Photographer: Brendon Thorne / Bloomberg
Photographer: Brendon Thorne / Bloomberg
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a staff member involved in “disgusting and sickening” behavior has been fired in parliament as the final blow to his Conservative government already devastated by rape allegations.
The Ten Network on Monday nights Allegations aired that a group of male government employees had been sharing images and videos of lewd acts for two years, including photos of one of them masturbating on the desk of a female lawmaker.
“The actions of these individuals show a dizzying disrespect for the people who work in Parliament, and for the ideals Parliament is supposed to represent,” Morrison said in a statement. “It’s not good enough, and is completely unacceptable,” he said, adding that the staff member at the center of the allegations has been fired.
Read more: Protests point to a reckoning in Australia’s struggle with sexism
The latest incident comes a week later Thousands of women gathered across Australia to protest against sexual assaults and Morrison’s handling of decades-old allegations of rape and a separate alleged sexual assault in parliament in 2019. Support for Morrison’s government fell to a 13-month low in the last newspaper published on March 15 and it now follows Labor’s main opposition, 48% to 52%.
Demostrators at the March 4 Justice meeting in Melbourne on March 15.
Photographer: Carla Gottgens / Bloomberg
The government has come under fire for refusing to investigate allegations that Attorney General Christian Porter raped a fellow member of a school debate team in 1988 – allegations he denies.
There is also growing criticism of Morrison’s handling of allegations that former government media adviser Brittany Higgins was raped by a colleague of a minister in 2019.
In response, Morrison has commissioned an independent inquiry into Parliament House work culture, which is being conducted by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins.
Morrison said on Tuesday that he was very sad that many women thought he had not heard their call for change.
“These events have produced women all over this building and even across the country who have had to deal with this trash and cloud their whole lives, as their mothers did and their grandmothers,” Morrison said.
Secretary of State Marise Payne, the oldest woman in Morrison’s 22-member cabinet that includes 16 men, told a parliamentary committee Monday night that the Ten Network’s latest allegations were “terrible.”
“The demeaning nature of those actions, which have been shown in the media, is not disappointing,” she said.
Updates with Morrison comments in the 8th, 9th paragraphs