"Highly sexualised": Explosive claim rocks Canberra
A former press secretary to Immigration Minister Alan Tudge has revealed in an explosive interview that she had an affair with him while working in his office and was left feeling like “damaged goods” when he asked her to war game denials.
The former Coalition staffer Rachelle Miller made explosive claims on ABC’s Four Corners and revealed that she was terrified it would be found out.
She also says she had disturbing experiences with other senior Liberal MPs.
Ms Miller revealed a “demeaning” experience she had at the mid winter-ball where she implied Mr Tudge wanted her to walk in with him for the cameras.
“I was walking with Alan and I was chatting to him and I intentionally dropped back. I wasn’t his guest. I wasn’t his partner. And I didn’t want to be on camera. And he stopped and he turned around, and he said, “No, I want you to walk in with me.” And I was really surprised by that,’’ she said.
“I have a feeling that my appearance had a bearing on why Alan would want to walk in with me on his arm, and I felt at that time a lot like an ornament.”
The program detailed Mr Tudge had conservative views and aired his public reservations about changing the Marriage Act to include same-sex couples.
After the affair ended, Ms Miller said she was later demoted in a restructure.
She said she felt she had no choice but to leave politics.
“I knew I was leaving a job that I really loved, but I didn’t see that there was any other way out,’’ she said.
“You know, I actually at that time viewed myself as damaged goods and I was really worried about this coming out and impacting our chances at the election.”
Alan Tudge said in a statement: “Tonight, matters that occurred in my personal life in 2017 were aired on the ABC’s Four Corners program.
“I regret my actions immensely and the hurt it caused my family. I also regret the hurt that Ms Miller has experienced.”
In 2018, Mr Turnbull rewrote the code of ministerial standards to ban ministers from having sexual relationships with staff.
Ms Miller and Alan Fudge’s affair took place in 2017 when the politician was in Human Services.
She would later move out of his office and into another minister’s office.
The show has expressed there no suggestion that Mr Tudge was in breach of the code, which only applied to sex with staffers in your office.
No other senior minister was implied on the program to have breached the “bonk ban” or the code of conduct.
Mr Turnbull did however say that when he announced the so-called bonk ban, that he had other MPs in mind that did not just include Barnaby Joyce.
“Today, in 2018, it is not acceptable for a Minister to have a sexual relationship with somebody who works for them, it is a very bad workplace practice and everybody knows that no good comes of it,” Mr Turnbull said at the time.
“This is the standard that I will hold — from this day forth — all my ministers to.”
Ms Miller told Four Corners that Canberra could be a “highly sexualised environment.”
“I don’t for a moment kind of say that all the men were predators and all the women were victims, but, you know, it was a highly sexualised environment at times, and I think that’s a consequence of the stress,” she said.
“It’s kind of that “work hard, play hard” mentality that I’ve seen before early in my career And there is a kind of … an almost gung-ho kind of mentality by a lot of the senior males that they’re kind of almost beyond reproach, like, they can just get away with things. And … nobody calls that behaviour out.”