SYDNEY (Australia), Feb. 22 (EFE) .- A third woman is said to have been raped by a former adviser to Australia’s ruling coalition who allegedly sexually abused two other colleagues in Canberra, while a fourth woman was said to have been touched. Local media.
An Australian newspaper reported today that an unidentified woman was raped by a former adviser in 2016 after drinking one night with other colleagues while volunteering during the Liberal Party’s election campaign led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Hours later, another woman on the Australian network ABC, unidentified and complained to police on Sunday, said the former counsel had hit her in the thigh in 2017 under a table at a bar.
The Canberra rape scandal erupted last week, when former adviser Brittany Higgins was fired in March 2019 over allegations of sexual harassment by the same, unidentified person in the office of then-Defense Industry Minister Linda Reynolds.
A few days later, the Weekend Australia newspaper condemned the rape of a second unidentified woman by the same woman after dinner between the two last year.
Australian Special Secretary of State Simon Birmingen, who is tasked with forming an independent multi-party committee to review the work culture in parliament, acknowledged on Monday that the allegations of violations place a “very heavy burden” on the government.
“That’s why we need to change the culture and (labor) practices,” the minister told the Birmingham Local Network ABC.
For his part, Labor Senator Benny Wong stressed at an assembly session that “there is no doubt that there is a problem with the treatment of women in parliament and politics”, as well as accusing Morrison of uttering “empty words” in a context. In which “there is no culture of responsibility.”
The allegations have shaken the Australian political scene, although Morrison’s reputation for apologizing for handling Higgins’ complaint and the fact that he was aware of the case last week has risen by one percentage point to 61 per cent. Survey.
© EFE 2021. Redistribution and redistribution of all or part of the Services of the EFE is explicitly prohibited, without prior and explicit approval of the EFE SA Agency