Safety for women in Parliament 'needs to improve', says Jacinda Ardern

May 23, 2019

“There is a wider range of issues we still need to deal with just around the culture of Parliament,” Jacinda Ardern said today.

Safety for women in Parliament "needs to improve", Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today.

A report into bullying and harassment in Parliament released this week found cases of alleged sexual assault, three of those described as "extremely serious and some appeared to be part of a multi-year pattern of predatory behaviour".

Yesterday, a staff member from Parliamentary Services was stood down over allegations of assault of a "sexual nature", Speaker Trevor Mallard said. 

Ms Ardern said it was the Speaker's job "to make sure the environment we all work, importantly the teams we work with, are all safe".

She said Mr Mallard was taking the report and allegations "very, very seriously", and thought the steps he had taken "do demonstrate that". 

When asked if Parliament was a safe place for women, Ms Ardern said, "it needs to improve". 

"The Francis report has obviously highlighted the issues that exist and those obviously are not going to be resolved overnight."

"There is an immediate concern with there being an alleged perpetrator that that needed to be addressed, but there is a wider range of issues we still need to deal with just around the culture of Parliament."

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