"Would Kill To Be Sexually Harassed": Australia Leader Reportedly Joked

Just days after Australia's leader demoted two senior lawmakers to calm public fury over assault allegations that have shaken the country's Parliament, the issue flared up again as a top official reportedly joked about the sex scandals.

The ruling conservative Liberal Party's vice president, Teena McQueen, apologized after a local news outlet, the Age, reported that she had allegedly told several party colleagues she would "kill to be sexually harassed at the moment."

She denied using those exact words, telling the paper that what she had intended as a throwaway line was: "when women reach my age, we don't have to worry about being sexually assaulted."

The Liberal Party declined to comment on McQueen's remarks or whether there would be any consequences for her. "The matters that you have raised are internal matters for the party," it said in a statement. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's office didn't respond to a request for comment.

The prime minister on Monday increased the number of women in his leadership team to seven from six, and he formed a task force to shape policy on women's issues, including safety and equality.

As part of the changes, the country's top law official, Christian Porter, was removed from his role as he brings a defamation action against the state broadcaster over sexual assault claims. He has denied allegations that he assaulted a woman in January 1988 when she was 16 and he was 17. The country's former defense minister, Linda Reynolds, was demoted over her handling of an alleged rape of a former government staff member by a colleague in her office nearly two years ago.

Thousands of people took to the streets across Australian cities this month calling for an end to violence against women.

Since then, the claims have continued to pile up. Last week, local news outlets reported that a prayer room in Parliament House had been used for sexual encounters. A government adviser was fired after reportedly sharing an image of himself performing a sexual act on a female lawmaker's desk.

On Wednesday, Queensland police said they had received a complaint from a woman who allegedly had her photo taken by a conservative lawmaker while her underwear was visible. The accused lawmaker, Andrew Laming, has said he won't seek reelection.

"Everyday I think, 'Seriously, the Liberals cannot make this crisis worse,' " Kristina Keneally, deputy leader of the main opposition Labor party in the Senate, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. "And everyday, they exceed my low expectations, and it gets even worse."

Janine Hendry, the main organizer of the protest marches, said McQueen's comments are indicative of the Liberal Party's general attitude to women.

"To even consider that such a comment could be seen as a 'joke' is indicative of how deeply entrenched these views are," Hendry said. "They are deeply offensive to many women, particularly those women who have experienced gendered violence and abuse."

McQueen is a polarizing figure within the conservative party. In 2019, she dismissed recordings of former president Donald Trump bragging about groping women, citing her own experience meeting Trump at a Miss Universe beauty pageant, where she was a chaperone, as proof he was "not racist, not sexist, none of those things."

"She plays to the conservative base and seems to be happy to be controversial," said Conrad Liveris, an economist who has called for quotas to boost female representation in politics. "Making vulgar 'jokes' about sexual harassment in this environment might get a laugh from the old white men of the party, but they push away who they need for electoral success: young people, suburban families, women."