With AAP.
Scott Morrison lost his majority in parliament on Monday and just a day later he’s dropped even further back, with one of his MPs quitting the Government.
Julia Banks had already announced she was leaving parliament at the election, but on Tuesday dropped a bombshell on the Prime Minister, revealing she was moving to the crossbench.
“Effective immediately, I will serve as a member of this House of Representatives as an independent representative,” she told the lower house on Tuesday.
And she wasn’t going quietly. In a brief, but blistering statement, the member for the Victorian seat of Chisolm, took aim at the members of her party that executed the overthrow of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in August.
“Their actions were undeniably for themselves, for their position in the party, their power, their personal ambition, not for the Australian people we represent, not for what people voted for in the 2016 election,” she said.
Banks also pointed to the need for a swift culture change in Parliament around the treatment of female MPs and an independent whistleblower system to protect those who wish to report misconduct of senior colleagues.
“Across both major parties the level of regard and respect for women in politics is years behind the business world,” she said.
“Often when good women ‘call out’ or are subjected to bad behaviour, the reprisals, backlash and commentary portrays them as the bad ones; the liar, the troublemaker, emotionally unstable or weak, or someone who should be silenced. To those who say politics is not for the fainthearted and that women have to ‘toughen up’, I say this: the hallmark characteristics of the Australian woman (and I’ve met thousands of them) … are resilience and strong, authentic, independent spirit.”
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