Mentors and managers MIA on the Hill

When the Brittany Higgins allegations first surfaced in February, as a Howard-era senior staffer I wrote that the type of alleged misconduct, and Ms Higgins’s alleged assailant, would be isolated exceptions and not the rule in Parliament House; that almost all MPs and staffers are in politics because they believe in higher principles, wanting to do good for others through good policy and governance; and are themselves good people. 

Now I’m not as sure. 

Revelations yesterday of not only a ‘senior’ Coalition staffer filming himself practising onanism on a female MP’s Parliament House desk, but that he was part of a ring of staffers performing similar disgusting acts and sharing them with each other, were shocking and…