This Australian senator broke down, detailing a crime she alleged took place inside their Parliament House.
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00:00As all women that have walked the corridors of this building know, it is not a safe place.
00:09One man followed me and cornered me in a stairwell and most of this was witnessed by staff and
00:16fellow members of parliament.
00:30Allegations are covered up and the silence on gendered violence is maintained.
00:52Yesterday I made remarks in relation to another senator.
00:57I then had to withdraw them because the rules of the senate do not allow you to speak about
01:01someone's character, only about something they have said.
01:06So today I will speak about my experience in parliament.
01:12When I started I was a new senator.
01:16As all women that have walked the corridors of this building know, it is not a safe place.
01:26It was an incident public at the time because it was during the time Brittany Higgins was
01:31my new workplace.
01:33This is a workplace women in this building know.
01:37I experienced sexual comments and was inappropriately propositioned by powerful men.
01:48One man followed me and cornered me in a stairwell and most of this was witnessed by staff and
01:55fellow members of parliament.
01:58No one witnessed what happened in the stairwell as there are no cameras in stairwells.
02:05There are different understandings of what amounts to sexual assault.
02:10What I experienced was being followed, aggressively propositioned and inappropriately touched.
02:22I was afraid to walk out of the office door.
02:25I would open the door slightly and check the coast was clear before stepping out.
02:32It was to the degree that I had to be accompanied by someone whenever I walked inside this building.
02:40I know there are others that have experienced similar things and have not come forward in
02:45the interests of their careers and fear they would be presented to the world by the media
02:52in the same way that I have been today.
03:03Senator Thorpe's allegations are concocted from beginning to end.
03:07Nothing that she has alleged about me is truthful.
03:11No such exchange occurred between us.
03:14There is no interaction that could conceivably resemble what she described today.
03:19Making false allegations in the Senate today is disgraceful and brings the Senate into disrepute.
03:25I do not wish this matter to stay in the Liberal Party that I have fought so hard for so I
03:29accept that I will no longer be sitting in the party room.
03:33There should be and must be an investigation into these outrageous claims so they can be
03:38proved to be false.
03:40I will fully cooperate with investigators and answer any questions that they may have of me.