It’s been more than two years since parliament vowed to sober up in the wake of the Brittany Higgins crisis, but it looks like Barnaby Joyce and his fellow Nationals party colleague Perin Davey missed the memo.

The Set the Standard report by then-sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins, released in November 2021, was supposed to draw a line under the boozy culture on the hill and transform the federal parliament into a gold standard workplace in which inappropriate behaviour was a thing of the past.

Instead, we’ve had two weeks of headlines about politicians that would have any corporate manager speed-dialling HR.

Joyce, with his tumble off a planter box after mixing alcohol and medication and Davey, after downing a couple of wines at mid-shift staff drinks and then stumbling her way through senate committee questions, have sent an unmistakeable message: the renewed expectations don’t apply to them.

And why would they think so? The politicians tasked with setting up a parliamentary standards watchdog can’t agree on the consequences for a badly behaved MP, the alcohol policy languishes in draft awaiting sign-off and neither their party leader, David Littleproud, nor Opposition Leader Peter Dutton nor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will call it out.

All sides of politics have skeletons in the closet and stories of bad behaviour, but both the prime minister and treasurer steer clear of alcohol, while it is widely acknowledged that Dutton is not a big drinker. That leaves the Nationals looking the odd one out.

Labor and Liberal MPs mostly shy away now from the big, boozy staff parties. Some staff functions are alcohol-free. All have generous non-alcoholic drinking options. Official functions finish earlier in the building. The prime minister’s office is dry. And the amount of alcohol available at the Midwinter Ball, for example, has been slashed by about 40 per cent.

But the Nationals just don’t seem to have gotten the message.

QOSHE - Parliament vowed to sober up two years ago. It’s time everyone got the memo - James Massola
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Parliament vowed to sober up two years ago. It’s time everyone got the memo

4 1
19.02.2024

It’s been more than two years since parliament vowed to sober up in the wake of the Brittany Higgins crisis, but it looks like Barnaby Joyce and his fellow Nationals party colleague Perin Davey missed the memo.

The Set the Standard report by then-sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins, released in November 2021, was supposed to draw a line under the boozy culture on the hill and transform the federal parliament into a gold standard workplace in which inappropriate........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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