How tall is kate ellis mp

But she says throughout her career she and her female colleagues faced harassment, sexual slurs and destructive gossip designed to stop them being politically effective. It wasn't until Ms Ellis left politics in that she realised how "toxic" the culture in Parliament House had been.

She decided to reach out to other women — MPs and staffers across the political spectrum — to compare notes, and what came to light "would horrify the public". The stories tell a tale of systemic inequality, sexism, casual misogyny and sexual harassment.

There's this casual misogyny that shows up in a whole range of ways. If you undermine someone, then you're more likely to be promoted. Ms Ellis was 27 when she was first elected to parliament in the federal election. In she eclipsed Paul Keating's achievement, becoming the youngest Australian government minister when then-prime minister Kevin Rudd appointed her minister for youth and minister for sport.

Over the course of her 15 years in parliament, she would take on the ministries of early childhood education, sport and the status of women, among others.

Who thinks I've slept with half the parliament? Do you know who is spreading rumours that I was caught naked in the prayer room? But gendered stereotyping and gibes were a constant throughout her political life, beginning from day one. Just the fact that he came up and said that to my face when I was an elected MP and he was a staff member, that he still had the confidence to do that," she says.

When she first came to politics, Ellis says most of the MPs were men, most of the senior staff were men, and all of the factional powerbrokers were men. Certainly when I was a staffer and a volunteer, I saw a lot of things but I also heard allegations of what I'd call serious sexual assault and misconduct from an elected Labor MP. We've seen a number of stories recently, but I suspect that there are hundreds and hundreds more. Now that Ms Ellis has left politics and "taken off her armour", she is ready to add to the national conversation around women in Canberra by penning the stories of high-profile current and former female politicians in a new book, Sex, Lies and Question Time.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard spoke to Ms Ellis about her arrival in parliament and her naivety in thinking that it would quickly develop into a place of gender equality. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was appalled by the treatment of Ms Gillard but was herself caught in the crossfire of sexual slurs and sledging. There's no nice balance.

Some days you're a bimbo and other days you're a bitch," she says. Ms Ellis's Australian Story coincides with a wave of discontent about the treatment of women in politics, triggered by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, who alleges she was raped by a colleague inside then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds's office two years ago. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has apologised to her for how the matter was handled , and announced a series of inquiries into the adequacy of support measures for women in the building, as well as how to improve the broader culture.

Once the former staffer broke her silence, stories of abuse and bad behaviour started pouring out of the national capital. Perhaps the most shocking surfaced last week when a federal Liberal staffer was sacked for allegedly masturbating on a female MP's desk. Minister for Science Industry and Technology Karen Andrews told Australian Story the events of the last few weeks were "absolutely the worst I have seen here".

Changing an entrenched and destructive culture in a workplace where women are still a significant minority isn't simple. But Ms Ellis believes silence is no longer an option. That's just not going to happen," Ms Ellis says. And I want to be a part of that. When she started writing her book six months ago, Ms Ellis says she thought it would be "controversial to suggest there might be cultural issues" within Parliament House.

Here are the stories of current and former female politicians, in their own words. I ran in the election. I was 25 at the time and had an month-old baby on my hip. I was shocked at the aggression in the parliament itself. I was genuinely confronted by the deep tribalism in that building. You're walking into parliament every day and needing to prepare for sexist slurs that will be thrown across the chamber.

It is designed to both silence and shame women at the same time. It takes a lot of energy to put your armour on, you're going to battle every day.

I've had names of men that it was rumoured that I slept with whispered to me as they walk past me in the chamber, as we're sitting down to vote. All those things that are designed as mind warfare. I became anxious of standing on my feet, particularly in Question Time. We'd been debating a motion in relation to violence against women in the Senate chamber and Senator [David] Leyonhjelm yelled across at me in the chamber, 'You should stop shagging men, Sarah.

I walked over to him and I said quietly, 'What did you just say to me? I told him he was a creep. For years I thought it would be weak if I responded, if I allowed anyone to know that this was happening to me.

I asked him publicly in the chamber for an apology. He refused, went on national television, national radio and slandered me even further. I decided I had to take him to court. And I won. The amazing thing is that calling it out and naming it is taking all the power away from the bullies. I feel like I'm times stronger than I ever was. I entered parliament relatively late in life. I was in my 50s and I had behind me a career in the legal and corporate sector.

I was immediately struck by the fact that it reminded me of when I first entered the workforce in the late 80s in terms of its attitudes to women.

It is very much an environment that is frozen in time. You go into there and think, 'Is this really happening? And not only do women have nowhere to go to report misconduct, but they are subject to misconduct every day. I'm less talking about the MPs, I'm talking about the 5, other staff that are there.

When I announced I wasn't going to recontest, I also called out the entrenched anti-women culture. It reached peak toxicity and I thought, 'I'm going to exit. And if I'm going to exit this place it is going to be on my terms. That was just the beginning of a three-month period of reprisals, retribution, abuse. This behaviour in Parliament House is so endemic and entrenched that men and women can often be blind to it. If only our leaders would take accountability, rather than hoping that an issue would go away, if they introduced structures that would address this problem, then that is what gives me hope.

My early days here were a real eye-opener in terms of the way that parliament operated, but also in terms of the environment in which I was working.

I started my working life as an engineer. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen. The Queensland-based former treasurer had made the trip to Sydney for the biennial event before a city-wide COVID scare and lockdown in his home of Brisbane forced him to quarantine in his Emerald City hotel room.

If you are wondering where you might have heard about Aitken-Radburn before, she was once a contestant on reality television program The Bachelor.

A defiant campaign against gender quotas in the Liberal Party has ruffled feathers throughout the NSW Liberal division. The defiant tone and timing of the petition ruffled feathers in the party during a week where its poor treatment of women has dominated internal debate. The race for preselection in the coveted seat is already crowded with former Scott Morrison adviser Sasha Grebe , perennial hopeful Tim James and barrister Jane Buncle among several members expressing interest.

NSW Legislative Council member and local Natalie Ward is also regarded as a potential starter by some wings who are keen to see the experienced operator join the race. Watch this space. Please try again later. The Sydney Morning Herald. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size.