Crossbench MP Georgie Purcell alleges harassment in parliament

Purcell said she had also reported sexual harassment in the halls of parliament and did not feel like her complaints were taken seriously by her parliamentary colleagues.

“The immediate questions were: what did she expect?” she said.

“Look how she dresses, look at the tattoos, look at her past. You can’t sexually harass a stripper.

“I heard the whispers when I walked past in the hallway, and I heard all of the rumours, and I know the slut-shaming far too well.

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“Members of this place are not beyond it, and we need to reflect on that today.”

Purcell also spoke about how harassment extended beyond physical offices or places of work and beyond 9 to 5 hours.

She said someone else in the Victorian parliament had harassed her with late-night messages, phone calls and demands to meet up under the guise of work.

“It doesn’t matter how successful or senior you can become, one thing I have learned is that men will always see us as up for grabs,” Purcell said.

The government’s proposed laws would prohibit non-disclosure agreements for workers alleged to have been sexually harassed unless they request it themselves.

Employers would also be banned from pressuring or influencing a worker to sign an agreement.

Purcell’s comments were based on her experiences with staffers and MPs over her seven years working in Victorian parliament.

She has not been the only woman to share a difficult story of harassment while debating the government’s legislation.

Last week, Minister for Women Natalie Hutchins revealed that she was groped as a 15- or 16 -year-old by AFL football players while working her first job as a waitress, where she was required to wear a short skirt while carrying large trays.

“I dreaded Thursday nights because there were actually AFL players at my restaurant that had been to training and would come in every Thursday night, and they would run their hands up my legs while I was carrying the trays,” she said.

“It was actually about two weeks into my job that I dropped a tray of food when this happened, to which my boss at the time suggested that I might need to pay for what I had dropped, despite the fact that I had complained about the situation before.”

Hutchins said she had to take matters into her own hands by arranging for her brother and cousins to sit at a nearby table the following Thursday – who made sure it would never happen again.

Speaking in parliament Thursday, Treasurer Jaclyn Symes thanked Liberal MPs Bridget Vallence and Moira Deeming, Labor MP Daniela Di Martino along with Purcell and Hutchins for sharing their personal stories of sexual harassment as part of the debate.

Mildura MP Jade Benham also gave an emotional speech on Thursday about her own experiences while talking about a separate bill that would broaden the definition of family violence to include stalking.

“Survivors of stalking … know that feeling of going to the letterbox, for example, and this is just one example, and finding an envelope with no postmark, no stamp, with whatever it might be,” she said.

“I cannot express enough that feeling of fear.

“If that happens, please report it. I cannot express enough: do not try and rationalise it.”

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