Australia will allow sexual harassment complaints against judges and members of parliament

The Australian government announced on Thursday that it was amending its gender discrimination law to allow it to condemn judges and legislators, just weeks after corruption erupted in parliament over allegations of corruption.

The public prosecutor told the media that lawmakers and judges, who are currently in legal custody, will release them from sexual harassment “and will be subject to the law just like everyone else, meaning they will have the same consequences.” Michaelia Cash explaining the legislative proposal on sexual harassment in the workplace of the Australian General.

The amendments, which will be tabled in Parliament this year, are part of the government’s response to 55 recommendations in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s January Labor Report.

The announcement by the Australian government comes in the wake of the political scandal that erupted in mid-February, when Brittany Higgins, a former adviser to Morrison’s party, announced in 2019 that she had been raped by a colleague in an office in Parliament.

In addition to the other three complaints against the rapist, then-Attorney General Christian Porter was now Minister of Industry on charges of alleged breach 30 years ago. After the alleged death in 2020.

Morrison, who rebuilt his cabinet in late March after the scandal, called the report “a map of respect” and wanted to “create a culture of respectable behavior in the workplace in Australia”.

According to the Australian Commission on Human Rights, 39% of women and 26% of men are victims of sexual harassment in the workplace, which the Australian president calls “unacceptable, immoral, hateful and criminal.”