Former Coalition cabinet minister Karen Andrews has revealed a male colleague would regularly breathe on the back of her neck in parliament, in one example of harassment.

The ABC reports Ms Andrews shares her experiences of lewd and sexist treatment in an episode of Kitchen Cabinet to be aired on Tuesday night.

“I’d just be sitting there minding my own business and I would have the back of my neck breathed on,” she tells show host Annabel Crabb.

“And if I asked a question, it would be ‘That was a great question, thrusting and probing’.

“But do you know what the issue is? Well, there would be people that would say, ‘Can’t you take a joke? Can she not take a joke?’

“I mean, really…and sometimes I do call it out, but sometimes I just go, ‘I can’t be in every fight.’”

Ms Andrews, a Liberal, says she endured such harassment from male colleagues during Question Time in the House of Representatives.

She does not name the politician who breathed on her neck or who made sexually suggestive comments.

The Queensland MP says it was “depressing” to think that women would continue to face such treatment in federal politics.

The ABC reports Ms Andrews also says there was “a lot of alcohol” in Canberra and questionable behaviour such as “quite a number of people that don’t go home to their own bed on their own”.

“I think a bit of that behaviour has changed. But that was certainly very, very common. There’s a lot of alcohol,” she says.

Ms Andrews says some male colleagues would hold social meetings in their offices, and she wasn’t invited.

“That’s where I really found it was difficult as a, as a female,” she says.

“I wasn’t often invited in when my male colleagues, when they were having get-togethers for drinks or cheese or all those sorts of things.

“A lot of strategising would get done at those meetings, and the women who were not invited to it would just never be part of that.”

In a clip released on Tuesday morning, Crabb asks Ms Andrews if she thought her promotional opportunities were impacted by being left out.

“It didn’t help. I think I was, for quite a while, the person who had served the longest in what became an assistant ministers role I wasn’t fast tracked,” she says.

“You know what – I slept well at night. I slept well at night.”

Ms Andrews was first elected in 2010. She became Industry, Science and Technology minister in 2018 and Home Affairs minister in 2021 until the Morrison government lost the 2022 election.

She quit the Liberal frontbench earlier this year and said she would not recontest her Gold Coast seat at the next election.

The post Karen Andrews reveals male colleague would breath on her neck appeared first on The New Daily.