These women have become household names during the reckoning over the treatment of women in Australian politics.

In a week in which the all-party response to the Jenkins Review into parliamentary culture gets underway in earnest, including an apology in both chambers of Parliament and on Thursday legislation passed to protect staff, women of colour are calling for overdue recognition.

Former NSW Liberal staffer Dhanya Mani is speaking up for herself, former Melbourne city councillor Tessa Sullivan and "all minority women, and women of colour, who do not feel seen in political life."

"Women like myself and Tessa are largely erased from media commentary, culture and history," she said in a speech delivered in the Senate by Greens senator Larissa Waters.

"Even now in 2022, after the lessons of #MeToo, politicians and the mainstream media almost solely centre the stories of cis-gender, able-bodied and conventionally attractive white women at the expense of all other voices.

"But this cultural moment of reckoning in Australian politics and feminism is built on the sacrifice, advocacy and unpaid labour of women of colour like me. Like Tessa. We came first."

On Thursday, amid the focus and confusion of the indefinite stalling of the Religious Discrimination Bill, two more Jenkins Review recommendations were realised. Without fanfare, the Senate passed a Bill amending the MOP(S) Act to ensure more protections for parliamentary staff and clarify the responsibilities of MP and Senators.

People employed under the Members of Parliament Staff Act (MOP(S) Act) will now be covered by the Fair Work Act as well as age and disability discrimination laws.

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While describing the bill as a "tiny step in the right direction," Senator Waters says parliament has a representation problem.

Acknowledging the bravery of all women who have come forward, she wants Ms Mani's 2015 assault - which she publicly revealed in 2019 alongside Ms Potter - not forgotten.

"Thankfully, we are now starting to see action. This is because of the strength of women like Dhanya, Tessa Sullivan, Chelsey Potter, Rachelle Miller, Brittany Higgins, Grace Tame and others, and it is despite the barriers that powerful men have tried to put in their way," she told parliament.

Ms Mani, who still a member of the Liberal party, is particularly critical of the Prime Minister's apology in Tuesday.

"Scott Morrison not only failed to genuinely consult, or consider survivors in the wording of his apology - he rewrote and whitewashed Australian feminist history in the process," she said.

"Tessa Sullivan - a woman of colour who was the first to tell her story of sexual violence in politics when the #MeToo movement began to gain ground in Australia in early 2018 inspired me to speak out, yet many Australians fail to recognise we would not be here without her."

She warns the labour of all women must be acknowledged or risk sending the message that sexual violence and other forms of abuse only impact white women.

"I'll keep fighting for us. I deserve to be seen. Tessa deserves to be seen. You deserve to be seen," Ms Mani said.

"This historic moment belongs to us, too. I will not stop until skin colour and minority status do not determine whether we are acknowledged, whether we are recognised by politicians and the media, and whether cultural and historic milestones built on our advocacy and labour belong to us."

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