Labor wants Parliamentary Services senior officials to fix culture problems or pay with their salary

Progress on their work to improve the culture and morale should be regularly communicated to staff and publicly reported, Labor senators also recommended in a report tabled on Wednesday afternoon.

The government-majority inquiry into the department's management and operations acknowledged it had placed a high priority on improving staff engagement and restoring staff confidence in senior officials to appropriately handle concerns and complaints.

But Labor senators Tim Ayres and Kimberley Kitching said committee witnesses had given evidence indicating a culture of bullying, harassment and intimidation continued and impacted workers adversely.

The senators recommended internal complaints reporting was compliant with laws and regular updates on workplace culture progress were introduced.

The salaries and tenure of senior leaders should be connected to their ability to achieve these improvements, they added.

"At the minimum, these issues demonstrate a long term set of problems of organisational culture and of governance," the senators' comments said.

"'Organisational culture' is not an excuse for poor performance, inappropriate conduct or conflict."

Due to the ongoing federal police investigation into rape allegations made by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, the committee ruled out examining the department's role in the matter.

But committee member and Labor's government services spokesperson Senator Kimberley Kitching said the parliamentary department could no longer hide on other issues after the Higgins allegations brought them into the spotlight earlier this year.

"The days of senior people at DPS being a law unto themselves are over," Senator Kitching said.

"The alleged incident in Linda Reynolds' office and the failure to deal with it properly drew their performance and their judgment to national attention."

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In recent public appearances, the committee heard accounts from various unions, including the Community and Public Sector Union, detailing claims of bullying and harassment on behalf of their members.

The union accused department heads of "weaponising" disciplinary action - including code of conduct complaints - to silence staff.

Department head Rob Stefanic hit back at the union, accusing it of providing false evidence to senators in a June public hearing and relying on the accounts of disgruntled employees who played victims.

Mr Stefanic instead told senators workplace morale had significantly improved for Parliament House staff, though there was still "room for improvement", in the June public hearing.

He also addressed allegations by the union that staff had felt intimidated and bullied by senior management, claiming they were "simply not accurate".

"Like every organisation, we have a marginal cohort of staff that behave inconsistent with the code of conduct and values," Mr Stefanic said in his opening statement.

"Misconduct in various cases was proven to be dishonest, disrespectful, bullying, threatening, and even unlawful.

"This cohort dishonestly recast themselves as victims and whistleblowers, and they are not concerned to give false evidence to a parliamentary committee."

Survey data included in the union's submission to the committee showed three-quarters of department staff who responded had experienced bullying within the workplace.

Union deputy secretary Beth Vincent-Pietsch responded to the claims, noting the secretary had himself conceded workplace culture needed further improvements.

"The two DPS security surveys in the CPSU submissions had a participation rate of 20-25 per cent," Ms Vincent-Pietsch said in response.

"While that is not all staff, it is a significant portion that even if the only people who are concerned [about], or experiencing toxic workplace culture, are the ones doing our survey that would still be a significant problem.

"Given the seriousness of the concerns raised, any staff expressing these concerns should be listened to [and] not dismissed by political grandstanding by Liberal senators."

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