A Scandal the Government Needed like Hole in the Head

By Miranda Devine
Sunday Telegraph
April 22, 2012

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/a-scandal-the-government-needed-like-hole-in-the-head/story-e6frezz0-1226335135380

UNWELCOME ADVANCES: James Ashby, left, has alleged Peter Slipper sexually harassed him on a number of occasions, via mobile phone text messages and in private conversations

ALLEGATIONS in court documents that its handpicked Speaker, Peter Slipper, sexually harassed a young male adviser are another scandal our terminally ill government can do without.

And this time, the scandal threatens the reputation and dignity of the institution of Parliament itself, not just the minority Labor government and its Independent backers.

In documents filed in the Federal Court, James Ashby, 33, claims Slipper subjected him to sexual harassment after hiring him as a media adviser in December, weeks after being installed as Speaker.

Ashby alleges that Slipper, 62, recruited him to his personal staff "for the purpose of pursuing a sexual relationship".

Slipper, who is married and is an ordained priest of the Traditional Anglican Communion church, allegedly made unwanted sexual advances and sent suggestive text messages to Ashby, who is openly homosexual.

The court documents allege he requested Ashby stay with him in an apartment in Canberra and then allegedly asked why he showered with the door closed.

He allegedly asked Ashby for a neck massage while lying in bed and then moaned as if in intense sexual pleasure.

The story, which broke in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, also includes claims Slipper misused Commonwealth-funded taxi dockets.

Slipper denies all the allegations.

Yesterday, while overseas on parliamentary business, he used Twitter to defend himself: "The allegations in News Ltd papers are denied!" he wrote at 5am; "untrue allegations," he wrote at 7.52 am, and, 40 minutes later, "well the allegations are denied and a surprise to me."

Slipper is, of course, innocent until proven otherwise but he owes the parliament a more substantial response.

As Tony Abbott put it, the allegations go to the integrity of the highest parliamentary office in the House of Representatives.

But calls by the Opposition yesterday for Slipper to stand down until the case is resolved were dismissed.

The minority government's survival depends on his remaining in the Speaker's chair.

Last year, with his preselection in Queensland under threat, Slipper defected from the Liberal National Party into Julia Gillard's embrace, sending his predecessor, Labor MP Harry Jenkins, back on to the government benches.

Slipper provides the one-vote buffer that protects the government if the HSU scandal claims Dobell MP Craig Thomson.

The buffer also protected the government from threats by Independent Andrew Wilkie

that he would withdraw his support after Gillard reneged on a promise to implement his poker machine reforms.

But the ploy was too clever by half.

Wilkie warned last week he would be a "ticking time bomb" if he didn't get what he wanted. Now the fuse on that bomb might be shorter than anyone thought.

Ashby is using the same cut-throat law firm Harmers, which represented Kristy Fraser-Kirk in her sexual harassment suit against David Jones chief executive Mark McInnes in 2010. McInnes lost his job over the allegations.

Fraser-Kirk alleged McInnes had sent her suggestive text messages, invited her back to his place, tried to kiss her and touched her bra strap at two work functions.

Nine days after she complained to David Jones about his behaviour, McInnes was forced out in disgrace, with a paltry payoff. Six weeks later she filed a $37 million lawsuit in the Federal Court and by October, David Jones had settled for $850,000.

The difference in that case is that David Jones had shareholders and a financial imperative to act swiftly to protect its reputation.

The parliament has no such incentive. The government's strategy will be to buy as much time as possible to avoid being sunk.

Anthony Albanese's response yesterday suggests as much. "It isn't appropriate to comment on the detail of legal proceedings," declared the Leader of the House.

He also pointedly distanced the government from Ashby's legal claim against Slipper: "It's important that we recognise the separation between the judicial arm and the political arm of the state."

Gillard has no choice but to tough it out, bleeding integrity from every orifice, as she has been doing with Craig Thomson for the past eight months. Like a patient in palliative care, one by one the government's options are closing down.