The Australian federal police commissioner has vowed to ensure a culture of sexual abuse and harassment within the force is addressed and reformed.
Andrew Colvin’s comments on Tuesday morning follow the release of a damning independent review of the organisation by former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick which found 46% of women and 20% of men in the force reported being sexually harassed in the last five years.
These percentages are almost double the national average.
The report also found women are underrepresented in the AFP across a range of areas, but particularly in the upper echelons of the organisation. As of April, women comprised 35% of all AFP personnel.
“The significant occupational segregation in the AFP impacts on women’s career progression and their ability to reach leadership positions,” the report found.
Colvin told the ABC’s Radio National that while frameworks were in place to prevent and respond to sexual abuse and harassment in the force, “what we’re not doing is supporting them”.
“In the past when we’ve made attempts to change, we haven’t done it with enough leadership and we haven’t done it with enough conviction,” he said.
“There’s a range of possible causes. None of them are excuses. I think that organisations like ours that are male-dominated, that have a clear command and control operating model, give the ability for this to be masked.”
While 62% of men and 66% of women reported they were bullied in the workplace in the past five years, members also reported that they did not trust the reporting system, with many believing complaining would negatively impact their career or leave them ostracised.
Colvin admitted to Radio National presenter Fran Kelly that in his 27 years within the force he would be “naive and ignorant” to say sexual harassment had not occurred immediately around him.
“I have to look back now and think, did I witness, did I stand by, did I not say enough at the time? And and the answer to that has to be ‘yes’.”
Comments from some of the police force members surveyed and published in Broderick’s report including a woman who said: “I hear so many derogatory comments against the women sergeants, for example ‘she’s just a vagina’.”
Another woman described how “I was moved from my role because I wouldn’t sleep with the coordinator”. One woman told the researchers that: “When I got promoted (in late 2014) one guy said ‘you must give good blow jobs’.” A gay woman in the force said: “I have had men since college say that they will ‘convert me’”.
