC radio.