Julie Bishop ‘tried to keep a straight face’ defending Abbott’s male-dominated cabinet

Crabb said most women approached by the program were eager to participate in a historical chronicle of women’s progress in politics and hardships along the way, even those who had not emphasised their gender during their careers for fear of being defined by it.

Many of the current and former politicians she spoke to were the first women to hold various senior positions in Australian politics, including Ms Gillard, Penny Wong, Marise Payne, Bronwyn Bishop, Cheryl Kernot, Kathy Sullivan and Ros Kelly. Pauline Hanson declined to participate.

It airs after former Liberal MP Julia Banks has written a new book describing a brazen and unwanted sexual advance by a minister, as well as revelations of an alleged rape in Parliament House by a former Liberal staffer and other recent claims of inappropriate behaviour by government ministers.

Crabb says those scandals had changed expectations in Canberra: “There is now much more of a settled expectation that it’s appropriate to discuss this stuff.”

Politicians across the spectrum, including in Labor and the Greens, recount feeling invisible as men take credit for their ideas. They also describe disturbing conduct in Parliament.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young tells the story of former Liberal turned Conservative senator Cory Bernardi’s interruptions of a speech in Parliament in 2014. Senator Hanson-Young, who has previously described the incident in her book, was speaking on asylum seeker policy when Mr Bernardi began heckling.

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He then moved closer and closer to her as the late-night sitting wore on, eventually sitting almost next to Senator Hanson-Young, where he whispered “creepy” nursery rhymes and listed the names of men, insinuating the Senator had slept with them. When Senator Hanson-Young snapped and said there should be breath testing for senators, she was disciplined by the chair of the debate, though Mr Bernardi was also told to be silent. He now has a show on Sky News.

Mr Bernardi said in 2018 he could not contemplate whispering anything in Senator Hanson-Young’s ear and accused her of “re-writing history”.

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