A leaked report has painted a damning picture of ongoing concerns around women and culture in the Liberal Party – indicating that some issues had been raised years earlier. Room For Movement: Women and Leadership in the Liberal Party, commissioned in 2015, was briefly covered in the media, but never released publicly. The Drum has obtained a copy of the document, which …

Employers could be forced to take more proactive action on workplace sexual harassment under reforms to shift the burden away from victims. The Morrison government’s long-awaited response to Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ Respect at Work report is imminent. The report was handed to then industrial relations minister Christian Porter in March 2020 and the government is yet to make …

Tasmania’s Premier has written to the Prime Minister, urging him to “consider” accusations Liberal senator Eric Abetz “slut-shamed” alleged rape victim Brittany Higgins. In a written statement, Peter Gutwein said Tasmanian Speaker Sue Hickey told him several weeks ago that Senator Abetz had made offensive comments — which he has since strongly denied — but not to the level of detail raised in the state’s Parliament this …

A guard on duty the night of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in a Parliament House ministerial office has questioned Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s claim it was a “security breach”. Higgins, a former Liberal staffer, alleges she was raped by a colleague in minister Linda Reynolds’ office in March 2019. Experienced security guard Nikola Anderson found Higgins naked on a couch in …

A proposal by one of Australia’s top police officers to use phone apps to record sexual consent has been branded “naive”. NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said the country needed to modernise ideas around “positive consent” where consent is “active and ongoing throughout a sexual encounter”. “Intimate violence particularly against women is a real problem crime for us at the …

Australian Federal Police have been notified of a letter sent to Prime Minister Scott Morrison detailing an alleged historical rape by a Cabinet Minister in the federal government. The letter requests urgent action be taken by the Prime Minister to investigate the alleged rape, which occurred in 1988 before the accused man entered politics. The matter has also been referred …

The first lesson this week was that when offered cheap money, a significant number of Australians will rush to buy residential real estate, recession or not. The second lesson was this is pretty much what core economic policy has been reduced to in Australia – inflating asset prices in hope that the “wealth effect” will trickle down into broader consumer …

More than 100,000 people have backed Kevin Rudd’s call for a royal commission into News Corp, but it seems his former colleagues are not among the masses. The Parliament House website was unable to cope with the support for the former Labor PM’s petition, as traffic spiked 500 per cent on the back of his call. Mr Rudd set social …

Victoria Police say they plan to charge a Melbourne woman with assaulting police after she posted a video of her arrest to social media showing her being dragged from a car by officers. Police arrested 29-year-old Natalie Bonner after she allegedly refused to provide her details and driver’s licence at a checkpoint in Kalkallo just before 6pm on Saturday. Ms …

A security company contracted to provide guards for Melbourne’s COVID-19 quarantine hotels potentially breached its agreement with the Victorian Government, with an email suggesting it failed to inform at least one of its subcontractors of its obligations. Wilson Security then attempted to conceal this failing by asking the subcontractor to backdate documents for the Government. Wilson made the backdating request …