further implications page

Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said.

Further implications

Malcolm Turnbull justified his ban on sexual relations between ministers and staffers as an attempt to address 'very serious cultural issues' within the Parliament. He went on to refer to the power imbalance that exists within the Parliament, where a majority of what he referred to as 'bosses' were male. The clear implication was that female subordinates were being preyed upon by their male superiors and Turnbull's intention was to create a situation 'where women are respected'.

However, the women on whom Mr Turnbull most focused were not those working within the Parliament, rather the 'world of woe' which he mentioned was endured primarily by Barnaby Joyce's wife and daughters. Both in his speech announcing the ban and in the new foreword Mr Turnbull has written for the ministerial code of conduct, he states ' Ministers should be very conscious that their spouses and children sacrifice a great deal so they can carry on their political career. Their families deserve honour and respect.' While these are worthy sentiments, it seems remarkable that the Prime Minister should be promoting marital fidelity and respect for the family unit as part of a ministerial code of conduct.
All other directives in the code of conduct have a direct bearing on the ministers' performance of their parliamentary functions. Spousal fidelity seems irrelevant to this. It may be that a happily partnered minister will perform his/her duties more effectively, but the state of an individual's personal life is something beyond the scope of either a Prime Minister or any employer to engineer or dictate.
To the extent to which the Prime Minister was trying to protect female staffers from sexual harassment, there is little to suggest that the immediate impetus for the ban actually falls within this category. Despite the extraordinary level of media attention directed at the sexual relationship between Barnaby Joyce and his former media advisor, Vikki Campion, there appears to have been no suggestion that Joyce used his relatively privileged position to coerce Campion to enter into a sexual relationship with him.
What should be directly of concern to the Parliament is that there are potential conflicts of interest and scope for favouritism where a minister is having an affair with a subordinate. As human resources managers HR Advance note, 'It needs to be considered whether one of the parties is getting potentially favourable treatment, particularly when there is a direct reporting line.'

'A direct reporting line' simply means where one party is directly overseen by and responsible to the other. This is an area where the Prime Minister and any other manager is entitled to intervene. Prior to the Prime Minister's intervention, the ministerial code of conduct already required that ministers not be able to employ family members. The rationale for this is the same; family members could well receive favourable treatment.
The Prime Minister made the claim that in imposing the ban he was following the lead of the corporate world. This is not the case. The corporate world cannot legally interfere in the personal life of an employee. What the corporate world does do is attempt to ensure that where sexual relationships form between employees they are declared and one of the two involved is likely to be transferred. Mr Turnbull has not put either of these measures in place, rather he has taken the extreme and unenforceable step of stating that no sexual relationships can exist between ministers and their staffers.
In his statement announcing the ban, Mr Turnbull stated, 'I am making today, some changes to the ministerial standards. I want to say that these will not be the last ones I will make. I will be working through this rather old document and making sure that it speaks clearly about the values of respect in workplaces, the values of integrity that Australians expect us to have.'

It will be interesting to note whether Mr Turnbull does attempt to put in place disclosure and relocation requirements. It seems unlikely that this will happen as it is hardly possible to make regulations for rationally managing a sexual relationship which is not supposed to exist.
Some commentators have suggested that Malcolm Turnbull's sex ban, though unlawful under industrial law, is part of a pattern of overreach where employers or others in authority attempt to regulate excessively the lives of their employees or subordinates. It has further been claimed that the Prime Minister's ban is likely to encourage such intrusions being attempted to an even greater degree. McDonald Murholme's managing director, Alan McDonald, an employment lawyer, has stated, ' It is dangerous for the PM to impose a ban on sexual relations between consenting adults on the advice of his wife which is contrary to the principles of current workplace law...
Under section 351 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), it is unlawful to dismiss an employee because of the attribute of marital status... The Prime Minister's code doesn't depend on legal status but he gets away with it by saying, "If you want to be on my team, these are the conditions." But it's not a lawful requirement a company could impose.'

McDonald has warned that the Prime Minister's ban could lead companies to attempt to act in the same way, which would be illegal. It would also appear to be unjust and inhumane.