The equal opportunity amendment bill was discussed at South Australia’s Parliament on Thursday.
South Australian Best MP Connie Bonaros spoke up in Parliament, in an emotional address, where she referred to accusations she made against another politician.
Referring to the incident in Parliament for the first time, the crossbench MP said that going to work was “humiliating and distressing” after the incident surfaced. She says she was shunned by members of the Liberal Party following her accusations that she was slapped on the backside by Liberal MP Sam Duluk.
Following the publicity over the incident, Mr Duluk issued a public apology for his conduct and, after the incident was reported to the police in February, he suspended his Liberal Party membership. In April, he was charged with one count of basic assault.
During an emotional address, Ms Bonaros spoke of the “media frenzy” at the time and how it impacted her work and family.
Speaking about the proposed amendments to the Equal Opportunity Act, Ms Bonaros said: “I have named someone in this building for their foul conduct. Let me be extremely clear. Every single day I get to feel the humiliation of what he did to me, and to others in this place, and to the very decent people who work in this place. But every day I also feel anger, and I feel disappointment that legislative protections didn’t exist for me and people like me.”
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She said that “all too often, we’ve become so consumed by the politicial point scoring in this place that we fail to acknowledge the impact that our behaviour has on others.”
She said there was no regard for the fact that “day in and day out, for weeks on end, my husband, my father, siblings, my four-year-old son got to see my face splashed across their TV, papers. No regard for the fact that attending functions to which I was invited, in my capacity as a member of this place, became absolutely impossible for the very same reasons. ‘Am I OK? No, I’m not'”
Ms Bonaros also outlined the difficulty she faced at work. “For a long time, so many members treated me like I was to blame for everything that had happened in their own political party,” she said.
“It was worse than that: they just ignored me, and many of them continue to do so to this today.
“This is victimising 101. Was I OK? No, I wasn’t. Am I OK? Clearly, no, I’m not.”
Mr Duluk will face court over the incident in October.
