Sordid affair exposed
AFTER a while you think you’ve seen and heard everything in politics. But reading the social media feed of former cabinet minister Alan Tudge’s ex-staffer Rachelle Miller this week was enough to make even me blush.
You see, the Liberal frontbencher who conducted an ill-fated erotic adventure with his press secretary – it really does seem to be an occupational hazard in Canberra – had a truly Bill Clinton-esque approach to workplace seduction.
It was Clinton, you may recall, who famously declared of Monica Lewinsky, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”.
Then, we learnt that under the Clinton doctrine that sexual relations did not involve oral sex.
Spoiler alert: Mr Tudge and Bill Clinton share more than a love of politics. Both are adult males who think oral sex is not sex, a view that is entangled in a sorry saga that has ended up costing taxpayers some serious coin.
Stung by allegations he had mistreated Ms Miller during her employment – claims he strenuously denied – Mr Tudge felt the need to inform the public last year that he never had sexual intercourse with her.
“What I did was morally wrong given we were both married at the time. I have never shied away from this,’’ he said. “However, I did not consider this to be a ‘relationship’ in the usual sense of the word.
“We never had sex. We never talked about a future together, whether in the short, medium or long term.”
Ms Miller, who has just been awarded a massive taxpayer-funded payout, revealed this week in perhaps more detail than was entirely necessary, what this involved.
“‘I never had sex with her’ actually
means I picked her up in my arms, carried her to my bed, told her I adored her, passionately kissed, undressed & had oral sex, when she then asked if I wanted sex, I said ‘I can’t, it would be cheating’,’’ Ms Miller wrote on Twitter.
Yikes. It’s certainly an early entry to this year’s award for wow, too much information. And it probably provides some insight into why Mr Tudge, who was happily married at the time to someone else, is now happily divorced.
But don’t look away too quickly, because this sorry saga just cost taxpayers $650,000. How is it so?
As Mr Tudge notes, two separate workplace inquiries have made no findings of wrongdoing against him.
This raises questions too. If he wasn’t interviewed and didn’t do anything wrong, why was the payment made?
Ms Miller declined to participate in both of the earlier workplace investigations based on legal advice.
Her lawyers variously complained about the independence of the initial inquiry and subsequently the terms of reference.
This looked strange at the time, but now appears to have been a very smart legal strategy by Gordon Legal because their client walked out with 650,000 bucks.
When this matter first came to light during the election campaign Scott Morrison asserted that he didn’t know anything about it, that it was a “private” matter, that it wasn’t actually settled yet and finally that if it did have anything to do with a cabinet minister he would have been told.
“If there were any matter that was in the assessment by the Department of Finance that involved the conduct of any minister whatsoever in the granting of that payment then that matter would have to be raised with me by the Department of Finance through the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet,” the then-prime minister said.
“Now, I can assure you absolutely that no such reference has been made to me, so, to imply that would be false.”
Hmm. Ms Miller’s legal team have a different version of events. They
believe it was settled in March just days after mediation. That is before the election.
Ultimately that deed was finalised in July, after the election, and signed and the money deposited in her bank account. It names her former employer Mr Tudge and Senator Michaelia Cash but does so on a “no admissions” basis.
In other words, taxpayers gave her the cash but the Commonwealth does not concede that any of the complaints her lawyers raised were true or proven.
They just gave her the money. You could call it win, win, except for the taxpayer that is left in the dark about why, exactly, the money was paid.
My understanding is that at some point the then finance minister Simon Birmingham, or the new Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, must have been told, because the payout exceeded a cap.
If that’s true, it raises questions about the former prime minister’s utterances during the election.
There’s more to this story and it’s not over yet, if we can survive the rather graphic details.