Australia's Prime Minister has set his sights on making a change to Parliament's workplace culture towards women.
Scott Morrison's suggested the idea of having a quota to increase the number of women in his party.
It follows a fresh sex scandal at Parliament House - where staffers performed lewd acts on the desks of female MPs, then shared them online.
Equal Opportunities Human Rights Commissioner Karanina Sumeo told Kate Hawkesby that to make a difference, it would need to be a significant quota.
"If you walk into a room and you talk about things like sexual harassment, it makes a difference if there is three or four of you."
However, she says a quota wouldn't necessarily make a difference if the Parliamentary culture is still negative towards women.
"Having quotas isn't going to solve that. You need men to step up and take responsibility, you need a whole system around Parliament."
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The U.K. has had a lot to reflect on.
A year to the day since Prime Minister Boris Johnson first put the country under lockdown to slow the fast-spreading coronavirus, Britain paused Tuesday to remember those who have died after contracting COVID-19 and reflect on a 12-month period that has turned life upside down.
The U.K., which has spent much of the past year in lockdown, has registered more than 126,000 virus-related deaths, the highest pandemic death toll in Europe and one of the highest in the world.
The country observed a minute’s silence at noon to remember the dead as part of a national day of reflection organized by the end-of-life charity Marie Curie. People were also encouraged to stand on their doorsteps at 8 p.m. with phones, candles and flashlights to signify a “beacon of remembrance” while major landmarks were illuminated.
Johnson thanked the British public for their “courage, discipline and patience" and said a permanent memorial to those who died during the coronavirus pandemic will be built.
“For the entire British people it has been an epic of endurance and privation,” Johnson said at a televised news conference. “Of children’s birthday parties canceled, of weddings postponed, of family gatherings of all kinds simply deleted from the diary."
Queen Elizabeth II sent a bouquet of flowers to London’s St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where her husband, Prince Philip, was recently treated for a heart condition.
“As we look forward to a brighter future together, today we pause to reflect on the grief and loss that continues to be felt by so many people and families, and pay tribute to the immeasurable service of those who have supported us all over the last year," she said in an accompanying note.
London’s skyline turned yellow at nightfall when landmarks including the London Eye, Trafalgar Square and Wembley Stadium were lit up. Joining them were parliaments and assemblies across the U.K. as well as other notable buildings including Cardiff Castle and Belfast’s Titanic Building.
“The emotional toll of the grief so many of us have faced, at a time when so few of us have been able to connect with friends, family and community in the ways we normally would, is immeasurable," said Matthew Reed, chief executive of Marie Curie.
Few foresaw the scale of death and grief to come when Johnson, in a prime-time televised address on March 23, 2020, issued a “very simple instruction” for people to stay at home.
Johnson, who within days of issuing the stay-at-home order was hospitalized in intensive care with the virus, has faced criticism for delaying the first lockdown. Italy had been the first European country to go into lockdown earlier in March 2020, followed by most of the rest of the continent.
The delay, many argue, led to the U.K. recording the most deaths in Europe during the first wave of the pandemic, despite the valiant efforts of people working in the National Health Service, which has endured its most difficult period since its creation just after World War II.
Further delays in re-imposing nationwide lockdowns following the easing of restrictions over the summer and fall have similarly been blamed for exacerbating Britain's high coronavirus death toll, especially this year, when a new, more contagious variant of the virus first identified in southeast England became the dominant strain.
Calls are growing, particularly among bereaved families, for the government to back a public enquiry into its handling of the pandemic. Johnson has said one will come but that it would be a distraction now.
Beyond the devastating death toll, the pandemic has affected every aspect of day-to-day life, most evident in the boarded-up shops and the eerily quiet city centers.
Children have spent many months cooped up at home with their often-agitated parents and siblings also struggling to deal with the realities of life under lockdown.
The pandemic...

A lack of supply is being seen as the long term issue in the housing market.
The Government's unveiled a suite of measures to tackle the housing crisis.
They include making investors pay tax on capital gains for existing houses sold within 10 years and not allowing them to claim back interest payments.
There's also $3.8 million towards infrastructure, an extra two billion for Kainga Ora to buy land, and lifting First Home Grant caps.
ANZ CEO Antonia Watson told Kate Hawkesby some of the measures will help increase supply.
"Essentially, the market's being tilted in favour of first home buyers over investors."
Watson says investors and first home buyers are competing for the same housing stock.
"If you take some of those investors out, that has to be good for first home buyers."
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The housing announcement yesterday, apart from being a total broken promise from the government in terms of the bright line test, is essentially penalising mum and dad investors. And those are the investors running the rental homes providing tenants with much needed accommodation.
And the concern here is that the costs go up for those tenants, and that due to the government pinging them if they sell within 10 years, that landlords will hold onto rental properties for longer. And when they do that, you don’t get a cooler housing market, you get fewer houses up for grabs. What’s galling here is the brazenness with which this government has back tracked.
The Prime Minister campaigned on not introducing a Capital Gains Tax.. she was adamant, it was one of her biggest election promises. Not on her watch, she said. Grant Robertson is on the record ruling it out, saying it would never come to pass. And yet, here it is. A Capital Gains Tax in all but name.
When confronted with this hypocrisy yesterday, Grant Robertson defended it by saying he was “too definitive” in his comments at the time. Too definitive? That’s a new one. Does being ‘too definitive’ now excuse you from all lies? I can’t help thinking if the shoe was on the other foot and National rolled out an excuse like that, Labour would fall off their chairs laughing.
That wasn’t the most unusual part of yesterday’s press conference though.. the PM also rolled out her new rebuttal to all questions form journalists.. “it’s complex.” That seems her latest go-to in terms of shutting people down. Reminding us little minions of minimal IQ that it’s all just a bit tricky and complex for us to understand. If she’s being asked the question, it means the journalist wants an actual answer, not to be condescendingly told that “it’s complex”. And actually, it’s not at all complex.
Smoke and mirrors won’t prevent the facts emerging and revealing themselves. Telling us that you’re extending the bright line test, again, doesn’t make it suddenly not look like a CGT. The PM also told us yesterday that homeowners feel trapped. That’s a new one. Maybe I don’t understand that one because it’s too complex.
National’s not having a bar of it, Judith Collins said none of this will lower house prices or fix the housing market, it'll only increase rents, and she went as far as to call them liars for breaking an election promise.
Will any of this matter to the electorate though? Not at this point of the election cycle. And latest polls do show people are still not that politically engaged. So a delayed trans tasman bubble, a sting for landlords and Mum and Dad property investors, a broken election promise, all in one week.
What I want to know is, does all this put off all those middle ground voters who leapt to Labour last election? The government will hope not - it'll be banking on it all being a distant memory by the time we vote again in 2023.

With countries around the world getting further through their Covid vaccination programmes, companies are rushing to develop 'Covid vaccine passports'.
They're a digital way to prove you've either had the vaccination, or have recovered from the virus.
The European Union is about to vote on introducing its own 'digital green passport' scheme.
One of the companies developing a digital passport is Iproov. Founder and CEO Andrew Bud told Kate Hawkesby the idea is a digital record stored in the cloud that can be accessed by devices.
"You just present your certificate, verify your face on your device, and you're in."
He says it is starting as a private initiative, but governments around the world are looking into whether it will be used in the wider civil society. 
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More rain is expected to hit already flood-devastated areas of NSW, with fears 15,000 residents across the state could be forced to evacuate today as two major weather fronts collide.  
Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in Sydney's northwest, due to flooding along the Hawkesbury and Colo rivers.


Residents along the Colo River in the NSW Central Tablelands have been told to “prepare to evacuate” by helicopter and boat as “extremely high” record floods threatened the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned the rain and flood situation across NSW and parts of Queensland continues to be "dynamic and extremely complex".
Australian correspondent Donna Demaio told Kate Hawkesby the region's had months worth of rain in the past few days, with further rain expected today and tomorrow.
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A travel operator is seething after the Government's decision on a two-way travel bubble with Australia.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says an announcement on a starting date will not be made until April 6, angering those in the tourism industry.
First Light Travel Managing Director Bent Narbey told Kate Hawkesby it's not the news he was hoping for.
"We were very disappointed as the Government's had 12 months to figure out a plan."
Chief pilot at Air Milford Antony Sproull says operators wouldn't have expected much from the Prime Minister's update.
"We're pretty used to not having any definition or firm understanding of the future."
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I had a bet with my husband on this show yesterday just before 6, on the Trans-Tasman bubble. I said that I bet the PM would make an announcement of an announcement. He said nope, no way, she will announce a start date, she has to. He was adamant. I said ‘put money on it.’ He said, ‘as much money as you want, I'll bet there's a firm date.’
I should've taken him up on some hard and fast cash out of this, or at least a return ticket to Sydney, because guess who won? Me.
I’m not actually sure why he thinks he's any position to guess the mindset of the Prime Minister, someone who doesn’t even want to come on his programme and talk to him, yet somehow he still thinks he knows what she might do. He was adamant the pressure was too great, and that the government simply had to give a start date. But they didn’t.
What they did was announce another announcement. In a tease to those desperate for the bubble, the PM said, Cabinet will announce a date for a bubble on April 6th. That says to me, that they’re not ready. Everyone else is ready to press ‘go’, but not them. And that’s despite the PM delivering her usual slew of optimistic promises and fluff.. that “quarantine-free travel with Australia "is a priority".. which clearly it isn’t, the facts get in the way of that particular sop. If it were a priority they’d be set to go by now, like the airports and the airlines are.
The PM said the bubble “is important for business, tourism and for the families who are separated.” No kidding. Then why the delay? Announcing that they’re going to announce something is really this government’s calling card, it’s their go-to, along with announcing reviews. Which is what makes my husband getting it so wrong so glaring.. I mean, how would you have expected them to suddenly be proactive?
My guess, and maybe I’ll put money on this one too, is that come April 6th she will announce the bubble opening in time for the school holidays which start on April 16th. If the bubble isn’t up by that weekend, I’ll be surprised. Yes it will seem a quick turnaround between the 6th and the 16th, but they’re already working on it now, surely? And let’s not forget this is a woman who dragged out a lockdown for Auckland.. only to release it with half an hour’s notice.
So there’s no rhyme or reason to the logic here. Getting it up in time for the school holidays makes sense to capture people’s ability to travel recreationally, it also incorporates ANZAC day. If it’s not by the school holidays then I have no idea what they’re doing. In a final insult to every Kiwi’s intelligence, the PM said she knows what the bubble will mean for people. Really? But still no date? Let’s see less sentiment, and more action.

A helping hand could be all first home buyers need, to jump onto the property ladder.
All ears are on Finance Minister Grant Robertson ahead of today's housing announcement.
It's expected to address supply measures but have a main focus on demand issues within the market.
First Home Buyers Club spokesperson Lesley Harris says banks need to start treating first home buyers differently when lending.
"Unless people can actually get the lending to buy the houses, it's not really much point."
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It’s extremely sad to see the demise of strawberry growing at Perry’s Berrys in Auckland.
It’s not like we didn’t see this coming. It’s not like the horticulture industry hasn’t been crying out for pickers for months and asking the government to help out.
But with so many months of their pleas falling on deaf ears, and so little help offered, what choice do some growers have but to shut up shop?
Australia pipped us at the post here of course – they let in seasonal workers from the Pacific, put special plans in place to make it happen, they made sure their horticulture industry didn’t get hung out to dry. All while we seemed happy to let fruit rot on the ground.
I remember interviewing growers late last year on this; they were forecasting the inevitable doom ahead, and begging the government to step in. I asked what they’d heard back from the government in terms of any relief coming their way. They’d heard nothing. The government hadn’t even gotten back to them, so you can imagine how that felt for them.
I notice Horticulture NZ, who’ve been agitating for months on this, is again asking the government to allow quarantine-free travel for workers from Covid-free Pacific Island countries. They’re saying, according to one report, that ‘business will die otherwise’.
The government let in 2,000 workers at the end of last year, but that was a drop in the ocean, the industry says it needs more like 10,000 seasonal workers.
The stress these businesses must be under, trying to keep themselves afloat, all the while doing it with zero assistance and a limited workforce, must be super frustrating when the solutions are obvious and right in front of you. When the problem can easily be solved. And when you’ve been extremely vocal about that problem – and its solutions – for months on end.
It must be how a lot of tourism businesses are feeling currently. Cast adrift without much hope of a life raft.
Hopefully that’s all changing soon – hopefully we’ll be getting a trans-Tasman bubble opening shortly.  Fingers crossed there’ll be an announcement today, if not at some stage this week.
And once that happens, I get the feeling cooped up Kiwis will head across the ditch in their drove, but I just hope Australians come here in their droves too. God knows we need them.
We need business as usual, we need foot traffic, full hotels and motels, we need seasonal workers, we need international students. We need all the things that make an economy tick, and we need them desperately. Let’s hope today’s the day we get the green light on getting that trans-Tasman love flowing.