Australian opposition party expels senator over sexual misconduct allegations

Australia’s main opposition party expelled a senator on Thursday after a female senator accused him of sexual assault and a former senator said he squeezed her buttocks, in the latest evidence of a toxic culture in Parliament House that is hostile to women.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he expelled Senator David Van from the conservative Liberal Party following allegations made in Parliament on Wednesday night by independent Senator Lidia Thorpe of harassment and sexual assault. Van remains a senator, but no longer represents the Liberal Party.

Van denied the allegations, which were made under parliamentary privilege, under which no one can be sued for defamation over anything said in the Senate.

But he has yet to respond to the statement that followed from former Liberal Party Senator Amanda Stoker that said Van had apologised for ‘’squeezing my bottom twice” at Parliament House.

“I would have preferred that the matter be resolved privately and finally – as I thought it was. However, following Sen. Thorpe’s allegations, it is now clear that is no longer tenable,” Stoker said.

Political leaders apologised last year to staffers who have endured decades of bullying, harassment and sexual assault inside Parliament House which were exposed by an investigation by the national sex discrimination commissioner.

The investigation was triggered by a staffer’s allegation that she was raped while drunk by a colleague in a minister’s office in 2019.

The staffer accused the then conservative government of treating her rape allegation as a political problem and of dissuading her from complaining to police.

Thorpe told the Senate on Thursday that Van harassed her around the time that the staffer’s complaints captured national media attention two years ago.

The previous government had agreed with Thorpe’s request to shift Van to a different office to reduce their interaction walking to and from the Senate.

The Associated Press does not normally identify alleged victims of sexual assault but Thorpe made the accusations publicly.

Thorpe said Van groped her in a stairwell where there were no security cameras.

“There are different understandings of what amounts to sexual assault. What I experienced was being followed, aggressively propositioned and inappropriately touched,” Thorpe tearfully told the Senate.

She said she would not complain to police or sue in a civil court but had complained to the independent Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, which handles workplace complaints.

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Van welcomed the service’s investigation of what he described as “outrageous claims”.

“Senator Thorpe’s allegations are concocted from beginning to end. Nothing that she has alleged about me is truthful,” Van told the Senate.

There is a pattern of Australian male lawmakers using sexist and abusive behaviour to undermine their female opponents.

Dutton didn’t mention Stoker but suggested Thorpe’s allegations were not the only reason Van was expelled from the party.

“Since the airing of Senator Thorpe’s allegation yesterday, further allegations in relation to Senator Van have been brought to my attention overnight this morning,” Dutton told reporters.

“I’m not making any judgment on the veracity of allegations or any individual’s guilt or innocence. I make that very clear. Obviously, there’s an independent process with the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service to get under way,” Dutton said.