Dog noises, name calling, claims of abuse: a week of shame in Australian politics

It included anonymous testimony from staffers, mostly women, about the abuse they had been subjected to while doing their jobs.

But just hours after the prime minister pledged to make the parliament a more respectful and safe working environment, politicians were caught making sexualised and gendered slurs.

A male government senator was accused of making dog noises while a female senator spoke in the chamber. He apologised for the interjections, but denied he had made animal sounds, claiming his face mask may have muffled his words.

While parliamentarians slugged it out over who was worse on issues of respect, Rachelle Miller, a former press secretary to cabinet minister Alan Tudge, came forward on Thursday with allegations of emotional, and in one case physical, abuse she said she experienced while in a 2017 relationship with the then-married minister. Tudge categorically rejected the allegations in a statement later that day.

Miller had gone public with the relationship in late 2020, as she called for cultural change, alleging her career ended when the relationship soured, while she watched Tudge be promoted.

Miller accused the minister of physically kicking her after her phone woke him early one morning.