Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the time has come for a women’s caucus in federal parliament, and for a code of conduct “with consequences” to deter sexualised bullying.

In a conversation with Guardian Australia’s political podcast, Hanson-Young says talks are under way across the parties about a women’s caucus after a year in which women in politics have spoken out against bullying and harassment, excesses in culture, poor levels of representation and gendered insults.

I think we need to put down our bows and arrows politically Sarah Hanson-Young

“I think we need [a women’s parliamentary caucus], and those conversations have started to happen, finally,” Hanson-Young said.

She said she had spoken to Labor women about forming the group, and reached out to the Liberals who made public complaints about poor behaviour during the government’s leadership implosion in August.

Hanson-Young said women needed to stop scoring points by using deficiencies in party culture as a partisan weapon. “This shouldn’t be played with,” she said.

“I think we need to put down our bows and arrows politically and say women deserve a voice in this parliament, from all parties, from all sides of politics, because when we work together we do a really good job.”

She said a decade of parliamentary service had taught her that women made greater strides when they acted collaboratively.

“We engage in a way with each other that’s different, and the only way we change the culture is to get more women in politics. They are not going to come from one side, so we have to work together to make sure there are more women from all sides that are elected”.

Hanson-Young, who took on the Liberal Democratic party senator David Leyonhjelm this year, was at the centre of another incident in the Senate this week where the Queensland LNP senator Barry O’Sullivan said she had “a bit of Nick Xenophon in her” – an aside that generated an uproar.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale called O’Sullivan a “pig” and was ejected from the chamber. The following morning, the Senate reflected on the confrontation and changed procedures with a view to limit the opportunity for insults.

Hanson-Young says decorum in the parliament has deteriorated over the decade she’s been in the Senate, and “women cop the brunt of that”.

“The type of robust debate that is continually used in this place – the line is more often crossed with women, when the attacks and the insults become very personal and very gendered.”

She said some of the behaviour was unintentional but oftentimes it was deliberate, with the intention of destroying the confidence of female representatives. Some of the behaviour was becoming more brazen, she said. Abuse that used to be whispered in her early years in politics was now “shouted” and there was “a bit of a pack mentality”.

Hanson-Young said standards in parliament were now demonstrably out of step with those in other Australian workplaces, and a permissive culture of self-regulation meant there weren’t meaningful sanctions to deter transgressions. In practical terms, the parliament was “a law unto ourselves”.

She said a code of conduct, with meaningful sanctions, would help stop behaviour that the parliament deemed inappropriate.

Hanson-Young said she had been buoyed by the level of support she received from the public and from colleagues inside parliament after deciding to be be vocal about gendered abuse.

She said some male colleagues had told her they had been paralysed when witnessing examples of poor conduct, not sure whether intervening would make things worse, which had given her pause for thought.

Some people would be “morons” and would never change, but she said “decent” men did not want to tolerate bad conduct from their peers towards women. “Let’s help them to know what to do when that happens.”

Hanson-Young also acknowledged that poor behaviour existed in political parties across the board, including in the Greens. No political party had “a monopoly on respect for women” or could claim to have a perfect culture when it came to their treatment.

“Hiding from it doesn’t work,” she said. “Confronting it head on saying ‘that process wasn’t right, let’s put something better in place’ – that’s what we are working through and we shouldn’t pretend we are not.”