The last few years have forced a major reckoning in our understanding and approach to issues of sexual violence and harassment in all areas of Australian society, including in our highest public institutions – from the High Court to the Commonwealth Parliament. Part of that reckoning is also a debate about how institutional norms and so as to provide a safer workplace for female parliamentarians, parliamentary staff, and those working in the parliamentary service.
Most notably, the Jenkins Report called for a range of reforms along these lines. In this seminar, we brought together leading scholars and practitioners in the field, including UNSW Professors Gabrielle Appleby and Rosalind Dixon and Research Director of the Centre of Public Integrity, Dr Catherine Williams, to explore these reforms, their logic and likely effect, as well as their prospects for adoption now and after the next election. The event was co-hosted by the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law and chaired by Australian Human Rights Institute Director, Professor Justine Nolan.
Speakers
- Dr Catherine Williams is Research Director of the Centre for Public Integrity.
- Professor Rosalind Dixon is Professor of Law and Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at UNSW Sydney. She has written widely on topics relating to gender and public law.
- Professor Gabrielle Appleby is the Director of the Judiciary Project and Co-Director of the Gender and Public Law Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW. She is the constitutional consultant to the Clerk of the Commonwealth House of Representatives, and provided constitutional advice to the Jenkins review.
- Professor Justine Nolan is the Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute and a Professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW Sydney. She has published widely on business and human rights and her latest book, Addressing Modern Slavery (2019) (with M. Boersma) examines how consumers, business and government are both part of the problem and the solution in curbing modern slavery in global supply chains.