ACT Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee has described recent revelations of sexual assault in Australian Parliament as a "sad indictment of our democracy".
Speaking on ABC Canberra, Ms Lee, who previously spoke out about being sexually harassed by former High Court Judge Dyson Heydon, said she did not consider sexual harassment as a political issue.
"I don't think politics comes into it ... I can't imagine any politician going out and taking joy in the fact that it's happening in the Liberal Party," she said.
"I can't imagine any politician in any party is looking at this and thinking about political point scoring.
"It doesn't matter which political party it's happening in ... it is about the woman who is in the thick of this."
Ms Lee said because she had not worked at Parliament House it was difficult to provide insights into the culture, but said she believed the Legislative Assembly had a different culture.
"We don't fly in and fly out, we live here, we are invested in the community we serve and it's different I think when you're a fly-in fly-out sort of person," she said.
"We've had a female majority [Legislative Assembly] now for over one term.
"In the Liberal Party [we have] a female majority party room and the first female leadership team.
"That's got to make a difference as well."
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Ms Lee felt it was important to speak about her experiences of sexual harassment to encourage more women to come forward.
"If I, someone who has all the privileges that I am very fortunate to have, feel that I can't speak up, how do we expect women who may not be in that position to do the same? That's why it was important for me to do it.
"Since then I've had a number of women who have contacted me sharing their experiences.
"It's shown to me how important it is for women who may have a platform to do so because of that reason, that other women who may have hidden it for some long time and in some cases for decades feel that 'hold on, I can speak up and there are others'."
Ms Lee said sexual harassment was an issue women faced in a number of workplaces.
"The experiences [of harassment] that I've had obviously are in law and in politics, but I think I'd be very naive if I thought it was limited to those two professions," she said.
"I think that sometimes we get to this point where we're saying 'it's 2021, surely we've reached a level of society where we think that everyone should be safe in a workplace'."
"We see something like this and it really brings everything crashing down."
Ms Lee's comments came as another historical rape accusation was levelled against a federal politician.
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson revealed on Sunday evening she had forwarded an email to the AFP from a woman who alleged she had been raped by a man who is now a federal Labor MP.
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