Zoe Daniel, Larissa Waters among MPs telling Parliament to do better for women

A wide gathering of cross-party MPs and senators met in Parliament House on Wednesday along with people such as leaders from domestic violence services, the new Australian Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence commissioner Micaela Cronin, the chair of the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce Sam Mostyn, and author and activist Anne Summers.

The MPs from the Parliamentary Friends of Ending Violence Against Women and Children, and of Women and Work, include Liberal MP Bridget Archer, Canberra MP Alicia Payne, and independent MP Kylea Tink, who last week pleaded for action from Speaker Milton Dick after an unnamed Liberal MP made her feel unsafe in the House chamber and like "her senses had been assaulted".

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton dismissed Ms Tink's complaint, pointing to the "adversarial climate" of politics. But also this week, retiring Liberal MP Karen Andrews revealed cases of party colleagues breathing down her neck in the chamber and making suggestive comments.

Goldstein independent MP Zoe Daniel said current behaviour in the chamber is "utterly inappropriate" and sends a bad example.

"When Kylea stood up there was a collective eye roll and sigh from a lot of men on a particular side of the chamber. And that actually says everything.

"So to then sort of say, 'Oh, yes we agree there's a problem and we have to deal with it' actually doesn't go to what's under the surface."

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Legislation to set up a permanent, expanded Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, recommended by the Set the Standard report, is passing through Parliament, but is behind schedule. As is work on setting up an Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission to receive disclosures, and handle informal and formal complaints.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters is concerned the "chain is now really being dragged" on giving enforcement to recently passed codes of conduct in the parliamentary chamber.

"We passed codes of conduct. You wouldn't know it because the conduct hasn't really improved. And yet the enforcement body for those codes of conduct, 'it's coming, it's coming'. Well so is Christmas and so is next year and our patience is running out," she said.

"So I say to everyone in this building who is disrespecting women and disrespecting staff and behaving like absolute pork chops? We're sick of it.

"Hurry up and give these codes of conduct some teeth and enforceability and start actually setting the standard because you are disgracing us all."

They wanted a better, more rounded discussion about addressing domestic family and sexual violence in the wider community.

Single Mother Families Australia chief executive Terese Edwards said, "We call on this place to make the most important laws that we can do. I cannot think of anything more important than protecting people who are not in the position because of the systems to protect themselves.

"There's so much more that we could do. And there are so many easy little things that we can do that would fix these problems, but if we don't put a spotlight on them, and if we get stuck in those very unhelpful debates, it's those who need us the most who are missing out."