When Kelly O’Dwyer announced an inquiry into sexual harassment at work midway through 2018, I was pathetically excited. Excited because I believed I would see the end of the terrible hurt and exploitation of women at work and, selfishly, an end to the job of so many older women as de facto counsellors.

I remember walking into one of the inquiry’s consultations for anyone to share their experiences or views on sexual harassment, this time for media workers. I can’t tell you more than that because those consultations were confidential, but I can tell you this: it was heartbreaking.

All the personal stories were devastating but here’s what’s worse: sexual harassment at work is as immutable as sexual assault on the streets and in our homes. And will remain so while this government is in power.

Last night’s episode of the ABC’s Four Corners reveals that the don’t ask, don’t tell attitude to sexual assault at work is deeply embedded in the Parliament – overseen by this government. Meanwhile, The Australian’s Peter van Onselen revealed that senior Coalition staffers performed solo sex acts on the Parliament House desks of female members of Parliament and swapped images and videos of their sexual encounters in the building. He reported that government staffers and even parliamentarians had sex in the prayer room.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins did great work to put together the Respect@Work report of 55 recommendations, but here we are: we have a government responsible for implementing it that appears riddled with people who have a complete disdain for women parliamentarians and staffers. And, unsurprisingly, well over a year since the report was handed to the Attorney-General only one recommendation is in action. The establishment of a Workplace Sexual Harassment Council which, hallelujah, met for the first time last Friday, planned outcomes to be published soon; but was surely only established because of government terror over the Brittany Higgins allegations.

As observers say, this report is tame not radical, even though what we need is a revolution. No commissioner who wants to keep her job would suggest that. Two words: Gillian Triggs.

The report is careful across seven areas and includes requests for more data, greater concentration on strategies to both understand and prevent sexual harassment at work, more education, and, for the love of Gaia, a recommendation for the government to ratify ILO Convention 190 around workplace freedom from violence and harassment, now two years old.

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It recommends more support, advice and advocacy (although this government would rather lose office than fund advocacy). More funding for Community Legal Centres instead of less. More funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and legal aid commissions. (The chair of the National Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services Forum, which represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services, Antoinette Braybrook, says there’s been no significant increase or investment in these services for years.)